Category: Humanity

Rush Hour

Scuffed and tightly-filled, keeling

Over, heels propped up to support

Bags on knees, screens, tapping fingers

Nails bitten to white jagged cliffs

Or long and smooth: rendered strange

And cold by time and money.

 

Sandals play glass slippers: cracked,

Betrayed by earthy brown between

Caked, painted gold. And, in thick air, the

Hiss and click of headphones plays a

Nuanced soundtrack like an itch.

Urban heat: dark rounded veins shout

 

Angry calls and foreheads weep.

Holding sticky rails, old friends have

Happy rows and, with sweet noise, earn

Bitter gazes from the tired. Foot

Squeezed rucksacks, grin like thirsty

Dogs and jostle handbags: over-friendly.

 

Rocking to and fro, stumbling,

Graceless in our work-creased day clothes,

We are held together: jumbled

Bits and pieces in old drawers. But,

Like keys and crayons muddled:

Each, when found, will open doors.

The Second Coming of Yeats

Out of nowhere, magic phrases

Whisper stardust in my ears

And the days of growth and study

Flood my mind despite the years:

Books, that long ago forgot to

Hold their pages close together,

Still possess that spit of youthful

Fire that casts a spell forever.

 

Writer’s Postscript
I have loved the poems of W.B.Yeats since my dad showed me one of his poems back in his dusty, book-lined study at home. I had read poems before but never been that excited by them. There was something about the guttural, grief-stricken anger of Yeats’ political voice combined with the ethereal quality of his imagery that caught me. His work took me to a different world. It got me seriously interested in history, politics and human rights. It inspired me to write poems again: something I hadn’t done since I was at primary school. His poem The Second Coming was one of my favourites and still is today. Written in 1919, it is full of brooding tension and contains a stark warning: ‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.’ It strikes me that this continues to be relevant: those who are full of love, moderation, tolerance and empathy tend to be quieter in this world than those who are full of hate and judgement. It is so important that we don’t leave positions of power to those who shout the loudest and in the most binary, dramatic terms. Make your voice heard! Don’t leave it to others to speak up for what you believe in. Those with messages of love must learn to be loudest.

Look Inside

My value is innate.

I know I cannot lose it.

I will not give it up.

It is not mine to give.

 

My worth is at my core.

I do not need to prove it.

I cannot give it up.

It is not mine to give.

 

So I can look you in the eye

And hold your gaze across our tears,

Across our differences and years.

 

For every person holds from birth

A rich, unchanging,

Human worth.

Troy

We saw humanity itself,

Cut into flesh and bone,

Of young and old:

 

That love and love’s self-righteous fire

Ignite the icy flame

Of hatred cold;

 

That cowardice and bravery

Alike can end in tears,

Or beauty hold;

 

That jealous rage and parents’ love

Are sibling seeds to sow

The end of days.

 

Competing vanity of gods,

Like clouds in still water:

Our mirrored ways.

 

The tide is changed by whim, or turned

By heartfelt quest for truth,

But wet it stays.

 

In Homer, just as now, we live for show,

And miss the mad adventure as we go.

The richness and the poverty of all

Is in the savage beauty of her fall.