The railway is expanding
So the government’s demanding
That anything that’s standing
In the way must be removed.
Remove the stock brick terraces
Our family homes and premises
For onward comes the nemesis
Of all we’ve known and loved.
Uprooted oaks and plane trees
Will be replaced by steel gantries
But what prayers will fill the chantries
For the soul that’s being crushed?
Only the rapid rattling rale
Of the stuttering high-speed rail
Will be all that shall prevail
Over the nightingale and thrush.
While we just keep on pretending
That our growth is never-ending,
That the world will keep on bending
To the might of human power
And we keep on moving faster
To escape the sure disaster
When we find we’re not the master
Of this world that we devour.
© Barry Freeman 15th May 2021
Dark drawn powdered skies
west winds rale over
garden walls of koan
I rale against this GOD
of pestilence and joyous pain.
This GOD of the sinners
unforgiving beggars and fear.
I shout into the vacuous vacancy
of empty souls - huddled in hope
pleading for the penetence
of an unobtainable peace.
I mock the preachers pulpitized phlegm
sprayed spittle and sanctimony
mesmerizing the melancholy
cajoling the sheep with wolf tales.
I believe in simple things
in butterfly translucent wings
in sermons preached by bullfrog dawns
in "crownless" kings and regal pawns
John G. Lawless
5/17/2020
Don't stop the CHOP
dash the glorious bits of foam and froth
let the leeward side fill
let the fertile delta pray
for mercy from Poseidon
All hail the storm God...
Angry, black-and-blue, bruise
the coast, claim the futile calm...
meditate on the black hole of the abyss
Can’t STOP the chop…
Brash and brazen tentacle of DOOM
destruction stirs the devil’s cauldron
Watch the witches brew boil over the
capes of man
removing the zen garden
prissiness of the pandering fools
Batten DOWN the hatches boys
There BE a BLOW on ‘er…
ships flail like paper boats
RALE against the dieing, FIGHT
Ride the crest on boards LIVE the fright!
Most poets who on death obsess
See white of bone through pale thin skin
Aware men cold below sod wear
A skinless face with lipless grin.
Dark sockets deep instead of eyes
Where daisy bulb instead of ball
Replaces organs used for sight;
While waiting on sweet rain to fall.
Those poets know, in fact rely,
On mysteries surrounding death;
Inspired by it yet still possessed
Until their final rale of breath.
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