A rumour, a word, gossip, a hint
Of disaster
In river
‘Pon seat edges we sit.
Fragmented news of terror on Thames
Of boat sunken fast
Lost people within.
Patchy reports
Police radio heard
Of survivors – so fortunate?
Their tales of despair.
City wide efforts
Resources on call
People so willing
Together they pull.
A search of the reaches
As bodies appear
Talk of a morgue
Grim sightings at piers.
New day slowly dawning
On the price that’s been paid
Press conference is called
As hopes slowly fade.
Each time I see those hurting eyes
That lie beneath so furrowed brow
I feel that hurt
I sense the pain
And pray that you’ll return again
To be within the hearts of us
Who love you so and dearly trust
To the chance of finding one
Who cares enough –
Enough!
You have suffered so.
Beyond the tennis court their lies
A monolith
Of arborescent beauty
Once starved of growth by parasites
Now leasing soil under shady boughs
To cryptogamous tenant
Feeding from same…….
Advantage both!
Satin dew on morning lawn
Birds wakening – chatter
As if the news
Busied spider making home anew
Worm steals through a bed
As if intruder
Startled squirrel chasing
Darting swifts teasing
As if a game
Tranquil world so beautiful
At peace
As if ….as if
The morning never came.
And all I can hear are voices
Calling!
That name in different tongues.
From the harsh to the soft,
The Irish, the Scot
Friends everyone.
And all I can see are faces
Staring!
Incredulent, amazed;
Known a year, some a week
The strong to the meek
Grief so inlaid.
And all I can sense is a mind that is
Crying!
Tears for a life that is lost.
And the pain that persists
For a chance that was missed,
Memory forever embossed.
I met a man on Monday
Who said he’d shortly die
We travelled much on Tuesday
As he tried to save my life
On Wednesday as we wandered
His stories gave new meaning
Yet suddenly on Thursday
He was taken tried and beaten
I thought I’d lost my friend on Friday
As he hung upon that tree
And on Saturday, in sadness
I prayed what it meant for me
Then on Sunday sorrow lifted
As new life brought greatest gift
That man I met on Monday
Had died that I might live
We want justice for the guilty
The innocent to go free
We want justice for corruption
The innocent to go free
We want justice for victims
The innocent to go free
We want justice for the downtrodden
The innocent to go free
We want justice for murderers
The innocent to go free
We want justice for sinners
The innocent to go free
We want Justice?
Justice?
Just as our Lord did
We the guilty go free.
Surprising what you’ll do when you’re at the end of your tether,
When you’ve kicked so hard that there are holes in the leather.
When your palms have been dug by each nail of your fist
All reason replaced by random and risk.
When there’s nothing behind but bricks in a wall,
The floor’s giving way and you’re starting to fall.
Your struggling for breath as the rip takes you down
Darkness encroaching; a sense that you’ll drown….
Time to find strength to reach for the light
To use the last gasp to find breath for the fight.
To grasp at the mortar to find grip for the climb
To gain a sure footing to replace vagueness with time.
To find softness in skin and unfurrowed brow
And a skip in the step at the beginning of now
To shrug off the burdens of fettered decision
And SHOUT at the joy of refound ambition.
Somewhere still, there lives a man
For whom no human angusih can,
Move him to feel that just perhaps
There is a way to not be trapped
Between the growing conflicts of
Those different nations backed by God
Who claim they’re fighting for the good
Of all,
But neither stop, nor would;
For time to say;
We’ve worked out how:
No one, longer, needs to fight
To prove they have a greater right
To live.
You were watching all the time
I was wasting my life
Spending money
Searching for fame
Pushing away those who dared to show me love
Taking everything I could, but not the blame
Though you gave your life for me
I was blind and could not see
Everything you did
You did for me
Dying on that cross you took upon you all the cost
Of my arrogance, indifference and greed
For you saw me in the distance
When I was lost and all alone
Crying out in pain
For someone to share the load
Yes you saw me in the distance
A light shining from above
Leading me, believing, I was worthy of your love
Now I give my life to you
To do with as you choose
Everything I have
Are gifts from you
Cleansing me from sin, I am free to live again
Rejecting all I had before, accepting truth.
For you saw me in the distance
When I was lost and all alone
Crying out in pain
For someone to share the load
Yes you saw me in the distance
A light shining from above
Leading me, believing, I was worthy of your love
The Poet Layabout 