In the wood

In the wood, the terrible wood:

Where children scream and the wolves do howl;

But silence is a deathly curse.

A wooded spring would be a clear, crisp drink;

Instead a sullied, bleeding drain

Of carrion’s once vital juice.

Tempted by a grandma’s smile,

Floating on a piper’s tune,

Or chasing chocolate sweets to doom:

In the wood the children rush, the hour long past noon.

Parents lament, howl and scream

For babes in wood no longer seen.

Sliced and diced and crushed they’re killed,

In the terrible wood.

Bodies dumped and blood is spilled,

In the terrible wood.

The suns kept out and the air is chilled,

In the terrible wood.

Murderous evil becomes distilled,

In the terrible wood.

The village close is a desolate place.

No children playing, for none are left.

A curse, a curse, a curse of death.

Adults cowed by the terrible wood.

Hero wanted, hero called for:

To kill the evil in the terrible wood.

So hero comes all big and strong,

Shoulders broad and sword as long.

His boasts are proud.

A legend sung in song.

Come the morn he’s up and out,

Into the terrible wood.

It’s dark and cold, and smells of decay,

In this terrible, terrible wood.

At the spring, an alarming thing,

In this deathly place.

Bodies crushed and sliced and diced,

Lifeless in the spring.

He hears a laugh, bodiless laugh;

His sword sliced in half.

An eerie laugh, an evil laugh.

The villagers hear it too.

In the wood their hero dead,

All hear the laughter spread.

Cries and moan,

To rack and ruin;

And now the evil grows.

Villagers feel a deathly chill,

They’re called into the woods.

A zombie march and off they go.

To the spring in a terrible wood.

All things dropped, even at the forge:

A fire marches too.

Where once a wood,

Now blackened stumps.

A spring that once did flow.

Times Tale Told

Tick-tock tells times' tall tales, tick-tock, tick-tock, tirades, tasteless trite.

The tick, the tock: twist times tape tight telling terror.

Temporal tendrils tense: tendor torture, treacherous trap.

The tick.

The tock.

Time tells.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

During the war

What did you do in the war daddy,

what did you do?

Did you fight the German, Turk, Austrian or who;

Italian, Russian, Chinaman, Korean, African or Jew;

An Argentine, Muslim or even the Irish too?

Were they terrorists, insurgents, soldiers or such?

Did they fight for freedom or was that you?

Could you see the enemy, did they hide?

Were you in a tank, plane, boat or a soldier on foot?

Questions, questions my son, I'm not that old.

Most were history when I was young.

Why we fought, I've long forgot.

In Afghanistan, in Iraq was where we fought when I was young;

sometimes in Africa too.

But were you a soldier daddy: what did you do?

I played on the computer, my son, I played the games.

War was far away and I was not called,

To sign my life away.

Politicians lied and squabbled,

about threat, resource and why.

They wanted taxes,

not soldiers who might die.

Between guns and butter,

well we all wanted toast.

Yeah, and pride in our boys:

we could just follow celebs.

And it wont be long till we laugh at the medals,

the cripples and dumb.

Bombs go off once, yet the explosion last many lives.

We care about our soil, not some corner of a foreign field;

Whose concealed dust we could not find.

No my son, I did not fight;

I killed on computer.

Watched bullets on TV.

Muslim killed Muslim because they hated the Jew.

America occupied Iraq because they wanted them free.

They call it the fog, it's all I could see.

Where's the idea

Can't speak,

no voice.

Atrophy of muscle,

mind and body decline.

Hands out to reach you;

but miss you.

You're falling.

In terminal decline.

Can't know by asking,

nor thinking, I'm looking for you.

No action without, but torment in knowing.

Thinking, no feeling.

Spiritual decline.

Spirit no god.

The space between I and Us, nexus of both.

Here's the decline.

But who will generate,

and catch when we miss.

What lets us feel, when thinking not enough.

Our speech, actions and more.

No replacement, no substitute

But where's the support.

A peoples decline.

Just pretending?

Not what once thought; in time revealed.

Neither intention nor commission, but the act remains.

The deed is done.

And here we are with what remains.

Not quite hell, yet paved with good intentions.

Bought the advert, not the dish delivered.

Yet you play with the toys you have.

Else struggle with the games of others.

In imitation we salute; but maybe just the finger.

In frustration it will break.

Holding back fuels the void.

A measure of what can be.

Potential, but do we measure up?

Is it ours, or just pretending?

And they tell us lies

Words on the page battle thoughts on the mind.

Smudged ink scatters the field as a collateral stain,

Whilst demons sneer at the rotten corpse of good intentions.

Battle not yet won.

Words don't rhyme,

Sentiment don't chime.

We pick and poke,

make do, get by and get through.

Worn down, torn up

Spat out.

It's life.

Re-joined, re-thought, re-fought;

and go again.

Ideas snipe to the cacophony of argumental artillery.

Metaphors and similes cower for cover.

The wise man speaks,

words build a city in dreams.

Corruption of man builds hovels for the many,

palaces for the few.

Yet when did a dream keep the rain off?

Wise men speak no more.

And they tell us lies,

those on high.

Of life and reasons why.

Us the soldiery, rabble, the cannon fodder.

We'll die for their cause:

in ignorance, ecstasy or disbelief.

This at least we know.

This life

Cerebral fuck,
This being alive.
Keep your arse moving,
least it be done too.

Animals evolved,
to perpetuate ourselves.
Yet culture castrates,
and never a fuck for the future.

Stuck in time,
wanting it now.
Fruit grows,
taking time to grow and go ripe.

Body contorts,
mind melts.
Scream and the punch,
sometimes all you have.

When faced with a crossroads,
who will you be?
Walking towards another crossroads,
no doubt!