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

 

Poems Inspired By My Parents' Final Years

It's almost six years since I wrote a post for this blog but the other day I was looking at a series of poems that I wrote during the final years of my parents' lives when I was acting as a carer for them. Many were so personal that I didn't want to share them at first. However, it's now well over a decade since I wrote them so there's a little more distance from the intense emotions that I was experiencing when I wrote them -  anger, frustration, fear, regret, love, hope, despair and so on. Not all of the poems are of the same quality and there are certain things that I wrote then that I still feel a bit uncomfortable about because the targets for some of my anger seem inappropriate. Anyway, here they all are in all their naked glory!


Going Home

There was once a community here.
Now all these lives seem unconnected,
The middle-aged and strong
Have turned elderly, infirm
And that strength which so affected
And comforted me in growing
Has given way to dependence
On Home Care and relatives’ giving
And refuge in old-fashioned song
And a zimmer frame in the corner of the Living-
Room where books and sentiment affirm
How difficult the simple and pragmatic
Seems to be.
Old age has to struggle through the gloom
Of indifference and invisibility.




Able-Bodied for Eighty-Five Years

Able-bodied for eighty-five years
Then there’s breathlessness and tears
Osteo-arthritic groans
And a need for cordless phones.
 
© Geoff Davis 2002




Culture Clash

Are you ashamed of your mobile phone?
No, I’m ashamed of that commercial,
The messages and signals that it gives,
Its hollow, shallow, worthless tone
Imploring us to spend, spend, yes - spend!
On items that we do not need,
Ignoring common sense and balance
Desensitising Conscience
So that we laugh instead of cry
At Alzheimer’s victims binning old men’s dentures
(Now isn’t that drole!)
On the NHS hospital ensemble ward
For the elderly rational and irrational alike;
And anomalous targets are the main control
From a one dimensional blinkered intelligence,
Oblivious of subtlety and nuance.
How you fools betray
The doctors, nurses, care workers,
Therapists and physios
In the twilight world
Where theory and abstraction flows
And confrontation with dismay
Touches us only briefly
And not long enough to act
Freely, unaffected by formulas and networks
Or crumbling infrastructures.
Yes, crumbling infrastructures,
That 21st century cliche
It is still a depressing fact.




Corporate

Corporate dress and corporate speak
And corporate strength is corporate "weak"
But corporate "weak" will cause its death
Through all-polluting corporate breath.
 
© Geoff Davis 2002


 

Dial-A-Ride

The elderly man dialled a ride
And the dial-a-ride driver came to call
But the dial-a-ride driver stood and watched
As the elderly man took a fall.

He took a fall and broke his arm,
The dial-a-ride driver was most upset,
As well he might have been; his sleep
Allowed him somehow to forget

When dealing with the old and frail
How it should be incumbent on
Each one of us to help and guide,
Not watch like an automaton!




Things Of Priceless Value

Let us patronise the elderly
And poke fun at them. After all,
As a grouping they are not protected
By what is and by what is not PC.
Let us be indifferent to their needs,
Practical and financial,
And forget about their dignity.
Their knowledge is outdated,
Their experience irrelevant
And their outlook misdirected.
You see, evolution feeds
On energy and bright ideas and
The drive to forge ahead,
Not making jam and planting seeds
Nor giving an attentive quality
To outmoded crafts
Nor even an active effort
To understand!
When will we all wake up and see
That change is merely change in detail.
That’s all.
No worse nor better usually
But different, although
We seem to have developed
A certain recklessness
In letting things of priceless value go.

© Geoff Davis 2002




Investors In People

Investors In People, they wear that badge with pride.
Now am I missing something or
Is that worthy title being rather misapplied?
If it were investment in staff and larger salaries
Then good, but the fashion for cosmetic window dressing
Has to leave me far from sure.
The corporate gloss which doctors spin,
Transparent as a windowpane
With promises of greater blessing,
Is laughable to care workers
Working with the elderly
On hourly rates of little more
Than the minimum wage.
Now what a way to treat those souls
Who choose to serve and help
And in so doing, perhaps,
Have sacrificed what might appear to be
A much more glamorous stage!




