Religion

** religion **
Religion in all the different disguises
People using belief to sustain
Against the fickle and the wrong
Unlucky or inconsistent breaks
The decisions made flawed
By time or place or opportunity
Learned experiences found wanting
As circumstances and world shifted
What was never always is
And the change for today may not
Sustain the tomorrows hinted at
As catch lava flow of time
Irreconcilable with the desires of humanity
Unstoppable and impetus glacial
So to religion turn
Events of cosmos interpreted through human lens
Edifices built to what may be
The organisers of our lives
Mandated by human claims on divine
That we are here and will prolong
Forward into another realm
For those who believe no dusk light
All of life a stairway up
To door beyond and heavenly delight.

Kites

*+--- kites ---+*
Kites flying
Squares escaping us
Made fancy with bowtie tails
Restrained by string or wires
Darting on the wind
So free and true and loose
How we in jealously watch
Thinking our own bonds are tighter
Than strings to kite
Our own lives less adventurous
Than those kites wind currents carry
From here to there and back again
Free unencumbered and excited
How our souls young again rejoice
As their flight is sighted.

Starvation diet

* starvation diet *
In a small pool of water
Could be a mug deep pond
Swirling imagination plunges
Wet through and depth deprived
By exorcised sleep none left
Pirate bones on gallow rotting
Branches in wind windows scrape
Entire house of horrors presented
Lonely spirits seeking warmth
Knock on doors and fires move
Shake the curtains and set all trumpeting
Such a mundane existence otherwise
Without your fears to guide you
Restrain you from adventures extreme
Safe upon your favourite seat
Television's flickering friendship
All the world you need
To your soul a starvation diet feed.

Defective toys

** defective toys **
Every moment second thought
Spasm of consciousness devout
Unholy in idea to place
Holiness of existence in ego's grace
Without the me are we anything
Could we all be defect
Stumbling nuisances set free
In breeding more chaotic developing
A world outside perfection sought
A badly planned ill-designed thought
Cast offs here allowed to dwell
In case we develop something to sell
For all creation is not evolution
All this universe is a shop
A set of books with in and out
Expenses of profit and loss
A research development easy set
From the failures already met
Defects we have many
A sense of our destiny
Ignorance of our flawed design
How we are centre of a universe
Manifestly formed for our delight
From nuclear burning stars
Which give out our light and warmth
To the planet we can use and abuse
The greatest things in this place
When in truth we are playthings
For an experimenting race.

You were?

* you were *
There are some people
Who know every face and every name
In some places everyone they can greet
Always run into someone down the street
As if imbued with some local fame
Can recall their children and business
Know of achievements and any silliness
(That ill-advised costume choice at best and fairest count)
As if a memorex for a brain
Full of faces names and the inane
And then there are folks like me
To whom names refuse to stick
Every face a polyglot of every other
Lucky to recall facts on own brother
Stumble from the standard conversation openers
To an abyss of social embrassment
And upon meeting someone once more
Cannot recall what was shared or not
Everything about you been forgot
If you are a John James or Jack
Have children or are married
Work in retail or finance or on the track
Every fact and face eroded
Become a non-entity timid and shy
Because every name or face does get away.

After freed

* after freed *
Days of rain and clouds
Winds rushing by so loud
Proudest days and death
On continental beaches of '44
Was a time of war and woe
Freeing from tyrant's grasp
The old world enslaved
By the young foolishly brave
No body before war can stand
Survivours the lucky and the mad
And memories which sit
Almost at skin surface
Surge over and spill out
When stresses or tensions rise
Or what is carries echoes of what was
A siren wailing or door slammed
Scent of diesel fumes and a face
Remembered and never forgotten
Worn by a younger soul in a different time
And when the clamour dies
Heartbeat and thoughts steady
The realization you survived
And those waves of terror replaced
By constant drumming question of why.

Train whistle

** train whistle **
In the morning I can hear
The whistle of the train
Going down the tracks
They pulled up fifty years ago
The voices of engineer and driver
As they discuss the bridge
A mile on further down the road
Crossing a deep gully
Carved out from the soft bedrock
An eon or two ago
They are shoveling coal to keep steam up
Contemplating dinner and loved ones
Not much further down the track
Seems to them the train will be forever
A constant cross this land
And then the accident happens
The bridge fails beneath train's weight
Accusations and charges brought to bear
On the Board and Management
Irregularities in tender and construction
The legal wrangling for years
As track rust over and sink unevenly
Into soft soils on which they sit
The sleepers rot and all succumbs
To a complete lack of attention
The townships planned are shelved
Without a rail-line progress stalls
Other options instead pursued
The promise of the railway forgotten
This end of the world remains
Untouched unspoilt and untidy
And the ghosts of what might have been
Talk as they travel ever onward
To an end they do not yet know.

Trained avoi-dance

+++ Trained Avoi-Dance +++
Watching eyes wandering
Avoiding direct appraisal
The dance of sight
Performed daily upon
Crowded public transport
To not see yet note
The structure of surroundings
Be enclosed along with
Yet not interact between
Those other travellers travelling
Those other lives briefly shared
Whilst lives lived in isolation
If train is slow we all are
And yet no common bond have we
Beyond the fact we try and avoid
Eyes which might catch our own
Any semblance of shared community.

Grave thoughts

* grave thoughts *
Time till grave
Descend into
Each footstep carries
A Bergman film montage
Death chats cheerily
Though is surprisingly boring
As if heard all the stories
Always looking over your shoulder
To spot the next soul
In hope of something more interesting
While you are mortified
To discover your life
Treated so dismissively
Didn't you do some things
Strike some chord of wonder
Even your funeral it seems
Was cardboard ordinary
The eulogies by the book
Glossing over your inadequacies
Highlighting your flaws in a teasing manner
As you wait impatiently
As always ever you did alive
For the shuffling feet of the dead
To board the ferry
And the boatman smiles
Or grimaces in your direction
And points out sagely
"This is eternity - no reason to push".

Now fall

** Now fall **
Without foundation falling
Grapples for truth
Destiny and departure
No hope of overruling
Fate has set a course
To deliver descent
Heart is heavy
Mind is inert
All we could lift
Tired and hurt
Muscles and brain strained
Ending in oblivion
Consumed as a fiery star
Collapsing in black hole of nothing.