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

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

The marching hords were turned away,
Fired on,
Raped,
The hunger in their eyes met with bullets,
The rags on their feet torn off,
Their useless watches and finery dropped by the roadside -
So much empty garbage.

Bitter.

The fruit of years of silence and blind eyes turned to suffering
Was fear and hatred.

The storms had driven the masses south,
The switched Gulf Stream and the rising waters
Forcing them to flee.
It was a desperate strategy,
It was pain,
It was the damned seeking redemption,
The hand servants of the apocalypse
Wailing out their lives in futility.

No going back:
Death had arrived.

Africa, of course, was next,
The droughts and the winds tearing out the heart of that fine continent.

The refugees from the North had merely been the oratorio
Leading the funeral of all mankind.

Pity, then, the hopes that were trodden on,
The possibiliites squandered,
The truths ignored,
The realities denied
So long ago.

11/2/07

Nov.2001

Step right up, now,
Your chance, your very last chance to change!

Yes, lady, step right up,
And you sir, would you like peace of mind?

Step right up, just take your place, thank you!

Madam – your religion, please!
I’m sorry, that’s not true, you’ve been lying now,
Both to yourself and to your neighbours.
I see you’ve brought your children up all wrong -
They lie and cheat and steal -
What have you to say for yourself ?
No love, I don’t think so , money has nothing to do with it,
Nor your husband either.

Sir! – don’t try and walk away!
Please! I can still see you!
Joe – bring him back!

Step right up, folks, step right up,
Your fortunes read, your future told,
Your pasts dissected, change implemented!

Step right up, this is the end of the world,
Closing down sale, your chance to change -
Up now, come on folks, this is the place to be,
Step right up!

Yes sir! You, madam!
(That one there, Joe.)
Step right up now,
Change implemented,
Decisions made!

Decisions made, now, decisions made!
Get that one, Joe, there ..
Change implemented!

Can you handle it, love?
It’s a big step, you know -
No love, I don’t need it myself.

Come on, now, come on!

Madam! Sir!

And you there, child -
What have you been doing with your life lately?
No son, that’s not good enough, you should be doing better.

Special offer for parents – !

Yes m’am. No love. That doesn’t count -
I’m sorry, you can’t blame the kid, nor society neither,
Not really, I’m sorry.

No sir, that gent there just asked that,
You have to make the change, I just sell you the reasons -
Think about it, son, think about it -
Suit yourself, sir, it’s a free world!

Step right up, end of the world,
Closing down sale,
Not long to go,
Make your decisions here!

Of course it’s your decision love, I just make it easier, that’s all -
Yes Sir! Is there an honest bone in your body?
No, I don’t think so either,
I can always pray for you but will it do any good?

Step right up, step right up, up now, up!
Closing down sale, closing down sale – end of the world!

And just leaves me alone -

Just leave me alone, please !

In the dark street, at night time,
Expressed surprise,
An empty clatter of cold, bare glass
Rummaging the still air,
His new signature -

Caught in a life he never expected,
From the nursery toys to this,
He parades his dementia and loose, full hope
To the calling moon

As the swirling tides of his madness
Knock and beckon on the locked black doors
Of his consciousness:
No woman would touch him.

A wonder, then, to see him at work,
If work is what it is,
Surrounded by the black-backed leather-clad
Who ooze from the pores of the world
To swim with him through his destruction.

November 2001

Well sure, if that’s the way you see it,
Then who am I to say ?
There’s not much point us talking,
So I’ll just be on my way.

‘No, seriously, it’s Science -
We know we’ve found the Truth:
There isn’t room for error
In a Scientific Proof!’

Well Howdy, Mr. Science,
I like the things you do -
But where’d you get this notion
That only Science is True?

You haven’t found the Spirit,
You haven’t found the Soul -
And as for seeing if there’s a God,
Why, that’s never been your goal.

How can you claim an answer,
When the question’s written wrong?
If Science hears the music,
Who was it wrote the song?

Do miracles not touch you,
Are you stuck on planet Zog,
Are all the mysteries there to see
Hidden by a fog?

Is Meaning just a theorem,
(Some symbols on cold paper) -
What IS the force that drives you
Through your scientific caper?

Has all the spark been driven out,
Are your cold eyes stone dead ?
Is everything just wooden blocks
Assembled like your head ?

Is Progress always outwards,
Could it be in as well,
Is living just a method
In your Scientific Hell ?

Now surely, Mr. Science,
You’ll explain this stuff to me:
Although I’m not a genius
I’ve seen telepathy.

And sometimes I’ve felt strange things,
And sometimes seen the ‘weird’:
I know it goes against the grain -
Is this why you’re afeared ?

And if this is on the surface,
If the Wonder’s just begun,
Shouldn’t you be digging deeper
To find your proof of One ?

Come on, Mr. Science,
There’s Mystery out there!
Saying it’s all just bricks and dust
Is taking us nowhere!

And in this whirl of emptiness,
Where it seems we most belong,
There sings a voice that has no tune -
For Science has lost the song.

23/3/00

For the Queen, however, it was not so easy,
And the little drone, wishing to be dominant,
Easily beat her every time.

The Queen sat down and began to think.
Her mind worked differently.
She saw patterns, and interactions,
And her thought’s needed no logical foundations
But flew direct from the stars.

Stairs would never work for her.

So she began to make little groups,
And the groups had meaning,
And in the meaning lay her power,
And in the sophistication of her interconnections lay her Strength.

The little drone didn’t stand a chance.

Oh, I reach! – Pray!
Burst with speech!
Strive, cry, question, leap! -
To no avail, the distance gone is far too long;
I sleep in my confusion,
Dare the wild moon’s snows
And the trees’ fast sounds
To speak:

Hold tongue for the common sheep,
But let ME listen!
MY feet tread the narrow sheet,
I keep the distant star’s watch,
I plumb the troubled deeps –

Sssh, say not, you weak and feeble chatterer,
Keep that lissom thought,
That pounded-out half-breath,
Cheap observation,
Keep it – yours! Mine steeped
In my soul’s heat is worth a million Solomons:

I want to make the dusty sands sing!
I ring the truth of the thundered well!
I keen the harboured noise of the eagle’s wing,
And steal the whisper from the death-bell’s knell -

I, in my free vision, fleet,
Must mark my hammered tune,
And in the hammering touch God -
And then have done.
4/10/99