Mother

When you witness your own mother unable
To cook and clean and dust,
And set or clear the table,
Your Conscience shakes you
With all those memories of
Youthful laziness and folly
When self-indulgence takes you.
So I must try
In my own small way
To give what I can
As she gave,
Giving for the sake of giving.
And whatever ego driven plan
I have
I have to put on hold,
Without resentment,
Without fear,
And simply do
Whatever may be necessary,
No matter how my natural rhythms
Come into play
And wish to interfere.

© Geoff Davis 2002




Thank You My Employers

Thank you my employers
For writing to tell me
Of the importance of a dress code.
Yes, I shall wear a tie
On my return
But news of paid career breaks
Would have been more welcome
So this reminder
I shall have to burn.
You see, mum has trouble breathing
When she tries to walk
And dad struggles not to fall
Without his zimmer frame
So what you think important
Is to me
Rather trivial, rather tame.




Until We Question

Until we question the culture we’ve created
Where status carries more weight than Being,
Where the lust for consuming has blunted
Our intuitive sensitivity to need,
We are incapable of seeing
Which impressions feed
Us with wholesome food
And which corrode our insides.
Until we question our justifications,
Our fixed ideas and bias
And our artificial guides
We are incapable of Knowing
That silent space within
Which confides
In a greater, all embracing Silence
Which knows the ephemeral nature
Of noise and clutter.
It is there and it is not there
And momentarily perhaps
We can banish violence
But not the ether, nor the air
Until we question.

© Geoff Davis 2002




I Never Dreamed

I never dreamed that I would feel nostalgia for
Those Saturday morning outings,
With mum at eighty-one and dad at eighty three,
To the Central Library
And then a tea or coffee with cake
In the Cathedral Refectory.
Their bodies stooped,
The walking pace was slow
But still their steps, at least, were sure
And that was just four years ago.
So four years on
Advanced old age digs in
And neither now sets foot outside
Their own front door,
Clinging by a slender thread
To independence in their home
Of forty-three years.
And I witness the painful ruthlessness of time
And do my best to ease
The discomfort and the dread
Of what’s to come.
The painful ruthlessness of time is evident
In all those photo albums where I see
An incredibly good-looking couple
Smiling out at me,
Walking along the front at Weston-Super-Mare
Or outside a chalet in Westward Ho!
I owe my life to what they had then
In the nineteen-forties and fifties
And all my life they have been there
And when they go
And I know
That I will never see them walk again
My conviction and belief
Is that I shall weep as much in gratitude
As I shall weep in grief.

© Geoff Davis 2002

 


Respite? Ha ha!

The cost of five hours respite care
Is more than the weekly rate of Attendance Allowance then.
There goes my day out.
I will have to knock it on the head.
I wonder what someone on the Rich List,
(That the media so kindly gifts us with),
Does in my position.
Do they have any tips for me,
These shining beacons of light
And models of humility
And of restraint?
You see, I have a salary
Pro rata, of just over 15K
Which in the context of a third world state
Is hardly cause
For justifiable complaint
But here in good old Blighty,
With the newspapers’ fondest game
Seeming to be to speculate
On what fantastic money
Everybody on TV
Or in entertainment
Gets but surely doesn’t earn,
It rather sticks in my throat,
Especially now, as I choose to work part-time
To enable me to give
Help to those closest to me,
Invalided by old age
And perhaps betrayed
By economic theorists
And puppet politicians
Whose persuasive tones and justifying lines,
Articulated well,
And voiced as blueprints
For a future heaven,
Are oblivious of patterns and important signs
And bring to some,
Who’ve lived pretty blameless lives,
An undeserving hell.

