Imitating traditional poetry
We’re waiting for the slowest kid in the class
The oldest man most out of touch
The blind man who lives in a cave
To finally realise
That not one stone lies on top of another
No ray still seeps from a crack
No-one even cries out for help
Time to start again
The sun smiles over the brook
The wind accompanies the birds of song
And every word and every look
As if I had not waited so very long
To collapse the waves between us
The deathly whispers of the sea
Slits the signal of our lives
Appears as double before our plea
.
The function behind our faces
Fires nerves that bid us freeze
Streaming particles of glaring moonlight
Baring bitter revenge of the breeze
.
The foreign touch is re-presented
To sink together or blown apart
Yet the comfort of our rescue
Hides a connection, heart to heart
To feel the wind
In a public place
Is to see the world
With a human face
To catch the smile
Of a newborn child
Redeems the death
Of a life lived mild
They made you with the maker’s leave
A whisper on the breeze
Led on by the shapes of hills
Summer passed to winter frills
Morning strikes with rain and thunder
Accusing you of blunder
All the gardens yours to tend
Crying out for some small mend
But now the ghosts have fallen silent
Even your instincts are compliant
Never have we had it so good
To know any better we never would
There was a man of colour-blind sight
Who tried to do what is right
But jailing drug dealers
Gangs and murderous stealers
Is a crime for someone who’s white
An after-image lingers
On the streets of home
The frozen music fading
The archways leading home
Dying flecks float yonder
On the streets of home
The glinting river lading
The rays of sunset home
A wind-chill on your fingers
On the streets of home
The warm and bitter heating
Greets the traveller home
Familiar from distance fonder
Shrunken streets of home
The eyes of age retreating
Paints the scene of home
A new pandemic has been discovered involving people who own garden gnomes. Most of the afflicted are elderly, and so far no children have died, but the government has warned that we are all at risk. Most of the deaths involve co-morbidities such as heart-attacks, cancer and being struck by a motor vehicle, but it should be stressed that the main cause of these deaths is the owning of a garden gnome. Additionally, there have been cases of deaths where no other morbidity has been found proving how lethal this epidemic can be.
The death rate has been climbing sharply as more deaths are investigated and garden gnomes found. At first it was thought that the death rate could be as high as 100% since every dead person who had owned a garden gnome turned out to be quite dead. It was later discovered that there are living people who own garden gnomes. This selfish action which endangers us all is fully deserving of mob violence and the police have been adapted into a militia to help deal with it.
Since this is a “novel” pandemic, garden gnomes being previously unknown in human history, there has been confusion over statistics, cause and effect, and other scientific issues. It is important therefore to only heed and share government approved information and denounce all attempts to get at the truth with dissent, evidence gathering and experiment as “conspiracy theory”.
The government has announced that since it is not clear exactly how garden gnomes kill it has taken the step of shutting down all activity and enforcing a policy of solitary confinement. Many citizens have delighted in the news. “I can finally do all the things I’ve always wanted to do but never had time”, said one mother of three, “stare at the ceiling, make stick figures out of old newspapers, etc”. The government also announced it will cover the pay of all workers, as well as refunding any missing underpants. When not asked where the money will come from the Minister for Economic Affairs didn’t reply “China has loads of money. We’ll just borrow it from them. It’s fine”.
Did you try to find your place
In a faceless menagerie
A child locked inside a park
Where no one knows how to play
Tried to read from all the books
In a language you don’t understand
And tried to flee from every look
Foreign custom in native land
Went round every corner
And found there’s nothing there
Just a variant of the former
And another vacant stare
Abel was accepted, Cain was not
Cain was wroth, doors of sinful rot
His brother he slew
A curse sevenfold renews
Blood marks the reward he never got
Where Lilies Lie 