Poetry - 6

Looking for God

In the churches, in the chapels - only Man I see. In the Falls and in the Creggan - only Man I see. Man have I found beside me in every situation; In favour and in fortune - only Man I see. In the Abbey and the Vatican, in death and tribulation, In every incantation - only Man I see. In the shattered towns of Lebanon, In Cairo and Jerusalem - only Man I see. In the missions, in the pulpits, in the faces of the priests, In the blank-eyed congregations - only Man I see. Open-eyed I peer about me and listen to the claims Of Sufi poets, evangelists and Allah’s nine and ninety names, But in all the faces staring back - only Man I see.

Murder at Christmas Christmas music stifled By sectarian genocide. Christ shrivels in the womb, Reluctant to be born. A bomb in the manger, Love stillborn. Christ crucified before birth. Within a span of hours The Angelus our requiem, The Church a charnel house of guilt That even Christ can’t cleanse. Grey stone, grey hearts, black minds, Last year’s right this year’s wrong, A faithless faith a-dying, An ecumenical ping-pong. Protestant and Catholic kill To prove their way is right To God’s most perfect peace. Muslim wars with Christian, Everyone kills the Jew. The world’s a religious abattoir. “Love!” exhort the holy men, “Your enemy and neighbour”. Love them to death if necessary. Dear Christ, is anybody there? We’re drowning in the blood of love, Doesn’t anybody care?

Psychobabble & Verbocrap Don’t be grody to the max, be a little froopy, man. Conceptualize your personal meaningfulness, That’s in the space where you’re at. No macho-tripping or pulling the head-honcho number. Simply redefine the parameters of Your interface with integral mutual massage. Feldenkrais functional integration, man. Like experiencing the whole eclectic Gestalt In the Cosmic overview – awesome.

Other Worlds A world within a world Of dragons, knights and druid wizards. Sharpened spoons for cutting gizzards. Big hairy monster who devours Little boys among the flowers. A world of rescued maidens, But not quite sure why, Because they always seem to cry. Triumphant battles, quests and deeds And Tigers crouch among the weeds. Blowing bubbles into space, Where rockets whizz and fairies grace, A world where any wish takes place. All within a world within An English country garden.

Pothos The truly great poets such as, Eliot, Hopkins, Keats, Hardy and so many others are flowers, exotic, elegant, fecund flowers. Flowers nurtured in a rich soil of education and literary environments, brought to the full blossom of the English language with care and constant attention' I, on the other hand, can never be a flower. Despite a warm, safe and loving home my education was garnered without awareness in a back street, down-beat school. A single saving grace was a love of reading, everything and anything, Untutored, unguided, totally indiscriminate. A love that unlocked that first important window in my mind - a troubled, disturbed feeling that somehow, somewhere, I was missing out on something important, something tremendous. Thanks to the encouragement of family and friends and all the 'flowers' many more windows have been unlocked and I have grown from the poor soil of my early years into, at the very least, a weed. Proving that even weeds, with a little pothos, can break through the concrete of their existence.

Elysian Fields The gateway to the Elysian Fields May not be draped with angels Or lit like a heavenly fairground. It could be a rotting five bar gate Hanging off its hinges, With an obstacle to test your resolve.