© Geoff Davis 2002
 



The Afternoon Show and the Visit

I was driving home to the afternoon show
Steve Wright was talking to Russell Crowe
About Professor John Nash and A Beautiful Mind
And how the poor genius’s health declined,
The support of his wife who lived with his pain
And how he adapted and triumphed again.
And then Russell said how hard it must be
For any couple to stay and to see
Through forty years together, of life,
Honouring commitment as husband and wife.
That evening I went with my mum to see dad.
Over fifty-three years of marriage they’d had.
He was recovering in a hospital bed
And I told them both of what Russell had said.
"Staying together was hard? Not for us.
We just got on with it all without fuss.
Some people may have a spouse who will try
To impose their own views and their thoughts, but then why?
We allowed each other to have our own minds
And to go with the flow as each moment unwinds."
And then mum stopped and paused for a while
And looking at dad she said with a smile,
"What would I have done without you dear?"
A cliché I know, but very sincere,
It made me feel strange and humble and proud
To "be" in this moment our misfortune allowed.




Administration

There are more unpaid carers in this Country
Than paid care workers in the NHS
So someone said.
And for every administrator
There isn’t even a hospital bed
So someone else remarked.
But never mind, if you’re young
You could go private instead.
And the elderly?
They’d be better off dead!

© Geoff Davis 2002




Dreams Of Happiness And Bliss

We all dream of happiness and bliss,
That the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Will grant us this
But I am tired of how haphazard
And how erratic all this is.
I do not want to know celebrity gossip
Or who is in the A-list
Or to learn about the details
Of their phenomenal wealth.
It makes my stomach turn
When I’m confronted with the fact
Of the ailing health
Of those of modest means
Whose lifetime of honest toil
Invokes little gratitude
Or concern.




Young Man

Young man,
Adrenalin-fuelled twat
Behind the steering wheel
Of a car driven recklessly,
I would rather see you dead
Than the gentle old man
Who can still sense and feel.
His sudden disability
Compromises his dignity
But still he can smile and respond
With kindness and courtesy.

 Geoff Davis © 2002




Two Worlds

His sheets are soaked in urine again
While the world reads about celebrity strain.
Washing machine or the laundry for that?
While the world feeds upon celebrity tat.
Must wash my hands since I’ve handled it.
Paparazzi have snapped a celebrity tit!
But do leg-bags and catheters exist
In the world of the celebrity double A-list?
If one day their world should turn rather flat
Then normal people will rejoice at that.




Thoughtlessness And Sleep

Acts of deliberate evil are comparatively rare
But thoughtlessness and sleep are always there
Married to a seeming innocence
Which proves destructive,
The haphazard energies it drives
Plays havoc with our lives.
So thanks
To all those charlatans and cranks
Who warned us of the dangers
Of thoughtlessness and sleep;
While academics, commentators, politicians too
These types are not afflicted
Their thoughts are so profound and deep
And so it is that they are strangers
To the world of thoughtlessness and sleep!

Geoff Davis © 2002

 


Let Us Plunder The War Chest

Let us plunder the war chest
And avoid frying Iraqi soldiers
And collaterally damaging (ha!) the innocents.
No, let us use the money and invest
In more peaceful interventions.
Well, for instance, several billion pounds
Would really boost our old age pensions
And help pay carers for the elderly
More like what they deserve.
I say, "Fuck you George W Bush and fuck you Tony Blair!
I rather think you have a nerve
When you give us all this bullshit
About how you really care
And pretend you have a conscience
When it clearly isn’t there
Although your pseudo conscience speaks
With a somewhat tainted odour.
Obnoxious? Yes, it reeks!"

