A town built upon the dead
the starved
and the murdered
and those left to die
in the deprivations
of imprisonment
and in the flames too
and the fire
of earlier devastations
We don’t remember the names
of the innocent beneath our feet
Yet the names of those that
should have died nameless in their guilt
we repeat them
we repeat them
__________
Notes:
1. Written in March, 2018
__________And we went to war
for nothing
and no-one
just because we could
untouched by the consequences
We gave our grandchildren guns
and told them lies
about responsibility
and duty
and honour
And we told the lies so often
we believed them ourselves
I think
even the ones about our love for them
as we pushed their boats out to sea
towards their doom
away
from ours
__________
Notes:
1. Written on September 6th, 2017
__________Share. Share everything. Share what you have and what you don’t have. Share now. Share often. Share with your brothers and your sisters. Share with your children. Share with your mother. Share with your fathers. And, most of all, share your love.
From your grandchildren steal what you can.
__________
Notes:
1. Written in late June, 2016
__________…and the princess said to the priest, “god loves his children the same way kings do, an endless series of excuses to justify the violence”
__________
Notes:
1. Written on May 1st, 2018
__________I don’t know what’s wrong with him. I really don’t.
Every night he comes out here on his little boat and sits under the stars and I’ve tried everything but nothing will work.
I’ve sung my heart out for him, I’ve whispered his name on the breeze, I’ve swum seductive circles round his ship. Quick coquettish flashes of bare skin between the waves, playful splashes with my hands, with my tail, even with my whole body on occasion, leaping high overhead, spiralling in a perfect arc above his boat, rolling and turning and winking as I go, like some desperate theme park whale performing for her lunch, before finally landing in a theatrically lavish way, a plume of water rising up after me in the shape of a heart, perhaps, or replicating my arc in reverse like a rainbow, the edges of it raining down in a fine mist on his upturned face like a caress.
None of it works.
He looks so lonely, too. That’s the funny thing. Usually the lonely ones are the easiest. But not this one. I’ve never known anyone this difficult to seduce.
I fear I’m going to have to resort to brute force soon, smash his ship against the rocks and pull him down to the depths in all the commotion and the carnage of the waves I’ve raised against him. But oh god, the embarrassment of it all, to resort to such crass tactics. The shame.
I’ll never live it down.
__________
Notes:
1. Written in January 2018
__________