THE MASSACRE IN GAZA

There are people who don't bear to see

a single hair to be cut from the head of a Zionist,

but who, today, ignore the massacre in Gaza

because to them the Palestinians

are not human beings, born

from the 'wrong' wombs and thus,

no right to life or freedom for them,

because Zionism must rule supreme and

all blood shed by it must not stain it, and

the victims must be guilty of their own deaths,

not those who shot them with exploding bullets

or those who gave the order to kill

nor those who said nothing

when the murderers declared

that they would kill, days before the crime,

or said forth and applauded the plan

for murder, like the US envoy did,

because Zionism justifies everything,

a bloodbath is nothing

but all illegal Israeli settlers

and Israel's occupation soldiers

must be always able to enjoy

total safety in the occupied land,

being born from the 'right' wombs

and able to crush the 'right' people

under their boots with the 'right' flag flying.

30.03.2018-03.05.2018

NIGHT WALK

Lunar light throws our shadows

on snow and ice;

cold air, if only this

would be another road

and another time

with others walking with

us, shadows moving on ice.

A car leaves the retirement home

like a soul departs the flesh;

fading light in darkness,

vanishing. The orb

of silver, crushed rock and dust

in billion year silence

gives us back what was ours,

light and shadows.

30.03.2018

SPRING RAIN IN PALESTINE

I open the live stream, expecting

to hear shouts and screaming and sounds

that go along with a night raid by the occupation;

it is, after all, just after midnight - 

the time and the place, too; but

what I hear is the sound of rain,

rain falling in darkness on a flat roof,

spring rain, no other sound than

spring rain,

and then, the sound of thunder, in the distance.

Not the thunder of a human oppressing

his fellow human being, no flares

but the sound of a thunder-storm, a 

real thunder-storm, in

the distance, approaching,

as the rain grows heavier,

spring rain in Palestine.

30.03.2018

READING THE POEMS OF THOMAS HARDY(1840-1928)

Approval and a shared sense of shame -

how on earth did he write this?

Why he allowed it to be published?

Why didn't he publish it 32 years earlier,

when he wrote it? Why

didn't he burn it? From high

achievement to low success,

from the pitiable flattery

of a dead German so long enthroned

to that merciless view of man in cosmos,

clear-eyed before the abyss

that devours all life;

and then these horrible stories in verse

crying out rebirth in prose -

mercy may be lacking in the universe,

but surely these deserved it! So

it goes; an artist sees the world and fate

bare, devoid of meaning,

but his own creations he sees

through the doting eyes of a proud demiurge;

all equal, the great and the small, no meritocracy this.

27.03.2018

RELIGION IS HUBRIS

Religion is hubris; human beings

imagine supernatural beings,

a truth beyond earthly knowledge

- and then spend their mortal years

creating scripture and commenting scripture,

claiming to understand the godhead

and thus being equal to beings

they claim to be omnipotent...

27.03.2018

THE STRAIT OF THE EAGLE

White snow burning bright

at the strait, clear

purity under blue depth.

Overwhelmed by the light

I, who am so tired

after so many years of loss,

think of the dark waters

beneath the canopy of ice,

soundless like the

great wastes beyond

the azure heaven.

26.03.2018

I AM AN ANTI-ZIONIST AND PROUD

I'm an anti-Zionist and proud

that I stand with downtrodden, aiding their cause

and not be like those,

Zionists and so-called neutrals alike,

who stand on the blood and bone

of the victims and blame

the killed for their own death

and the exiled for their

own ethnic cleansing,

smile with the murderers

and give them guns

and afterwards declare

them innocent

and piss on the bodies

left on public display.

I'm an anti-Zionist and proud

that I'm not in that crowd,

but if you are, then a

bastard you surely are,

a miserable wretch

who only sees labels

put on humans and decides

who has a right to live and who has to die

based on labels, the womb they were born

from. I'm an anti-Zionist,

and proud that I am,

I stand with the victims

not gloating with the killers

- and you, you

you are anti-Human,

not part of the human species

but a foul and wile piece of crap

who his humanity sold.

25.03.2018

THE 'WESTERN' MEDIA IS SO FINE

The 'Western' media is so fine,

if you support Greater Israel.