© Geoff Davis 2002
 



Uncomfortably Limiting

I do find it distressing
How the lives of those
Who gave me sustenance,
With the onset of advanced old age,
Appear uncomfortably limiting.
We continue to make assumptions
About how we are evolving
When there is much
Which is regressing.
The degenerative stage
Of the physical body
Mirrors something in the collective psyche
And where it is naïve
About such
Issues as problem solving,
Shifting taboos,
The inevitability
Of conflict;
And it’s struggle to believe
With conviction
How egoism is disastrous for us all
And we all lose.




A Photograph From 1948

Of late
I have been looking at a photograph
From 1948
And what is it I am seeing?
A beautiful young couple
With an extraordinary chemistry between them
Which ensured
That I came into being.

© Geoff Davis 2003




Shit

Shit in his trousers and shit in his pants
Shit on the seat and shit in the pan.
Shit, shit hilarious shit
Which isn’t so funny for this elderly man.
Shit on the carpet, shit on my hand
And shit on the tube to his catheter,
So shit! Let’s joke once again about it
Because it’s a laugh when these things occur!
He’s never had this problem before
So what on earth has now gone wrong?
Was it the lactulose solution and
The movicol were a little too strong
For relieving constipation then?
I’ll have to take a shower so
The shit on my arm and shit on my cheek
Will hopefully wash away and go!




This Man Is My Father

This man is my father
And how I feel his lack!
He does not smell
The fragrance of spring’s early bloom
Or walk as well
As I do.
It hurts to see his sadness
It hurts to see him weak,
This old and noble man
Whose blameless life
Deserves a kinder closing scene.
I only hope and pray
That God will intervene
And guide him peacefully away
Or fill him with the strength
To stay.

© Geoff Davis 2003




The Day My Father Died

The day my father died
The staff nurse from the hospital telephoned to let us know
"Your father passed away," she said, "ten minutes ago"
And I cried.
The day my father died
I walked to the Post Office and back
And every voice and sound
And revving car engine
Seemed to lack
Any sort of Conscious Life;
And I wondered if this world
I’m passing through
Is the real world of death,
Driven by a restless energy
Possessing and controlling us
In contrast to the peace and stillness
Of my father’s face
After drawing his last breath.
The day my father died
I lay awake upon my bed
At some mid-evening hour
And my tiny room was host
To an energy of such
Rare quality and power
That I could sense
The circulation of my blood
And every ounce of flesh
From head to toe.
Something so immense,
An in-pouring of love and gratitude
Which fast became a flood.
The Comforter was there,
Whatever you perceive
The Comforter to be,
Turning my bereavement
And my sorrow
Into an other-worldly ecstasy.
The day my father died
I hated you, Professor Dawkins
And then I laughed
At that proud intellect
So one-dimensional and unintelligent
In a wider sense
And blind enough to say
That any extraordinary experience,
Which ordinary language
And scientific formulas
Cannot convey,
Is illusory.
Professor Dawkins,
My father knew
He was no Pythagoras
And nor are you.




Three Weeks Later

"Something’s come over me," he said.
Three weeks later he was dead.
"I don’t believe in anything," he said.
Three weeks later he was dead.
"I don’t want to do anything," he said.
Three weeks later he was dead.
"I don’t think anything matters," he said.
Three weeks later he was dead.
"You think things matter," he said
And I paused and scratched my head.
"Most of the things that we think matter," I replied
Just three weeks before he died
"Don’t matter in the least," I sighed
Just three weeks before he died.
"But some things matter," I replied
Just three weeks before he died.
"And there is never nothing," I replied
Just three weeks before he died
"There is always something," I replied
Just three weeks before he died
"So I believe in something," I sighed
Just three weeks before he died
"Even if I don’t know what that something is," I said.
Three weeks later he was dead.
"Yes," he said. "There’s always that."
And that concluded our little chat
And I like to think that discourse gave
Something he took with him to the grave.


© Geoff Davis 2003




We Lie

Beyond our network
Of family and longstanding friends
We are strangers, all;
Prone to swift judgement
We build a wall
Beyond our comfort and our space
And closing up, we fall
Back into the land of labels
Where she’s too frumpy or too brassy,
Much too common or too classy:
He’s an arsehole or a prick,
His accent tells us all he’s thick.
And the terror of the situation
Is
We lie,
Impartial judgement can’t apply.




