On The Joy Of Dog

I did not understand that there was joy
In long wet miles and freezing icy air,
In endless throwing of some half chewed toy,
Or combing seeds and burrs from matted hair.
I could not know in all my life before,
The joy of morning greeting, the renewal.
That poem of deep, unspoken love which more
Than any mere aubade can fuel
Such fire as keeps a love alight,
Sans jealousy or meanness or suspicion.
A flame that burns not with desire;
Nor yearning for a meeting of two minds,
Is never satisfied but by imagination,
But simply re-establishes, confirms
In gentle nuzzling, or in wild excess
Of bouncing, heart-felt, crazy tenderness,
A bond of love that binds without condition.

To A New Recruit

Do you really think that God
requires an imbecile like you
to prove that He is "greater?"
Can't you recognise the Devil
and his message of corruption
when he whispers in your heart
and tells you what to do?
Do you really think that God
would trust a coward and a traitor?
Don't you recognise the devil?
Shall I make an introduction?
Mr Iblis, meet a moron,
up till now he's been a fan,
just a passive spectator
but today he has decided 
that he really loves destruction
and his tiny brain cannot contain
such basic information
as the rather simple notion
that we instill in our children:
good's superior to evil.
So he's ripe for your seduction.
He has come to join Isil
your most recent, vile invention
and he won't put off till later
what he wants to do today.
For his cretinous affection
for your habits, is his affliction,
and he's pious in his action
and his manner of devotion
though he knows not who you are,
believing you are God,
The Divine and the Creator,
yet believes himself to be
the great adjudicator
quite capable of choosing
who should live and who should die.
And he wishes to impress you
with his ignorant intention
as he blows the world apart
shouting Allahu Akbar.

On The Day After Islamic Terrorists Slaughter Civilians In Paris

On this day of making cider in the kitchen,
Of crushing apples in the hired press;
On this day of standing chopping, bashing, squashing;
This day of pulverising flesh;
This day of my transforming
What the passing of three seasons
Had created, whole and perfect, 
Into something broken, smashed, where stress
And weight and force and pressure
Were applied, and where corruption
Will be encouraged: this day of turning more to less;
On this day of life revolving
Round this simple, homely task -
Let me remember 
Those souls who now are passing
From this life into the next,
On this fourteenth of November,
And let me ask:
Why should we weep and sing the Hostias
For fellow men, who yesterday, perhaps,
Were standing, laughing, joking in the kitchen;
Why tolerate this dereliction
This insanity that passes for religion,
This turning what is lovely, whole and perfect
Created through the passing of each season,
Our life and liberty and reason,
Into a pint of piss?

Five Minutes in a Scunny Carpark, on a Wet November Evening, Trying to Think Profound Thoughts, before writing a Rondeau Redouble.

I sit in blackness and I seem to stare
But yet see solely with my inner eye
And flit about in search of something rare:
The place where thoughts with greater meaning lie,
Waiting for a chance encounter with a butterfly.
I sit in solitude and do not care
I'll find some bright, new flower if I try,
I sit in blackness and I seem to stare
Eluded by this blossom small and fair.
I touch on things which do not multiply,
On war and peace and even upon prayer.
But yet see solely with my inner eye
And inexperienced find only "why?"
No sophisticated daisy chain leads where
Philosophy brings clarity, I sigh
And flit about in search of something rare
A random Googling for something to declare
Unique, original, my own which will defy
All counter argument.  Instead I find I share
The place where thoughts with greater meaning lie
With stupid pigs, which come out of their sty
To drag in trivia and to layer
It in between the flowers; and that they satisfy.
I'm a mental Mail Online; I am despair.
I sit in blackness.