on silence

so, men with uniforms
badges and guns waited
for other men
with uniforms, badges and guns
to come to the rescue?
do you know the children's rhyme
of the old woman who swallowed a fly
then swallowed a spider, a bird and a cat
a dog and a goat, a cow and a horse after that?

~

CLP 28/05/2022

on education

children of Texas
learn drills to escape shooters
law-makers profit
Mauripol children
learn Russian curriculum
teaching at gunpoint

~

n.b. In the USA the elephant in the classroom carries a gun because of a constitutional change way back in 1791. Surely it is time for a review of that blood-stained document?

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/05/gun-rights-groups-set-new-lobbying-spending-record-in-2021/

In Ukraine the elephants are cancelling school holidays and forcing children to learn a new history, this time from a Russian perspective. This is according to Petro Andryushchenko, a city official of Mauripol, The Guardian news publisher in London reports.

CLP 27/05/2022

on light

a veil is drawn here
new day rises in Texas
lone star brings no warmth

~

n.b. Private profit, public loss. Free market extremism, private grief.

CLP 26/05/2022

“America is killing itself”

Like Dunblane, the horror
Little children trapped, shot
With their teachers
A single man with all the hatred a heart can muster
You can't buy a beer when you're eighteen in Texas
But you can buy two guns
Walk into an elementary
And murder twenty-one

~

n.b. For the editorial that spawned the headline above, check out Le Monde, the Parisian daily news publisher. We can only ask, how many more?

CLP 25/05/2022

on tenderness

this lives somewhere within and between us
exists not without, cannot survive alone
forms around us, surely not beyond us
fear not the performance, fear not the act
does time and place and circumstance persist
to permit retrieval of such gentleness?

~

CLP 24/05/2022

on time

crossing road, stops, waits
leave, or carry it over?
hedgehog prickles sharp

~

n.b. It’s been some time since I have seen a hedgehog alive. Their natural defence is to stop, curl into a ball then hold still until the perceived threat passes. They have yet to work out that this doesn’t work when approached by motor vehicles.

This beauty stopped right in the middle of the street as I was passing last evening, so I lifted it with barehands and placed it behind a low wall on some grass on the side it was heading.

A few moments later three police vehicles rolled by very slowly and quietly. They turned left and pulled up to make a raid. The hedgehog would have had no chance against that convoy.

~

CLP 24/05/2022

on time

Hey! Why the long face?
Warm water, bubbles, music
Don't over-think this

~

CLP 23/05/2022

Morning Sickness

Light draining from summer sky
Life draining from a marriage

Nothing matters anymore
Choking on tears

Everyone can hear them
Windows opened to cool night

A domestic blister bursts in
Removes all dream of sleep

She's beyond distraught
His vocabulary in retreat

It's twenty-to-two
She's twenty-nine, in pain

Trying to end it all
Before dawn throws it all up again

~

CLP 22/05/2022

on the river

take a walk with me
rising Thames and dappled shade
South Bank setting Sun

~

CLP 21/05/2022

on memory

look at our pictures
we were always so happy
airbrush out that hurt

~

CLP 21/05/2022