Personal Development Portfolio

There are neighbours
Who are kind
And there are Public Service procedures
Which are blind.
There is giving
Which responds to need
And there is accounting and administration
Which follows an entirely different creed.
There is sensing
And there is active feeling
And there is automatic reaction and behaviour
Which is sadly revealing.
Intuition and innate sensitivity,
You know,
Doesn’t always come with
A Personal Development Portfolio.

© Geoff Davis 2003




Dear Father (After Your Passing On March 5th 2003)

Despite my grief, bereavement and my pain,
And how your passing left me so distressed,
Perhaps in passing when you did, dear father,
You were blessed.

And although I miss your ego-less humility,
Now you’ve shuffled off this mortal coil,
You never witnessed the killing that had no connection
With oil.

You were spared the horrors on the TV screen,
The splintered skull with brains poured out
And Iraqi children discovering there were limbs
They were without.

You were too sensitive, too kind for such a time,
Your keen intelligence never drove you where
Your ambition and "integrity" almost forced you
Not to care.

And driven are those men who authorised
The use of force to deal with Iraq
Who dared to trade its oil in Euros. "Impertinent!
Attack!"

"Weapons of mass destruction." " Sexed up dossiers!"
You never used such hyperbolic terms.
You lived for painting and the garden that you shared
With worms.

And now another man of simple dignity, like you,
A scientist almost thirty years your junior, has died
Because we do not value the sacrifice of vanity
And pride.

Nearly forty years ago, dear father, you wrote a play
In which there were no actors playing any dark games.
We children then, perhaps, were sheltered from their cruelties
And aims.

No more.


 Geoff Davis © 2003




They Brought Me Up My Mum And Dad
 
They brought me up my mum and dad
And really did the best they could
And whatever faults they had
My ego never understood.

They brought me up my mum and dad
And rooted for me everywhere
And in essence I was glad
At what would be intrinsic there.

So did they fuck me up? Well, no.
They helped me see another side
Away from all the crap on show
Which nowadays is deified.

They brought me up my mum and dad
With home made jam and works of art
And all the books and games I had
Played such a joyous, crucial part.




Brief Sketch

He was fascinated by the weather
And Victorian illustrations,
"Phiz " and lenticular clouds;
Indifferent to status and expectations
Or the coming together
Of warring crowds
While his eyes were betraying
A colossal indifference
To spin and global brands,
And offering a healthy irreverence
Which seemed to be saying:
"Asinine demands!"

Geoff Davis © 2003




Essence

Our essence is who we are.
Our essence is the seat of the unconscious,
A creature sometimes needing to be tamed
But never rationalised.
I remember the old man speaking candidly,
Unashamed,
Unable, and unwilling to hide.
Acquired aspects of personality
Had loosened their grip,
Freeing him almost of false pride.




Nice View Of Spaniorum

"Nice view of Spaniorum today,"
He’d say.
Now, beyond the hills and trees
He sees
The promise of something new
Ensue.




They Think You’re Stupid If You’re Old

They think you’re stupid if you’re old.
It’s the gammy leg and frailty,
You see?
They think you’re stupid if you’re old.
How can their world, so out of date,
Relate?
They think you’re stupid if you’re old.
She’s reading Buddenbrooks? My God!
How odd!

Geoff Davis © 2003




The Enemies Of God

All those who kill
While proclaiming they do God’s will
These are the enemies of God.

Some profess religious faith and yet
These Western leaders soon forget
That cluster bombs will maim and kill
But still proclaim it as God’s will
These are the enemies of God.

And all those fools who beat the drum
For suicide and martyrdom
They really pay a heavy price
And enter hell not paradise
These are the enemies of God.

