Atos Kills (A Sort of Sonnet)

Since I left the UK for Sardinia I've been keeping in touch as best as I can with everything that's going on back home. Few things have touched me, or made me as angry and indignant, as what appears to be happening to very sick and disabled people who are having their benefits taken away as a result of a very crude test by ATOS called the Work Capability Assessment. It astonishes me that very senior politicians like Cameron, Grayling, Osbourne and Duncan Smith are turning their backs on the fact that a large number of people, who have been found fit for work as a result of a WCA test, are dying shortly after the test (something like between 32 and 73 a week depending on what figures you believe.) It's as though these politicians wish to pretend that this tragedy isn't happening. Here's a poem I've written about it:-

Atos Kills (A sort of sonnet)

ATOS kills, or so they say,
The tragedy and distress,
Subterfuge, unholy mess;
It's like a William Shakespeare play.
The laws of decency can't apply
To sufferers of cancer, heart disease
Or schizophrenia, if you please;
Found fit for work and then they die.
"Zero points. Go get a job!
If you die it's hardly worse
Than sponging off the public purse
You weak, pathetic, scrounging slob!
Just think of all the dosh we'll save
While you are resting in your grave."

Geoff Davis © 2012

Opening Stanza from Choruses from "The Rock" by T S Eliot

To date I have been using this blog in order to share my own work but there's something so profound and beautiful about these words of T S Eliot that I felt compelled to share them -


Opening Stanza from Choruses from "The Rock"

The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.

O perpetual revolution of configured stars,

O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,

O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust.

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965),
The Rock (1934)

http://www.wisdomportal.com/Technology/TSEliot-TheRock.html 

Animal Sense

This is a poem, from my smallpress collection Behind The Mask, that a lot of people seemed to like.

 

Che cos'è Dio?

(This is a translation into Italian of my poem What Is God?)


Che cos'è Dio?

Dio è dove
l'ego non ha voce,
dove la Coscienza ha una oggettività
più di una coscienza
culturalmente o religiosamente condizionata,
dove l'umiltà ha confidenza e innocenza e perspicacia
che appartiene a tutti e a nessuno.

Dio è dove
ogni pensiero, sentimento e movimento violento
sparisce in Silenzio,
dove non c'e polemica
nè spiegazione nè analisi.

Dio è dove
le parole e i numeri ballano,
si scambiano i vestiti e i significati
in un Universo che insieme confonde e delizia.

Dio è dove
le etichette che affibbiamo agli altri
e a noi stessi
non hanno valore,
è dove noi persone
stiamo provando a Capire e a Essere
tanto quanto le nostre limitazioni permettono.

Dio è dove
i pensieri che girano in circolo,
e ci tormentano,
rinunciano e ammettono la loro propria impotenza,
dove la reazione è sostituita dalla riflessione.

Dio è dove
il personale e l'astratto,
l'allegorico e l'attuale
si uniscono.

© Geoff Davis. (Translated from the English by the author and M R Selenu)

You Are A Gift

 Three years ago this very day a lovely Italian lady from Sardinia stepped off a plane from Olbia at Bristol Airport and Maria Rita and I met for the first time. It was a meeting that has completely changed the course of my life and something for which I will be eternally grateful. This is a poem I wrote for her a few days ago.

You Are A Gift

You are a gift.

I had resigned myself

to such a gift eluding me

and then I witnessed

a miracle unfold,

an alchemical process

turning base metals into gold.

You are that gold,

it emanates from every pore

and illuminates your face

every time you smile,

every time I catch those eyes

that lighten every burden

real or imagined,

every time I feel humbled

before your generosity.

What have I done

to merit being brought

to such a perfect place?

My expectations did not run

to thinking I could meet

with such a blessing.

How could I ask for more?

© Geoff Davis 2011

   

The Distance Our Reason Has Travelled

We should question the distance
our reason has travelled
when our reason cannot contain
the force and the speed
of negative emotional reaction
afflicting us again and again
with its often cruel expression;
cannot divert its energy
and enable us to feel
more consciously, more objectively.

We should question the distance
our reason has travelled
when our reason may lead
to the smug self-satisfaction
with which we justify our arrogance,
confusing it with clarity,
mistaking passivity for action.
No clear thinking oasis can
arise from the pitiless indifference
of a universe or man
shorn of conscience and compassion.
We can only be intelligent
when we feel what we reason.
I have a long way to travel.
You have a long way to travel.
We have a long way to travel.

Geoff Davis © 2011

Just After Mum Had Had A Stroke

<sup>It's four years ago today that my mother died aged 90. So to honour her memory here's a poem I wrote about her just after she had had the stroke which eventually led to her death.


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.</sup>

© Geoff Davis   2007