Will you be content when you see the nation burn?
Comfortable in justice being done and the millions
who are suddenly afraid of you, enough to throw their hands up
in mock surrender, and who know that they could end up
choking on their own ideals.
The nation has sizzled under a pressure cooker so great
and for so long that it can be a surprise to the senses
that the loose flying sparks that live in the memory
have somehow not caught alight and burst into
…and the last post rings out over the graveyard
as we recounted the sad winter’s tale.
Your bugle now safely wrapped along with your R.E.M.E. beret
as those who loved you came to mourn and mark Time in the time
honoured way.
A husband, proud, strong and decent.
A Father and Uncle much adored and who was someone to look
up to; a brother to many who lined the aisle of the church
much like the way in which the trains
stood majestically when they had
come to a
halt.
“I tell you what”, she exclaimed with an annoying cackle in her throat,
“Why don’t we get shit faced tonight, it’s our big night after all
and we don’t care do we eh girls?”
The cackle spread to each of the six women like a domino
being tipped over by the last, and yet the women were surprisingly
over the age of discontent and then the phones came out to play.
The fingers danced over the tiny keys as if they had trained
all their lives in the art of pocket sized puppetry
The superficial feel of a day merging into the next is highlighted more in December.
The few short hours in which the remaining, decaying leaves on the ground
deposit their skid-like dead mark forever in the winter blasted ember,
only to be eaten away by the snow and harshness of the chilling, frost biting sound.
December is the widow of our years.
It fights for all its worth against the final reckoning,
but it knows that soon, very soon, it will sleep forever and in no more tears
I need my next fix.
I need the needle to come gently down
and give me an escape route out of what could be
a boring existence,
if not for my not so-secret vice.
The odd burning cigar still lingers here.
Long gone is the bitter recrimination of a pint savoured and destroyed
and the gentle relaxation of something intangible
has not been taken for a while
as my friend in Oxford I haven’t seen.
I need my latest fix.
I first visited the dealer on my own far too young.
For whom do we blame when we finally admit that the Devil is dead
and that God stopped caring after all.
There is no fire laden pit in which the cackle of a billion tortured lives
are heard screaming in agony and the taste of lingering sulphur
is a dietary supplement in which
to atone for the lack of space provided by a misdirected deed,
the ramblings of a sad lonely woman or the heresy of the scheming miser.
The Devil is dead…
he died a brutal death, in agony and with his forked tongue
After all, it is my own stupid fault.
I certified you to live, breathe; fester like a germ in a blocked sink,
inside my head and was never surprised when you drew across the bolt
and tunnelled your way to where you grandstand at what I think.
Your expertise, I applauded, for who could not admire the sense
of purpose you showed in whispering in my ear,
of living with easy contempt with every pound, shilling and pence
worth of damned words at my chosen life and career.
I want God to weep
uncontrollably and with shame.
I want Her to lose sleep
for what we have done to Her planet and in Her unspoken name.
When put on trial, Her hands gripping the dock in fear
I want Her to realise that Her mistake,
Her complicit action, worthy of the arrogance of fabled Lear,
was to find us so spiteful, imaginative and on the take.
For when the sentence is passed down,
the gavel banging repeatedly with judgement almighty,
The legendary giant of heavy rock has his back turned away from me
as he stands guard and watches over all the other photographic memories
in the room.
There is no false great works of art upon the walls of the house,
aside from those I have chosen to place against the half decorated structure.
When I was younger I had posters that scattered the three walled sides in my Bicester
bedroom and I was told that eventually I would grow
to having just the one perfectly wooden framed piece of art to stare at and draw
My Father
is the most honest,
straight-forward man I know.
He instinctively
knows the safest, straightest
route from A to B.
It therefore came as some surprise
when one cloudy day in Crewe,
he said out-loud,
“You know son,
I think I’d like to buried
at C.”
Ian D. Hall 2014.