Those whose arrogance will not see
Bulldozing homes as cruelty
And then endorsing murder, they
Will justify the sad melee
These are the enemies of God.

And those pretending it divine
To lay a new oil pipeline
Through the Caucasus or Afghanistan,
Such men are hardly nobler than
The enemies of God.

Contemporary man is poor at seeing
The measure and the worth of Being
Where Conscience speaks unsullied by
The necessity to justify
For Conscience is Presence, is Divine Will
And Conscience, it can never kill
And this a Truth which may seem odd
To the enemies of God.

My father
Was the enemy of no one.

Geoff Davis © 2003

 


Dear Tony

Dear Tony
You really should have understood
That whereas Irwin Stelzer will always be more wealthy,
"Well-connected" and "influential"
Than my daddy ever was
He will never be as good.
And then, we have Think Tanks that attract
The pompous and self-important, but
In terms of the stature of their Being
They all come from Liliput
That’s what my daddy used to say.
I believed him.
And I still do.




Once I Was Weak And He Was Strong

Once I was weak and he was strong
Then I was strong and he was weak.
We drifted unobtrusively along
As time was altering each physique.

His warm protective hand held mine
And then my own would comfort his.
The flesh is always subject to decline
And what once was no longer is.

Geoff Davis © 2004



 
Tired Of Clichés

I am tired of clichés,
Of being asked to walk that extra mile
In the world of corporate silliness
Where any sense of real perspective
Is lost.
I will walk that extra mile for my mother.
I tried to walk that extra mile for my father
And I cannot be unduly concerned
About the cost
To my pocket or to "status".
I do not wish to play the game
In which the criteria for promotion
Is questionable at best
And is laughable at worst.
I am "highly motivated",
With all the obligatory zeal and zest,
When it comes to helping
My own flesh and blood.
"The pursuit of excellence"
Has to be sensed and felt
And consistent with a real aim
Which comes from within,
Organic, true to whatever hand
That destiny has dealt.




Cult Of Celebrity

Several months before he died
I asked dad if he knew who David Beckham was.
"Is he a tennis player?" he replied.
I think he deserved a medal for that.
His indifference to the cult of celebrity
Was not an affectation,
It was complete.
Any sort of undue adulation
Left him bewildered and bemused,
The thought of being famous anathema,
Its appeal something
That he could never understand,
A promised land
That he never wished to meet.

Geoff Davis © 2004




We Are Blighted

We are blighted
By our inability to adapt,
Our inability to accept frustrations
As an inevitable consequence of living,
Our inability to empathise
In crucial situations
Which demand rather more
Than just a token "giving".
We are blighted
By our inability to moderate
Our expectations,
Our inability to see the wonder
In what is superficially mundane
Until the experience of suffering
Helps us to perceive
A little more objectively
Again.




We Can Afford

We can afford useless gadgets and consultants’ fees
Fat cat pay offs and inflated salaries,
The squandering of our emotional and mental energies
On worthless crappy superficialities.
And the elderly? Well, the financial burden there
Is such that we cannot afford to care.
We can afford all the wastage from murdered trees
And leaflets offering credit facilities,
The obscene enormities of legal fees
And costly commercials that everyone sees.
And the elderly? Well, the financial burden there
Is such that we cannot afford to care.
We can afford to pay millions to those luminaries
Who continue to grace the screens of TVs
With their presence and smiles and endearing qualities
Which merit more zeroes on their salaries.
And the elderly? Well, the financial burden there
Is such that we cannot afford to care.

Geoff Davis © 2004




There Is A Gentleness

There is a gentleness
Which is neither soft nor sweet
But emanates from strength.

There is a gentleness
Which stills the storms and violence,
The anger and the lashing out,
The search for scapegoats and excuses.
And when the all familiar folly
Shapes to repeat

There is a gentleness
Which silences the neurotic
And silences the lout.
Even if in some strange context
They both can have their uses.

