25 August 2014

hot august day

there are deep echoes across the dry wall
so sky seems brassy and bereft of cloud
while goat is nimble and tempts you to fall

to stony death where no one will recall
how once you were so youthful and so proud
there are deep echoes across the dry wall

where the old vultures circle seeing all
the land below them forested or ploughed
while goat is nimble and tempts you to fall

from narrow path your heart now seems so small
and fate so large the silence seems so loud
there are deep echoes across the dry wall

the distant birds across the sky now scrawl
in ragged letters on the small puffy cloud
while goat is nimble and tempts you to fall

into forever certain none will bawl
the earth itself will be your only shroud
there are deep echoes across the dry wall

while goat is nimble and tempts you to fall

20 August 2014

lash and chain

where no salvation comes from a dead lord
we're cast adrift and there's no guiding star
no symbol serves to act as luminar
and we have taken a strange one aboard
as sign and seal in these realms unexplored
of all our dangers yet we're not so far
beyond the norms of everyday devoir
but have paid more than mortals can afford
we asked for honesty and got hard stone
straight in the face nothing could be so plain
but to push onward is the single choice
that folk of honour have bred in the bone
regardless of the threat of lash and chain

or whether the old villains will rejoice

01 August 2014

for emancipation day

no count of years may still the hand of fate
but yet the kindly sunrise eases pain
as those who fought arise to fight again
with little rancour and without debate
for once removed the horrors cease to grate
on any soul and there’s no longer strain
when each of us can see the future plain
and know that we’re the owners of the state
this is the promise made by those who sleep
beneath our soil whose lives gave ours full worth
that a bright morning would our people see
not as a flock of tired and hungry sheep
but as a folk in fullest time of mirth

enjoying every taste of liberty