Sideways on a journey - 3

Sideways on a journey - 2

Sideways on a journey - 1

ai

Marked as Cain

civilization

planet’s bones

Identity Parade

Street by street, the city’s shivered breath whispers
of blood-letting.

In my April and come-what-May

In my April and come-what-May or some June
when the horizon remains as broken as the sky
and we, if we are spared, look down like drones
on the lies that spy-planes made of our living days
then I will continue to ask why, in this time of times,
was it human to turn on ourselves like this, to turn
on the soil and the trees, to throw dust and debris
on the earth as if nothing mattered but our pride?

© BH, 2022

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A fragment from another poem (unpublished) - The Long Road to November. As if armistice would be the first step to healing this crock of a world and it's wars over stuff and hubris. Yet again we are showing how capable we are at accepting division and hardship, destruction and death, in the name of human-centred ideals. But we bicker and deny the cataclysm we've set in motion across the planet. There the hardship is too great, the division not to be sought and death, no more than the unfortunate collateral of protecting the way things are now.

For all those (leaders, mostly) who have an eye on history and their place on the pinnacles of it, I have a reminder. If we are too proud to undo the things we have done to damage the world we live in, then we have no history worth the name. We deserve to burn ourselves out and fade out in the face of environmental ruin. No-one is going to look at your legacy and do anything but despair. 

acrididae

for a moment
change rubbed along
with hunger

Bodger

I never was a joiner;

I hacked my way ahead
in a mockery of carpentry
time running out,
my repairs merely running;

Political Weather

We think we see which way the wind blows -

volatiles

this room
this office room
where droplets in the air condense
like vague ideas and run down walls
where obedience and protocol perspire
vaporous guilt complicit mist settling
on the hard-worked bent-headed
lower orders desk-bound slaves
breathing for want of anything
else to do

turtle

the turtle swims among debris
in a deep and poisonous murky sea
and it’s so unfortunate that the turtle
turns out like humans to be mortal

crocodile frack

Country rock weeps through fractured veins

deep in the mantle and, still, nobody gains, 

except those whose need for treasure

is no natural force: liquid under pressure,

breaking surface like a sweat of fear….

Nothing, but nothing, to be seen here…

Poetry24 - Last for a While

I've had sixteen poems published by Martin at Poetry24 since January this year. It's now in recess. Here's Tick Tock till, hopefully, the New Year :

Here are those from July to September

Tick Tock - one final call to avoid climate catastrophe….

Tick Tock

3 More - Poetry24

April/May/June

I had six poems published by Martin at Poetry24 in January, February and March. In April, May and June, I've offered up three more - Windrush,  swim until, and Ultramarine.

The January, February, March poems are linked here.

[The site publishes work responding to current news events. There's also a section, In Brief, for short, sharp reflections on current news. There are lots of good work  - try them.]

Ultramarine - more about plastic pollution, the Anthropocene and the 6th Extinction.

Ultramarine

swim until - on the death of Scott Hutchison, 10th May 2018. (Image is the mural, by Michael Corr, completed 21st May in Glasgow.)

swim until

Windrush - on the immigrants who came here to help us when we needed them.

Windrush

Future Imperfect

we will be loved…
we may be loved…

we will…
in the catatonia to come, be unresolved, sleeping in strange narcosis
those of us still barely alive those of us not swallowed by a sun engorged
now redder than the shame of heaven our inglorious travelling at an end
our ignominious selves having arrived precisely nowhere

On Poetry 24

January, February, March.

I've had six poems published by Martin at Poetry24. You can read them through the links below. The site publishes work responding to current news events. There's also a section, In Brief, for short, sharp reflections on current news. There are lots of good work  - try them.

Tarmac - on the demonisation (and prosecution) of peaceful protest.

Tarmac

Widening Gyre

Whatever rough beast we had expected, it turned out
To be a shadow, as if it were our own reflection
In a sliver of glass, a chromed plastic bead or the sea
Beneath, throwing back our faces in the oily swell.

The waves, whispering, said, you did this to us.