Back from Hols! New lyrics/poems Blog
Just back from a week spent in Norfolk - Great Yarmouth and Norwich - hence no time to Blog last week.
It was good to be at the seaside again and to be part of the city of Norwich; I seem to alternate holidays with Norfolk and Cumbria (Carlisle and the coast).
Poem of the week "to the end of the book" and the other pieces this week are taken from my 2013 poems and lyrics collection "The Chateau D'If diaries".
This first poem is a riposte against the pig-headed certainty and lack of compassion of some politicians!
Hearts without Hope Cannot Sing
Their song is stilled, hearts without hope cannot sing.
Exiled from the brighter side. Lives now spent working to nowhere,
Since the golden age of reasonable expectations:
A happy life, a job, security and home -
All these the new normal denies.
So raise high the banner, brothers of the invisible hand;
With cash and power we’ll celebrate the victory.
Keep on our worship of the cultic dead; that lie still not for turning.
See how they thrust hands through the sod,
To tie up the minds of their living disciples, with their dogma strings.
Same old discredited scorched earth ways like before,
The logic still flawed and crude.
Flawed economics based on venal certitude.
When are we going to wise up, rise up and learn?
They preach the lies that keep them and their crony’s cozy.
No new normal for them, just the usual grind for others.
Why don’t you pause, ‘fess up and say you ain’t got it right?
Still... when your heads up your indifferent self-interested ass,
it’s hard to see the light.
The country lead by some satanic band; grinding the faces of the poor,
Elderly, frail, disabled, unemployed and sick.
As if getting tougher will lead to evaporation of these living issues;
The uncomfortable descendants of Lazarus,
Here just to upset today’s party at Dives chambers.
And the Book of Amos, Luke 16 verses 19 -31 never read.
Hesed Rechem unheard of and loving-kindness at a lack.
On to another topic to consider, the necessary existence of the joker, jester, lampooner or satirical. An american friend of mine keeps getting very hot n bothered by the run up to the USA elections . I tell him that humour and ridicule are effective weapons against hate and pomposity.
They fool who dare
Stand up class clown we find you cool
For every Hamlet needs his jester
Some say fool.
For every seeming wise important
Pretentions over thick.
Needs bubbles burst to ground them
Your jokes provide the needed prick.
We love our fool, and find him near.
Close to all who stand on fame, on heights.
The fool- the world’s nobody – dare say and clown
Mocks playfully the over grandiose
With his cheery sleights
Give us more fools, and Lord we pray
Humility to welcome them
Into our lives each day.
For fools dare see and feel and touch
What we, too blind, cannot sense in our clouded stare.
These such they give the necessary grit
To make us pearls.
They fool who dare.
My two cents against the nonsense around me, whats your's?
Living in the Modern World: a Patchwork of Hell
Eleven.
I hear the cries of “O God help me”, well O God indeed.
I’m gripping like a sailor on to the ship,
Hearing the cries of those swept overboard,
Sucked into some black salt water’s grip.
Ten.
Deep in sleep when the shattering alarm went off,
Running feet thundering cross the floor.
Sleep takes me again before I knew
if life or death.
Tell me what’s the latest score?
Nine.
Loudmouth’s in courtyard, on his mobile again.
Like he did last night, and the night before.
He’ll be out there again
B blah blahing, dropping his jaw.
Eight.
A motionless man in the next room apartment
Listens to all the shite TV ever made.
From breakfast to lights out,
Sharing ancient canned laughter.
Over and over crushingly
Till your mind’s been slayed.
Seven.
You only wanted a mono plastic cup of milk
And two slices of toast on a tray.
But the breakfast man wasn’t certain, had to go and check,
He wasn’t sure it was OK.
Six.
Your visitor said they’d come so you waited:
Morning lunch, afternoon, dinner, evening, late evening.
No show.
Crushed, your nurse attempts to sooth you heart,
But all in vain.
Well if you never came, still it hurts not to see you go.
Five.
Your lover’s the abominable snow-woman,
Summoned from the hills each night.
Don’t know when she’s coming, when she’ll arrive
When she does it’s a scarifying fright!
Four.
The Sheriff and his dog see no reason for me to stay,
But can’t read the vital signs.
So I’m here until tomorrow never comes anyway,
Still misreading between the lines.
Three.
You feel like a drowning man beneath the water line,
Kicking your heels into the bathtub walls.
Rolling my eyes can’t kick off a better day,
Those not walking are left with crawls.
Two.
Every word you say’s assessed,
We’re hoping you’ll supply the verbal exit noose we’re waiting for.
Your talk of how to is met by looks, which seem to say: “this crazy man is speaking, we can’t understand his words.”
“You said you had concerns” and “Tell me how you feel” smiling, is all they say, but I wised up and showed them the door.
One.
The article title in the paper said: “Employees accept the new normal”.
And so I could not buy the paper; refusing to join those who had accepted the lie and sold their hope.
Zero minus distilled.
All the stuff’s the same
Messing up your brain
Living in the modern world.
You could go insane
But you got to remain.
Living in the modern world.
Finally...Lately I get the feeling to be a little out of synch with life around me, perhaps this indicates a change in circles or direction is needed?
When?
When did the music change?
No longer sounding sweetly in your ears;
You got too far ahead or fell behind,
No longer in step alongside.
Say, when was that year?
Seems nothing specific you could put your finger on;
Just looked around and noticed,
That turn, fork in the road, had gone.
When did these pages you read so smoothly, flipped run through;
Turn to those doors of no return.
All locked, barred behind you.
Subtle and slow the shift, almost imperceptible, so gentle.
The cumulating physical not noticed,
Until realised the shocks abrupt,
Cold water to the mental.
When did the music change?
Say, when was that year?
Till my next Blog keep well and safe, best wishes, Louis.
This Blog and poems lyrics , copyright Louis J. Casson 2016.