Illustrating My Poetry

Recently I started a project, the purpose of which was to do my own illustrations of selected poems that I've written over the years. Some were written very recently and others were written over 40 years ago. Here's the first 5 of the selected poems with their illustrations. (The text of two of the poems have been scanned in from a slim volume of poetry, 'Behind The Mask', that I had published in 1981.)

Psychology Of The Legion Within

Why do those memories of embarrassment and shame

Touch some people who dwell inside this house?

Why do they wish to compromise on some worthwhile aim

And drink the dirty water instead of some fine wine?

The mediator looks to find the spouse

And tries to urge all the imposters to resign.

The house is where, along with dozens quite unwell,

Good householders and stewards also live.

They work and help those victims of a hypnotic spell

To find the rightful places for fulfilling all their needs.

In taking there's the kindness that we give

When closing off the doors to where indulgence leads.

Impressionist and comic, footballer and fool,

Actor and singer climb on to the stage

Where each will reign for just a little while as a rule,

The rule that not a single one of them can see

But then he enters and he turns the page,

The master of the house brings home the will to Be.

Empty Vessels

To win a friendship back

Lost, through the tangled overgrowth

Of motives misunderstood and feared

It is difficult. It is difficult.

But not impossible.

The faith which moves mountains

Does not move mountains

It merely watches them slide away

Clear the decks, round the vision

Answer to the soul

With a curious precision

For longing and wanting

Are symptomatic of division

And Being is beyond

Where conflict has no hold

And empty vessels

Carry gold.

For Trolls And Keyboard Warriors

How can I hate a stranger I've never met?

Only it is not 'I' but 'it' that hates

Because 'it' only relates

To black or white and yes or no

And is really rather slow

To acknowledge any debt.

So if not 'it' then who am 'I'?

'I' live beyond the opposites

And put together all the broken bits.

Albeit being hard to reach

It is only 'I' can really teach,

Give comfort, create and unify.

© Geoff Davis

Psychology Of The Legion Within

Why do those memories of embarrassment and shame
Touch some people who dwell inside this house?

Why do they wish to compromise on some worthwhile aim

And drink the dirty water instead of some fine wine?

The mediator looks to find the spouse

And tries to urge all the imposters to resign.

The house is where, along with dozens quite unwell,

Good householders and stewards also live.

They work and help those victims of a hypnotic spell

To find the rightful places for fulfilling all their needs.

In taking there's the kindness that we give

When closing off the doors to where indulgence leads.

Impressionist and comic, footballer and fool,

Actor and singer climb on to the stage

Where each will reign for just a little while as a rule,

The rule that not a single one of them can see

But then he enters and he turns the page,

The master of the house brings home the will to Be.

© Geoff Davis 2021

I Fear For The Country

I fear for the country in which I was raised. 

I fear for my friends and relatives there. 

In government and press the dark actors scare

And fools and con men are being praised.

I fear for the country in which I was born.

I fear that Britons forever will be slaves,

Manipulated into digging the graves

Of conscience and listening, on which they heap scorn.

I fear for the country which gave me life.

I fear that its arrogance and lack of remorse

Will blow its future so wildly off course

That division and violence will surely be rife.

I fear for the country from whence I came.

I fear its delusions about having clout

And the unwise language being bandied about.

One day we will suffer from having no shame. 

 

© Geoff Davis 2020

Poem For Trolls And Keyboard Warriors

How can I hate a stranger I've never met?
Only it is not 'I' but 'it' that hates
Because 'it' only relates
To black or white and yes or no
And is really rather slow
To acknowledge any debt.

So if not 'it' then who am 'I?'
'I' live beyond the opposites
And put together all the broken bits.
Albeit being hard to reach
It is only 'I' can really teach,
Give comfort, create and unify.  


© Geoff Davis 2020

There Is No Healing Or Democracy

 (I started to write this just five hours after the UK left the EU )

There is no healing or democracy
Without conscience and impartiality
There is no healing or democracy
If my unconscious reactions get the better of me
There is no healing or democracy
Without being manipulation or propaganda free
There is no healing or democracy
If 'active' listening is alien to me
There is no healing or democracy
With division and intolerance in ascendency
There is no healing or democracy
While red tops provoke fury and negativity
There is no healing or democracy
When money talks through ever more profanity
There is no healing or democracy
With people's lives just a game or strategy
There is no healing or democracy
If elected representatives show no integrity
There is no healing or democracy
When information given is shorn of honesty
There is no healing or democracy
When service gives way to hostility
There is no healing or democracy
if it's lies and deception that lead to victory
There is no healing or democracy
If a head of state speaks with clearly discernible insincerity.

 © Geoff Davis 2020

Home Thoughts From Abroad In The EU

Last night I woke up at four o'clock and couldn't get back to sleep because there were all these lines of original verse entering my head, which I was powerless to stop. An hour later I got up, made myself a cup of tea and put everything that was in my head down on paper. (Then I went back to bed and slept for another four hours.) So, having tipped my hat to Robert Browning, Clifford T Ward and Dylan Thomas (but not to the present UK government) this is the result:-


Home Thoughts From Abroad In The EU

With the dimming of the faulty Albion light
PM Boris has ignored our plight
But then I hate my country, so a commenter said
On social media for the living dead.

With the dimming of the faulty Albion light
Who else is there has ignored out plight?
The purveyor of standards, the BBC,
That beacon of objectivity!

With the dimming of the faulty Albion light
There are hedge fund managers who express delight
At the falling pound. They don't give a shit
If our savings and pensions sink with it.

With the dimming of the faulty Albion light
They do not go gentle into that good night,
Each crashing out like a raging bull
And their intestines now are more than full.

But when I peer into a crystal ball
I see a poorly assembled cabinet fall
And the Telegraph, Mail, Sun and Express,
Their reputations trashed, oh yes! 


© Geoff Davis 2019





 

Privileged Sons And Potted Plants

This morning, while online, I kept on coming across the fact that the conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg had once referred to people who were educated at state schools as "potted plants" and implied that they weren't likely to be able to write a literate letter. So it inspired me to write a poem which, as so often happens, ended up a little more abstruse than I intended!


Privileged Sons And Potted Plants

"Youth is wasted on the young!" is attributed to Oscar Wilde
Or George Bernard Shaw, who really knows?
There are privileged sons on whom the gift of literacy is wasted.
Potted plants are immeasurably less defiled
Than a one dimensional intelligence that shows
How real understanding has never yet been tasted.

If manners maketh man it is also true that they conceal
A reigning chaos in those unconscious parts
Where devils, angels, simpletons and intellect collide.
The persona is reluctant to reveal
The habitual nature of some darker arts
Where service of the ego feeds the individual pride.

"The potted plants, they have no minds so there's nothing they can change.
Mass hypnosis fodder, all of them you see!"
Ah, but if some should question, breathe and move and wonder
If there is something really rather strange
About force feeding suggestibility,
A privileged son may find that he is torn asunder.

© Geoff Davis 2019