Stifled - A Voice For The Animals

(inspired by the film ‘Earthlings’)

Our lives have been stifled

We’re rife with tension.

Our children are condemned.

Our cries don’t get much mention.

What wild dream did you have for your life?

What fanciful fantasy did you feel you possessed?

What hope for a good life did you feel you had lost

Been left bereft of, dispossessed?

We’ve been held back, held down, bound and gagged.

We’ve been stripped of what’s legit,

Throttled, bottled …and bagged.

We’ve been packaged and labelled,

We’ve been set upon the table.

The fat cats have gathered,

They’ve got the gravy boats and ladles.

We’ve been used and abused,

Mis-used and bruised.

Misunderstood, trod underfoot, and misconstrued.

The big washing machine’s

passed us through the mangle.

We’ve been wrung out by the wringer,

We’ve been strung out and strangled.

What wild dream did you have for your life?

What fanciful fantasy did you feel you possessed?

What hope for a good life did you feel you had lost

Been left bereft of, dispossessed?

We’ve been caged and chained,

Maimed and made lame.

We’ve been twisted and wrenched, strained and sprained

We’ve been arranged and tamed, contained and constrained.

We’ve been estranged from our kin, cut off from our land,

Cut down in our prime, cut out of our hand.

We’ve been locked up and knocked up,

We’ve been docked and shocked.

We’ve been shut off from sunlight and chained to blocks.

We’ve been jammed in, rammed in, hemmed in and slammed in.

We’ve been managed and damaged, sandwiched in and crushed.

We’ve been force-fed and force-bled,

Medicated and sedated,

Pumped, plumped, and dumped with a diet of lead.

We’ve been shoved down and shackled and shunted along

They’ve put shutters on our minds

They shut up our songs.

They’ve shat upon and crapped upon us,

Zapped and sapped us of strength.

Hacked at us and wrapped us up on the butcher’s bench.

We’ve been corralled off and held off

And walled off in stalls.

We’ve been hauled off to the slaughterhouse

While we called out and bawled.

We’ve been rounded up and hounded, thrown around and knocked down.

We’ve been goaded and railroaded and loaded on trucks bound for town.

We’ve been towed and mowed under and snowed under with stress.

We’ve been stowed on the road where some are crushed to their death.

We’ve been jerked around and jarred, jostled and jammed.

We’ve been nabbed, grabbed and stabbed, jabbed and slammed.

We’ve been bullied and sullied, worried and hurried.

We’ve been harangued and hampered, clamped and penned.

We’ve been left perturbed and disturbed, in turmoil and trouble.

We’ve been seized with disease, left confused and muddled.

We’ve been left needing medicine, food and water.

We’ve been mauled and tortured, slaughtered and quartered.

We’ve been knocked and socked, clocked, bopped, whopped, and dropped.

We’ve been topped and lopped, sliced up and chopped.

Our blood been mopped up, our bodies sent to the shops.

What wild dream did you have for your life?

What fanciful fantasy did you feel you possessed?

What hope for a good life did you feel you had lost

Been left bereft of, dispossessed?

We’ve been herded and bewildered, murdered and killed.

Stabbed and skewered, flamed and grilled.

We’ve been bludgeoned and bashed, lashed, broken and thrashed.

Smashed and gashed open, lives and hopes dashed.

We’ve been robbed and ransacked, ravaged and ruined.

Fleeced and plucked, sent to our doom.

We’ve been presumed and imposed upon

Opposed, and suppressed,

Deposed, dispossessed, truly oppressed.

While you’re inundated with inanity,

Your sanity seems more like vanity.

How can you call yourselves humanity?

29 – 1 - 2011

For Who Might See

You – did you know me when

I fell into the ageless well within?

And you – did you watch me while

I lingered before the flame

Of my Beloved’s smile?

Perhaps you – you saw me dance.

Did you taste the kiss of who

I touched in trance?

Maybe you – in your eyes I recall

A fleeting light:

A moon between clouds

On a stillborn night.

1997

AEIOU

A - ambition to jump over the fence
E - the horizontal effort of the event
I - the stile side-on over which I stride
O - over I go onto the other side
U - the bump as I land down again

14 - 4- 06

Protagonist (Limerick)

In a movie was trapped a protagonist

In a death machine with an unusual twist.

‘Dam!’ he said with dejection,

“I’d prefer lethal injection,

But I’m afraid my doctor’s gone west!”


2007

DJ (Limerick)

A DJ with a vinyl appreciation

Started a ‘CD-destroying’ foundation.

The membership so grew

It was shocking when he knew

That it was a record-breaking sensation!

2007

Thresh-hold (1980)

Light

And sound

and you

and I on the ground

beneath you, loving you with my eyes

Can we not find each other’s surprise?

