A dozen rows of soldiers, friends, brothers, fathers, sons,
They dressed you up and sent you off, poised, positioned.
Everywhere you look, you gaze upon photocopies under one uniform:
Stripped of individuality
Welcome to the show,
here, we throw metal roses to the audience,
the corrupted sons of Eve, all dancing to percussion.
Backstage: the scent of death, blood and roasted almonds.
Final show, curtain closed
They wait for you, your memory fading, it's too late...
The petals of moonlight and shadows of dawn,
they started this mess, weapons drawn,
A dozen rows of soldiers, friends, brothers, fathers, sons
They slowly decreased:
A million,
two,
one...
Final bow, curtain close,
thank you for coming,
but where is the rose?
They performed well and i know you want more,
but i have to apologise
For there will be no encore...
Irrefutable evolution conduits
Matter tip toes through tunnels
Microscopic nano shifts continue
Outperformers filter free of funnel
Replicas of kept traits hail heredity
Thrivers cognate with larger logic
Attentive nurture forms pedigree
Love poured over timid progeny
Genome keys cut exacting bones
Entrapped wrapped sticky chrysalis
Nature photocopies, care duly hones
Elevating banquet, perpetual Christmas
Elevation in Evolution
Eighth of December
Desirable Education
A diabetic to his steward
On the table is your sack letter,
Beside my unfinished tea, no better;
Four photocopies of it in my file,
Their original to be collected by you;
Sure evidence that your stewardship was all rubbish
And that, henceforth, I would to you be snobbish.
Your offence was the many sugar cubes in my tea,
For which I had painfully continued to pee;
A bizarre blood sugar level from the lab!
Pictures of my grave finished off with a slab!
Yours was a clever murder move,
My ceaseless tremors there to this prove.
You‘d tried to my door unbolt to an undertaker
And my journey begin back to my maker.
You may now go to my sitting room
For your last wage
But don’t fail to storm my bedroom
For your luggage.
And, please, do forget my clothes in the Laundry,
For even now, they badly sense my quandary.
I walked past the cemetery the other day,
Those who fought for a right to vote,
Were turning in their graves.
I could hear them moaning in their eternal sleep,
Use it or lose it, use it or lose it was their universal call,
Though not scared, I shuddered from top to toe,
At the horror of all horrors,
As I contemplated a world with voices long silenced
By the winds of apathy and contempt for those,
Past and present Champions of the democratic cause.
A world where democracy was off line.
And yet the people were all oblivious to the fact,
As they took their daily happy pill
Once the shuddering had stopped,
I stood respectfully and said a silent prayer,
With no words adequate enough to express my gratitude
To all those beautiful souls,
Who deserve to rest in peace.
I don't know what the caretaker will make of the photocopies of my,
Voting papers on their graves,
But frankly I don't care.
As if they are ever called forth to reawaken our fading memories
I pity all the non-voters.
WISDOM
Wisdom cannot be taught but can be learned
As rewards cannot be bought but are earned.
Listening to a wise man will not make you wise
But at least he’ll help the blind to open eyes.
The wise have burned their fingers and now don’t,
And have spread the knowledge so others won’t.
When you can predict what will be the outcome,
Where the basis for knowing is slender and then some;
When your advice is the reason why disaster wasn't met,
And success was what you managed to abet,
It is likely that you have a quality called wisdom,
Incidentally, always found in every child’s mum.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written by Sydney Peck
Entered in Cyndi MacMillan's Contest
THE GREAT SOUP POETRY RELEASE EXTRAVAGANZA
I will post photocopies of the poem on each classroom wall of my school
where there are 60 teachers and 400-plus kids.
Photocopies of identical days
And absent places
Never produces desire or love
Just hot car drives
With you
You repeat and post the same letter,
Again and again and again,
As if reinforcement renders things better,
And the litany melts away pain.
You reiterate, as though amnesia,
Distorts all the temporal thought,
As if restatement invokes analgesia
And offers some means of retort.
You replicate, chapter and verses,
Retreading the same weary road,
As if recurrence lifts self-imposed curses,
Confabulation lightens the load.
You recap photocopies of sleight,
In loops of a cyclic encore,
No meaning, just boredom and blight
We’ve all seen and heard it before.
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