Poems 2

You may freely copy these poems and use them in electronic or printed publications, but only with the express condition that the line showing my copyright is always included.

INTO BUTTERFLIES

Life is but a lesson
Which we have to learn.
Then heavenwards we fly
As our old bodies burn.

NO SAMARITAN

I saw a man today
Who looked the other way.
He did not want to care,
His love he could not share.

FORTY YEARS WITHOUT AND WITHIN

Forty years without -
No time to give my love
Those girls, they walk away
As I struggle, confused, in doubt

Forty years without -
Through pride, fear of rejection
I stand aside and wait
Lost in hesitation

Forty years without -
No chance to hold and treasure
No hope to give the love within
Or share sweet human pleasure

Phone boxes and lurid cards
Madames, stained sheets and condoms
And Mistress Susie trying, tying, to assuage
A pain so soft, so hard

Forty years without -
I wait and wait for you
And now you stand before me
So perfect and so true

A loving glance, a smiling face
A kiss, a warm embrace
And now to you I’ll give
My forty years of love within

BEAUTY

There is only one Beauty,
The same on every face,
One Truth, not changing,
That form of perfect Grace.

WHAT MAKES A MAN?

[This poem illustrates the Chinese Han concept the Yin and Yang, where Yin is maleness or light and Yang is female or dark, although some may prefer to reverse the darkness and the light. The universe keeps these opposing forces in a dynamic balance.]

What makes a man?
It is a woman, only a woman.

For without a woman
We would not know what a man was.
But with a woman by his side, we know.

Then we can see the difference,
For we need light to show the darkness
And darkness to appreciate the light.

But what makes the man?
It is the woman.
Apart they are broken, incomplete.
But together, they become one;
A complete person.

POLLUTED

The once pure blue sky, without air, turns to black
And the sweetest of water becomes wormwood.
Suffocating, drowning, in our greed and folly
We bring upon ourselves
The judgement of God,
Executed by the machines of Man.

THE REJECTED

[The last line of this poem shouldn't be viewed as a threat. It merely indicates that the symbiotic relationship between men and women, which was universal before the modern age, will almost certainly return, should our civilisation fail.]

I am Man, reviled as killer and rapist,
Innocent, but guilty by virtue of my kind.
But have you not forgotten our past,
And what may return as our future?

When I protected you from wolf and bear,
Made shelter beneath darkening skies?
Saving us from the evil that would take us
And holding you in a bond of love?

I did not make me, nature equipped me,
And you, to fight that battle of survival.
Remember, beloved, ‘civilisation’ is fleeting
And, one day, you may need Man again.