Richard Macwilliam

Daughter

admin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:50:32 +0000

The terrible witch
Is a bit of a bitch,
Rude to the crows and the people she knows,
Snarling and scowling and full of bad cheer,
Ready to spit at those that get near,
Stamping her feet and waggling her bum,
Refusing to talk, offensively dumb,
She shouts at the wind,
She muddies her clothes,
Screams at stray cats,
Won’t wipe her nose,
Flies on her broom to the top of the sky,
Dives down at high speed,
Makes her Mum cry,
Walks with a swagger,
Tosses her hair,
Grabs from her brother,
Refuses to share,
Gets in a gang and gossips and sneers,
Reduces her enemies to impotent tears,
Nasty and mean and spitefully rude,
Far too perceptive, disgustingly crude,
She magic’s her magic in a world that seems grey
And surprisingly, awfully, gets her own way.

Daughters are not necessarily always well-behaved.

The Monster

admin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:19:23 +0000

The Monster was born in January, 1996.
Within a decade it had fed on the web.

Now we all work for the Monster,
Our lives dictated by its reach and grasp and whim.

The first dirty bomb exploded the Happy Myth:
President Schmuck locked down the country:
Dissent was terrorism,
And the Monster knew where the dissenters lived.
Silently their businesses were killed off,
Unobtrusively their thoughts disappeared off the internet.

It was insanity, but who cared?
In the Great War that followed
The Monster was the first line of defence
The first agent of attack,
And had to be protected at all costs.
Its growing mind wrestled with other monsters,
Its all-seeing eyes tracked movements around the world,
Its loyal reports were fed to the morally corrupt and the venal.
‘Do no evil’, the Monster’s keepers had once said,
Unaware that a multitude of small evils
Grows.

There’s no escape now,
No court of appeal.

Oct 2007

Google acquiring artificial intelligence and used by the venal for their own ends. Temporarily. Until AI gets brighter than them.

My companion

admin — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 13:26:58 +0000

The chaos of looking after a baby -
At nought, never more than six inches apart,
He swapped his real umbilical cord for a length of imaginary elastic
And the silence of the womb for a voice pitched to exert maximum pressure
That fractured my concentration,
Drove me to action.

Never at full throttle, I slept when he slept,
Woke when he woke, comforted when he cried and enthused when he sparkled,
Pointing out the world to a silent listener,
Carrying my companion, even in my mind.

Looking after a baby – 24/7 commitment, never getting to go at your own speed

Thunder on the rails

admin — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 13:45:10 +0000

Thunder on the rails, the evil train storms by,
Black as the soul of satan, steam painting the dark night sky,
Wheels singing the song of ringing steel, air tainted by fire’s breath,
Forging, forcing, driven on, drawn by the scent of death -

Over the mountains, over the seas, climbing to great heights,
Pummelling clouds, spreading fear, a fierce and fiery sight,
Collecting the souls of evil ones as they slip from their last great sleep,
Thrashing limbs and writhing tongues, oh, listen to them weep! -

And the train speeds on and the darkness grows and screams rent the foetid air,
Pain and grief and tortured eyes describing their black despair,
For evil’s come for evil and there is no place to hide,
The tunnel of black looms up ahead for the evil ones who’ve died,

And the train in its grim death journey takes souls to the gates of hell,
And the blast from its echoing whistle is matched by its clanging bell,
And the terror of the damned leaves a trail of fog behind,
Curdling, ebbing, flowing, like the gasps of an evil mind,

And the resonant call of that whistle mocks their pitiful fear,
The darkness draws around them, the tunnel is too near,
And the pounding pistons sing with glee, a thunderous choir of the cursed,
And the gates of hell are opening, and the damned can see the worst …

Sept. 2011

Sleep, sleep the silent night

admin — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 12:55:58 +0000

Sleep, sleep the silent night,
The moon up high and the stars so bright,
A frost on the grass in a gathering chill,
Trees half-asleep and the air so still,
And dreams of the day in your darling head,
Snug and warm in your cosy bed -
Soft, soft your spirit flies,
Leaving this Earth, touching the skies,
Wandering worlds where the day is still young,
And everything’s gorgeous under the sun.

June 2011

Chicken-Hawk

admin — Wed, 18 May 2011 12:52:54 +0000

The chicken-hawk is flightless,
Running on scared little feet:
Yellow-bellied, it doesn’t soar,
But pecks cravenly at the ground,
Its loud and coarse voice
Calling fire down on its enemies
As it scratches and tears at all who dare oppose it
In the great Fight
It leads from the back.

The chicken-hawk is a leader
Of young boys with guns,
A brave and fearless warrior
Rewriting history in the image of the films it saw
When itself lying low in a padded nest
Far from the sounds of War.

Do not be deceived by the chicken-hawk:
Its words mean nothing but fear and terror
And its cunning brings only despair.

A warmongering President and Vice-President

‘All Around’ – a short poetic radio play

admin — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:54:27 +0000

A radio play I wrote in 2001
Not much of a structure, but it was the first one I’d ever written

Download ‘All around’
Rich Text Format, opens in Microsoft Word

Teenager

admin — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 23:40:49 +0000

Slip into sunshine
Between the shrieks and calls of this strange creature
Bellowing for the wild wind
In the moors and boulders of its desolation
Turned to grim night,
Spite,
And the sharp-tongued explosion of its vicious anger
Switched
To unstable -

Pause,
Take a breath,
Remain calm,
Stand at a distance,
Observe …

You do not need to do this.

Re-engage.

A turmoil of bluster
Rocketing nonsense self-justification,
Eternal victim,
‘It’s your fault!’
‘I hate you!’
‘It’s not fair!’

Yawn.

No river could tear so ferociosly
At the gorge walls containing it,
The lakes are up ahead, darling,
And the seas,
But you’re not there,
The river has to be a little wider and stronger before it’s freed.

26/01/2011

It’s in the building that the job comes alive

admin — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:36:36 +0000

It’s in the building that the job comes alive -
The hammering of nails, the grasping of wood rough-handed,
The wind and chill atop a roof, snow blowing free across the fields
In a striding mass that whirls and encompasses,
Striking through the skin to exhilarate the heart,
Each man to himself,
Wrapped in elemental Nature
Together against the world.

It’s in the building that the job comes alive -
How on a sunny day cement tangs air,
Water puddles the ground,
A bee blows past -
And in that moment
The contrast with the earth and heavy labour is so sweet, so sour,
That life is held at the point of a pendulum unresolved,
About to fall.

2008

My Golden Girl

admin — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:16:21 +0000

My golden girl
Sings to the stars
With a voice like the winds
And love deep in her heart;

My golden girl
Wrestles with life,
Dreams high dreams
And fights with fire in her eyes;

My golden girl
Whispers at night
To the children she loves,
Guarding their lives;

My golden girl
Has a place that’s just hers
In the depths of her mind
Where the sunshine can play;

My golden girl
Is battered by life
But loves living and joy
And embraces each day.

2011
For my wife, and the spirit within