There is a gentleness
Which works from inner silence,
Soothing and hypnotic,
The inner chattering falls away
And then

There is a gentleness
Which is reflective in the face of loss,
Allows a real Conscience
To speak.
It is only when violence and frustration
Come into play
Again
That I should ask myself
"Why am I so weak?"

© Geoff Davis 2004


 

Girl With a Pearl Earring

Girl with a pearl earring
Mum and I watched the movie on DVD
And how we’d wished that dad had been here,
With his extensive knowledge of Art History,
To feed the interest we were discovering
In the life of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer -
Evoking memories of a funeral
When dad was gazing out over the cemetery.
"Think of all the knowledge that these people had."
He said. "Is it really lost for all eternity?"
And reflection soothes the unbearable
With hope discovered in something sad.

© Geoff Davis 2004

  


The Morning After Kennedy Was Assassinated

The morning after Kennedy was assassinated
I was playing football with other nine-year-olds
On the patch of grass between Gilslake and Okebourne
And not knowing how to feel somehow,
Sensing the impact on the grown-up world.
Words like "shock" and  "devastated"
Were ringing in my ears from the news bulletins
Broadcast on the radio and TV.
Mum and dad were younger then,
Younger then than I am now.

And now, over forty years later
How strange that I’ve returned
To the scene of my formative years
To be a carer to my mum
Just a few weeks after dad had passed away.
It is just over three hundred yards
From mum’s house to my flat.
I walk it several times a day
And watch as a new generation appears
And still the children play
On the same patch of grass
Although several trees have grown there now
And the girls join in the football
And do keepie-uppies just as we used to.
These children turn cartwheels,
Ride push- bikes, play cards
A long way from shock and devastation
And to be a witness gives me hope.

©  Geoff Davis 2004
  



Received Wisdom

While weird mystic cults
Engage in the satanic practises
Of cookery, gardening, pottery and art
Catholic politicians tell the truth
With sincerity, integrity and heart.

The mystic-philosopher
Brainwashes his victims into rejecting violence,
Forcing disassociation from the brute
And the ethically faultless tabloid press
Will warn of the dangers of that route.

So desert your meditation practices!
And play computer games instead!
The received wisdom that you hear
In the lounge bar of each pub
Is so much better for your head.




Just After Mum Had Had A Stroke

Where has that voice and smile gone?
The delight at Stephen Gerrard scoring
Or hearing a Joni Mitchell song like
Marcie or Both Sides Now?
She is old, I know, but how unkind
That such a sudden fall should take away
The speech which she relied upon
At a stroke.

Clearly visible, behind
The near fruitless efforts to communicate,
Is the fierce intelligence I knew last week,
The sum total of ninety years of life.
The years of cooking recipes and tending roses,
Of reading Thomas Mann and Herman Hesse,
Of being a mother and a wife
Who always cared and showed an interest
And was obsessed with never being late!
Already I miss her voice
And the woman that she was
And will never be again
Or so the pessimist in me supposes.

It is a son's duty to honour and cherish his mother
So Gurdjieff reminded us.
Well, I felt a sense of obligation
And I have tried, I have tried
I had no other choice.




State Sanctioned Theft

Deprived of the pleasure of eating and drinking
(She cannot swallow, she cannot chew)
And deprived of speech she cannot talk.
She has right-side paralysis
So she cannot sit up and she cannot walk,
Doubly incontinent, bed-ridden, weak
Now here is the cruelty which will set you thinking:
Her primary needs are not health care related!
I wish I could say her case was unique
But Governments and managers are criteria led
With little plain English communicated
And anyway, the infirm elderly will soon be dead
So what matters a home, what matters the law
What matters the ruling in a High Court Appeal?
 My mother is stable, predictable you see
So that Social Care is all it could be
And that could authorise the state santioned theft
Of a home, by God, they will struggle to steal!

© Geoff Davis   2007