For changes

conceal, the days

…we used to run through grass

The ways?

only time has passed; no strangers

to each other now

the same delight, the moonlight, the beach

we cannot reach…into..somehow…

And I on the wave

You in the sea, for me for me for me

And you, yes

my love       I’d do anything for you

you for me, save

the days now faded in time

For we have still to find our way

in ceaseless entwine       the days

ahead

the same delight a changed insight

and love, my Love, I’m only so new

for you.

Will you see us now, no longer me

and us on the tide of time just starting to be free?

1980

I, Fish, Wall, Parents, Snap! (1980)

They dart like shadow upon shadow

Content in their regulated, placid world.

Enclosed from above by fluorescent light,

Behind them a wall that’s more that wood and plaster,

A mile wide yet paper-thick, which is strength enough.

The wallpaper endures no tricks from the light

That is diffused through the veil that is a curtain

Which will never seek audience.

Morning, and behind the wall, a world of voices hurting

Without precaution, while I am forced to listen

For fears, of detection, or of curiosity?

I won’t go, where were you, I was depressed, two days?

The echoes hang and then absorbed through the wall

For my benefit.

The wall, that separates the tranquillity, ignorance, bliss,

From the harsh oppressive reality of marital mistrust.

All’s quiet of the home front: the smile falls with the face.

1980

My World (1980)

I fought on the wind that began before time

In the beginning it wasn’t this way.

But now the risks I take are all mine

And I alone reap the pay

The cry of the wild, the effortless climb

The speed relative to none.

These are the qualities I want to find,

The careless risk of waking up blind

If only to look at the sun.

The relationships too difficult to grasp,

Of self-seeking people among

Whom I’m left in a world of my own with the task

Of having to reach their one.

If only so I have this paper to show

That I think like all the others.

Well, you won’t find me there, I’m enjoying the air

Of my world, their ideals, it smothers.

1980

Awakening to Memory (1980)

(Note: refers to a time when, awaking from chaotic dreams of medieval chaos and ruin, I recalled a happy memory to calm me. I remembered a time at the lights in Newmarket with my lover, when she asked for her ‘drug’, and I kissed her, thinking impulsively she meant ‘me’. Two guys in a van behind us clapped – such romantic spirit? My lover explained after that it was a cigarette she meant. In the poem this memory is translated into medieval garb from the dream traces).

Carrouselled past Shavian

Flowersellers, to days of when

Medieval knights and damsels

Fled from evil sights to castles,

And past bombardment of quaking towers

The last enchantment, for waking now,

My dreams have gone, and I’ve lost the battle,

And streams of consciousness now grapple

With thoughts of sleep and safety’s shore

For fraught with deep pangs greatly more

Of love and loneliness, my mind

A dove on a lonely quest to find

A memory

Of when we

Were carefree

And laughing

Reminisced when, on trusty steed,

The damsel was kissed, when just such a deed

Was requested of the prince, who confused the words

In the message rather, since it amused the bards

In the minstrel troupe behind, who clapped for more

And the damsel looked blind to what the kiss was for.

Not a kiss was the request for the task, nor a hug,

But for Turkish cigarettes when she asked for her ‘drug’.

And awakening to memory, I welcome reality.

In taking you with me in my dreams, you are in me.

1980.

Mushrooming (1980)

1, 2, 3, 4

Naga Saki

When will the rain with the wind wash down.

The death toll sound in this peaceful town.

His…tory

Hor…izon

Clouds in the south lie limp on the line.

Watch as they wash over memories in time.

Her…story

Her...eyes on

Me.

The Sun Trip: Suicide In Space (1980)

It was the flight of the Icon Tester.

I was taking it for her first run.

When I thought of how I missed her,

And flew into the sun.

The video hummed by my side,

The technician’s hands were wrung.

He said, ‘Look man, you can’t commit suicide,

We just can’t let it be done.

That Icon Tester’s brand new,

It’s worth a heavy sum.

And top-grade pilot’s are few,

We can’t afford to lose another one.

I said, ‘You try and stop me, for

I’m looking after number one,

And life’s not worth living anymore,

I’m making the final run.

My wife died two days ago,

And life’s no longer fun.

And now I’m going to join her, so

Say goodbye for me to everyone.

The pain I felt grew more and more,

But the instructions couldn’t be undone.

The last thing I saw was the white of the core,

As the ship and I melted into one.

5 -7- 80

Song For Daphne (1982)

Tree of the cascades

Visage swathed in green

The robe of winter’s queen.

How the night wind races in your memory,

Though the darts of dawn

Silver the dew

Adorning your limbs.

