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Here's another eight - I wish I know what I was doing

However, got to put them somewhere

The Refugees

 

Is this way of life changeable?

That seems to pervade all the globe.

That speaks out against refugees

To preserve our place in the world.

 

Can we learn to live with it, independent of class?

On the railway I saw a perfectly dressed woman

Sitting on a dirty box drinking from a chipped glass *

But this was only a minimum of the social tensions I saw.

 

Perfection was the best that could be afforded

Irrespective of the effect on environmental purity

In another place gates are put on the housing estate *

To maintain the ‘standards’ of the community

 

My family, friends, and our religion

My Club, town or city, and my county,

And my countries international place,

Are the background to the decisions I face.

 

We were lucky enough to be born here.

Why should we allow someone hell-born

To struggle here and share our luck with us?

It might reduce a little of our privileged norm.

 

The really fortunate have it all their own way

And defend it as their rightful sate and norm.

But they are only as lucky as the rest of us

Until they can choose the parents to whom they are born.

​

Jacb Oct 2020

 

*I know this is racist, nationalistic, colonial, snobbish, but I saw it for myself on the platform of Delhi railway station when we visited India in 1980. The ‘another’ place is middle America.

The Refugees

The Language

my first fiddle faddle

​

When the grandchildren tell me their travels.

Why is it that “getting on to” a bus

And “getting on” a bus sound good to me,

When “getting off” a bus sounds OK, but

“getting off of” a bus really gets me!

My First Fiddle Faddle

IS THE PAST MY FUTURE

​

Do I have a memory of the future?

If I have been here before, I do.

But it would be much too much for me

To live a life of déjà vu.

Is the past my futue

The Question of Poetry

 

Is it my age or is it too late?

The only question that is important is Why?

Is the heart more important than the voice?

Is the creator more important than their creation?

Can a different voice carry the meaning?

Is a repeat a process of understanding?

Does it matter?

YES

Jacb 9th May 2016

The question of poetry

CLIMB

​

Climb along to consciousness

Climb up to wakefulness

Climb out of somnolence

Climb into lifefulness 

Climb

The Sound of Rain

 

Silently, oh so silently,

The tiny drizzle droplets fall.

‘Cos it hasn’t rained for ages

They darken the bricks of the wall.

 

Pitter, patter, pitter, patter

falls rain on the roof’s clear plastic.

The drumming on the extension

Makes reading an act heroic.

 

Then splosh and splash and splish and splosh,

The noisy rain you cannot miss.

So much rain hits the wet pavement,

The beat becomes a sharp-edged hiss.

 

Jacb Oct 2020

The sound of rain
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