Always ample space, never

have to apologize for supporting

Apartheid, never have to explain

while homes and schools and

villages are torn down, while

children are shot and left to die,

while illegal colonies spread

and why the occupier always

'only defends himself' and

how 'he only wants peace'

when he killings and theft multiplies.

All your critics are anti-semites,

they have to answer why

they just can't be silent

and let it all go on,

they get the calls to apologize

for daring to say that murder is wrong,

that theft is not right

and that torturing kids can't be justified.

The 'Western' media is so fine,

- if you support Greater Israel.

25.03.2018

A SOUTH AFRICAN BASTARD UNREMEMBERED

Some men can't bear to see

males in long gowns killed,

so they support killing

women and girls in dresses

and the babies

on their breasts.

A million deaths

they proudly praise

because they couldn't

bear to see adult men

in black and purple bleed

like normal men in wars do.

'But the cross!'

So many people

under crosses rotting,

but saw only the crosses on chains

on the chests of the men

in the long gowns of black and purple.

25.03.2018

LEONID ANDREYEV AND MAXIM GORKY

What united Andreyev and Gorky was

the calling of the missionary;

one for pessimism, the other for optimism.

Both sought to convert

and art was the soap box on which they stood.

When the dark time came

the pessimist who had called all

to accept the pitiless existence of man in an uncaring

universe raged against it,

longing for hope and refusing to see

that the tunnel was a cul-de-sac

and its entrance had collapsed.

The optimist became a pessimist

and accepted the mass grave of all

of his hopes, the forced smile

painted on the crying clowns.

The pessimist died

longing for optimism through

more spilled blood. The

optimist died knowing

it had all been in vain; the canal

built of blood and bone

was the shrine to the god

he worshiped now, a devout Roman

his divine emperor after

the old was slain. Truth

mattered not as long as

the right words were said,

for in those words

were life and death

and the canal and the gulags,

pitiful death and pitiless life.

23.03.2018

THE LAST WORD

When we argued, you complained

that I always wanted to have the last word.

I denied it, and so it went on

until I stopped answering

and the last years just listened

and said nothing.

It is like talking to walls,

you said then,

but you no longer complained

that I wanted to cause you a heart attack

by arguing against you

that as my only goal.

Now I have the last word,

and how I wish I wouldn't

have it; how I wish

I would have listened

you that night

when the heart attack came.

23.03.2018

HEART ATTACK

Each moment a heart-beat

away from death,

each moment a heart-beat

away from life,

yet this beating mass of

flesh

doesn't worry us

until the pain hits.

So close to death

we live a life

of an immortal

until the pain hits.

22.03.2018

IN THE EVENING DUSK

An early evening, darkening shades

of blue, a quick descent

to the night,

but an evening

is a wonder after the long months of winter sorrow,

dusk a blessing of light,

a promise of spring. No

more darkness of night on the afternoon,

less darkness of the mind

in the fading light and shadows

weaving the black web of space

on Earth. A twilight,

a marvel to have an evening

to let the day to end

and to seep away,

the night to rise in a wave of sleep.

22.03.2018

ONE OF THE SERVANTS OF JOB

I was one of the servants of Job,

a man once blessed with all the good things

under the Sun. A man

favoured by God, enveloped in his grace.

Working on his orchards and fields,

sleeping under his roof

I felt a small amount of his good fortune

to be mine, that good God had blessed

a wretch like me

and given me as good a place

to be as one of my lowly rank can have.

I, who are laying here, taken from the fields

of Job by the Sabaeans

and run trough by a sword

which now glimmers in the blazing sun

red with my blood. How

I thirst for a gulp of water

like I thirst for justice for my fate,

but I have none, and all the blessing

I thought I had from the Lord

is but spilled blood of mine on the rocks

beside me. I was one of the servants

of Job, a man much envied

for God's favour embraced him. I was

and now I will be no more waiting

morsels of mercy from the divine

as the world is receding in sound and sight

like the God's grace receded from Job

like the low tide takes the sea

from the shores of men.

22.03.2018

When I am yours and you are mine,

when minds are joined

and flesh are one,

one thought, one touch,

one creature we;

neither you nor me

but something new,

the best of us

in unity purified.

22.03.2018

SALOME DANCES

When lithe Salome dances

all men lose their minds

and one man

loses his head

to a plate of gold,

baptized in death.