Deep-rooted memories echoing

Like lyric strains of birdsong

Filtered through your leaves

That shimmer in the breeze.

When once you ran you cried ‘Diana!

My limbs are like the wild wind.”

And, green nymph, your legs would ache,

Your body taut

While stalking prey.

O fledgling!

In dewy youth

Summer’s song was golden.

Now your supple leaves are falling.

In their wake you find none forming

A royal wreath

To still your aching heart.

12 - 11 - 82

Frog Prince (1980)

Occasionally
A frog,
in jumping
From lily-pad
To lily-pad,
Misses

The jump,
Falls in the water,
And wonders
Whether he is
Swimming or
Drowning.

23 Vows (1999)

To feed the little mouths,

To sexually arouse,

To be a good man around the house,

To keep my fury doused,

To stay with you til home come the cows.

To heal the bitter rows,

To fill the day with wows,

To keep wearing the trous’,

To convince you of my powers,

To be with you to wile away the hours.

To appreciate your vows,

To work on being good pals,

To be tidy as a mouse,

To forego the mood that sours,

To praise what’s inside your blouse.

To work to have what’s ours,

To remember to give you flowers,

To in your mind take a browse,

To make sure old skin sloughs,

To heal you of your ow!s

To in love-making nip your brows,

To show you now the hour is

To remake our mutual vows.

Seasons Of The Soul (1998)

Life (unfortunately?) is not a linear progression of continual transcendence.

We loop-the-loop in periodic cycles whose zenith

Is the acquisition of higher consciousness given as grace or guidance,

And whose nadir is the sacrificial ordeal of the redemption of lower consciousness

And the gift of initiation.

A catalyst kicks it off, a season of the soul.

Looking back I can reflect ‘that was the period of my life when..’

How did that one begin?  What started the wheel to spin?

We were on a roll, a spark ignited, something fired the imagination,

And we got caught on the rising tide, the movement of transformation.

The ‘New Age’ is largely a solar cult, fashioned from sunny California.

The sparkle of spiritual images from the commodity capital of Hollywood.

Bought in the marketplace we must make them our own,

Bringing image together with shadow to become real,

Find what is uniquely ours from all the ideas that appeal.

A calling turns us inward, beyond the public domain.

What got us kudos was not enough, the outward expression is flagging.

What was once professed we must now confess we know not where it came from.

And we ask in declining days of summer if we might humble ourselves to listen

and accept the lessons of the guiding ones.

Grace is the gift of those who have stopped seeking or struggling.

Outward confidence becomes the inner ability to confide in oneself.

Something nudges us from our certainty and calls into question

The mission we thought we were on.

Sweet season of touching the future self where it’s already all been done.

A crisis takes us full circumstance, opposite where we began.

We must enter the underworld embrace and allow an understanding.

Every aspect of ourselves wants to be accounted for and included.

The stretch in ourselves as we remind ourselves of the light while in the shadows.

It is the shamanic ordeal to use these tools for transformation.

And in that said period of your life, wasn’t there the determination,

To break several cycles of similar fate to gain an initiation?

The gift you receive becomes your service to see where others are caught.

What gold did you uncover?  The rhythm and pulse of life discovered.

Seasons of the soul beyond which realization is sought.

Radical Revision

Thomas undertook a radical revision of his life.

His life he felt to be a fiction unread by most men.

By ‘most men’ he reckoned anyone unacquainted with strife.

With strife at his roots, is there anyone who could not understand,

Not understand more than a superficial gloss or first glance?

“First glances won’t tell a thing about me”, he declared.

He declared to himself a radical revision the only chance,

The only chance to be read where the level of fact was bared.

Was bared and naked of fictions the place where he’d see?

He’d see if the answer was to be found at the roots.

The roots were where no words could capture such truth.

Such truth was not the various versions of him it suits…

“It ‘suits’ of others, yes!” he said, “but not of me.

Of me they know so little. Deep at my core is pain.

Is pain and strife the ‘fact’ of my deep enquiry?

Deep enquiry then is at least a form of vision I gain.”

I gainsay you’ll guess the insight that occurred to Thomas.

To Thomas was given a gift when indeed he saw again.

A gain begotten when the light of awareness is on us.

On us the onus to clear the path of our life of the slain.

The slain are the dead-eyed men we see ourselves as,

Ourselves as lonely and unwitnessed by others at the core.

The core in truth has always possessed the light that it has.

It has been covered by a fear that it’s only ourselves that we saw.

We saw that without others loneliness seems to win.

To win new eyes to see we must give up one more view.

More view in fact that to see only ourselves here is to sin.

To sin is to see the ‘I’ and not become the ‘Eye’ that’s all of you.

16-5-10