22.03.2018

Bring down the cross,

the tomb is ready;

let his weary flesh

in cold eternity rest.

22.03.2018

REPENT, THY SINNER, REPENT!

So easily forgiving yourself

you say,

'Life must go on.'

Except for those

for which it doesn't.

Remember the graves

and remember those

the earth covers

and remember, remember

what you said

and what you did

and foremost what

you didn't do

and what went

unsaid.

Life doesn't have to go on.

One day, one hour,

one minute, one second

it doesn't. It stops,

it ends. THE END.

Exit through the door

now unlocked. Don't

be afraid, behind it

is only darkness,

darkness and not more.

You don't have to

be afraid, you

shall be no more.

Thus for them,

and you know,

you know and yet,

and yet you

forgive yourself

all the graves

and all the lives

whose end

they mark

and all the suffering

and all the pain

that preceded

that darkness

behind the door.

Thus for them.

Thus for them

and soon, so

soon for you;

and yet, yet

you forgive.

21.03.2018

FEAR

Fear that once leaving

shall never be returning

will the walls

into a tomb turn.

Close the door,

draw the curtains,

let the candles burn

and the darkness close.

On the bed lie,

watch the light flickering

like a heart beating

like a heart failing.

21.03.2018

1969

The crescent Moon in deep,

dark blue swims, I

remember what you told me

of 1969; you lived it,

famous words and Cold War

- back then you, lukewarm,

were with the gringos

except Vietnam, the first

crack that spread to the end;

now you live no more,

and the dead wastes

of the Moon in silver

shine. We live in

time that memory

makes history; dust

on the frozen seas of magma,

we think we are

more than what we are,

conquerors of the void

and the essence of time itself.

Then we are no more

and the dead sphere

beyond our ocean of air

like a dead god orbits.

20.03.2018

SWIFTS

Father claimed he got his fatal syphilis from blankets,

son believed what his Maecenas forged;

what you believe should be true, so he raged

except when its a lady thinking you will her wed.

A father can his virtue with bed-clothing lose -

and a son can two women keep.

20.03.2018

ALL THE PROMISE AND THE HOPE

The past holds all the promise and the hope

that we once had; the past

has what we cherished and hoped to grow,

the past in the graves

with loved ones lays;

the future but one

more tomb contains.

20.03.2018

RUE THIS WINTER DAY

Rue this day which in flying snow

so slowly fades and goes

to where used time retires.

White the hours, low

the sky of clouds

and earth the image of the heavens,

white on white; how

deep the cold that comes

and the soul chills.

20.03.2018

THE BIG DIPPER OF TIME

Children laugh and run in blue shadows

as snow glitters in light, and time

- that old spine time that sustains -

folds, and in this moment is another,

different children and different shadows,

a day awash in late winter sunlight,

voices and faces now familiar.

A big dipper that turns my stomach

and makes my mind dizzy;

I close my eyes, and opening

I glimpse the last moment of a world

righting itself, a ship

close to capsizing correcting,

coming to a rest. Now

one moment only, this ever-fleeting

being printed into memory in

my brain, ever escaping,

and feeling ill I find way

inside, where the shouting

of the children echoes

from decade to decade.

19.03.2018

BOTH SIDES OF THE WALL

I lift the curtains;

snow-flakes dance in the air,

the elms with raised boughs beg,

the firs, solemn, still climb the hill.

The heaven, veiled in white,

mute and distant,

watches. The curtains

fall, I retreat to my hole,

where dust dances in electric light,

where faces in old photographs

beg for remembrance, and

piles of books make mountains

for idle thoughts to ascent

in the sickly light of

consciousness.

19.03.2018

AN ENIGMA OF HAMMER BLOWS

Day after day he comes,

parks his white coupé

and steps out in a pale

green neon vest, hurries

inside and starts

hammering; what paintings

on the walls find their place,

what wonders of IKEA their shape?

Is he the neighbour to come?

A workman, a lover, a friend in aid

for he or she that once shall stay?

An enigma of hammer blows.

The hammer stops, silence

until out in his neon vest he

walks; no word said, he

leaves as he came.

19.03.2018

THIS IS AND NO MORE

There is cold purity

in this winter afternoon

that cleans the mind

of the cobwebs of the long

winter nights; bright,

aching light,

snow and ice in

their white and freezing

essence glittering. Cold

truths, cold hopes.

18.03.2018

SURFACING

The late evening in blue,

cold and clear, rests. The

dome of the sky darkens,

the day slips into night. Stars,

like gems at a pool,

surface. Snow

loses its hues of blue,

white and black the

land sleeps, the

hand of winter around

the quivering heart.

17.03.2018

MORE THAN TIME WILL RUIN THE STARS

More than time will ruin the stars, Louise.

Stephen Baxter(1957-): Ring(1994,) page 74.

More than time will ruin the stars,

rip open the canvas from before the void,

the gaping maw of the abyss reveal

where all ends, where dead matter

and dead time repose.

The cosmos as our grave

where no inscribed stone shall our name

and fate declare, where nothing

remembers that we were and fought

against our fate and lost. 

Even our death will die in

the cool vistas of the cosmos

where doomed matter

is but a prelude to aeons

of changeless void.

Denied even remembrance, a memorial

to our bravado and rage before

the night closed in, our fate

- that no ripple shall show where

we sank - will ruin the stars for us.

17.03.2018

The first hint of dawn

the horizon dark blue

but when I turn

lungs full of icy air

singing about life

sky burning red

over the factories

21.02.2018

AFTER RICHARD ALDINGTON(1892-1962)

He speaks of the grace

that a mortal woman can give

to him,

and prays both to her

and to a god

to give it to him,

but if she gives it

he promises to thank

the god; no word

of thanking her

except with the kisses

whose giving

the grace would be.

14.03.2018

COSMIC GLOW-WORMS

Such a terrible thing, to

have nothing but time

to think and think, to

see a life in the

context of time,

biological, historical and geological, to

see it in the vast setting of cosmos, terrible

time where lights of human life blink into existence, to

vanish as they appear, tiny lights in a vast stage

running to infinity, screaming 'I matter' and no one to

hear but you, with nothing but time,

hearing 'I matter' as lights blink on and off and to

hear yourself scream 'I matter', here

in this moment between nothingness and nothingness, to

know and know that it doesn't matter...

13.-15.03.2018

THE TWO OF YOU

A little brother

content in the arms of his

proud big sister,

'He looks like me',

she says, and yes, yes

you two do look alike,

siblings and the descendants

in blood and looks

of the dearly missed;

your grandmother

and your grandfather

in the little brother

and the big sister,

one in the arms of the another,

content, with eyes of wonder.

13.03.2018

AFTER SAPPHO AND H. D.

The gift of song,

the gift of love -

they fight and

they unite in the

human mind the

few fleeting years

before the gift of

sleep, the gift of

death brings

dark slumber

and ends all

strife, ends all

but the fading sound

of a song

of lost love

and life lost.

11.03.2018

THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER

To a vicar' daughter

the homeless frozen dead

are but a God's pre-ordained will

made manifest;

surely no Earthly power

could have stopped the ire of God,

certainly not a vicar's daughter

housed in Downing Street.

08.03.2018

THE ASCENT TO CONSCIOUSNESS

You, my casual friend,

are an illusion

impressed on the human mind

by society

and your own act

of self-creation -

which makes you a human being;

the illusion that the person

in all those photographs

is the same one,

that all the paraphernalia you carry

in your mind and outside it

forms a coherent whole,

a story with a single protagonist.

You, you think

you are the same

all the moments of the life

of the flesh

spinning through time.

Believe, my casual

friend, as we part,

in yourself. Not because

you are, but

because we are but animals

caught in time-loops without,

and an illusion of past

and an illusion of tomorrow

uplifts the animal to consciousness.

06.03.2018

Obscure, you

are the dust

lying on the

memories I

made up,

the tiny motes

of absence

over void.

06.03.2018

TO WILLIAM BLAKE(1757-1827)

Jesus would not stop

for an Englishman, he

would shake his head,

wave his hand

and quickening his steps

walk away

to all those people

he would have time

and a few words

and a touch

of his hand,

bleeding from the wrist.

The  Englishman

would run after him,

sends words

like arrows to fall short,

then halt

and walk slowly back

waiting for the one

that would come

after Christ.

06.03.2018