Life, Society

The Porcelain Doll

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On the midnight train watching the world pass by;

You’re a porcelain doll sitting opposite,

Subtly, dolled up to the nines,

With eyes vaguely blood shot,

Shedding tears of sadness,

For a loved one no doubt,

Trying your best to wipe them away on your sleeve,

Yet they just won’t stem the flow,

A kindly black lady beside me offers up a entire pack of tissues,

And, you accept it with a graceful ‘Thank you’,

Managing a embarrassed smile somehow;

We may not be a homogeneous whole (if we ever were),

We are though part of a collegiate,

Of common courtesy,

To observe from a distance and not overly pry,

And, I’m proud to call it my second home:

London town.

Life, Society

While David Battles Goliath!

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A spine of steal,

Beneath a mummer’s face,

Shrewd, wiley and full of cunning;

Observant and perceptive;

Singularly, self-serving;

Topped by an unshakeable self-belief,

All, qualities, aspired for and shared,

By schizophrenics, leaders of industry and celebrity alike;

While mad David battles Goliath,

What is the bystander who shares none of these qualities to do?

Dodge the stones and swings thrown askance,

Guard your modest flock and home,

Take comfort from the simple pleasures others tend to overlook:

Like watching the sun rise and fall in changing hues,

Casting reflections on a tepid stream that abuts your home,

Taking modest sips to quench the thirst of you and yours,

Ensuring you’ll have enough to sustain you today and  tomorrow,

And, hope and pray that others further up the stream do the same,

Appreciating the gospel truth:

By the grace of God, be I and mine;

For horror and suffering are bottomless pits,

And I must tend my flock as best as I can with what I have,

Until I take the final bow from this minor re-occurring role at the theatre of life.

Beauty, Life

Pain into Art!

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Absorb the unrelenting pain,

Whatever the cause;

The challenges it brings,

Consider and reflect;

Distil it,

To see what few others can;

Let it become an obsession,

Take great pains to turn it into something beautiful,

For, the best artistic endeavours are labours of love;

Pain is an inevitable part of both loving and living;

Mastering a source of unrelenting pain,

Beckoning creativity from it,

To transform into something breathtakingly beautiful,

Is another reason they call the end product,

Done well:

A ‘masterpiece’!

Courage, Loss

Bended Knees

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From the moment you could stand,

A torrent of elemental forces have been eclipsed by you,

Resenting your audacity to defy their influence,

Every effort has been made to force you into submission;

Playing with your life like a casual pastime,

Rejoicing at your struggles as if they were a satisfying result by design;

Although your impact on them is marginal,

They remain determined- simply, because:

The manner of your existence has sought to rise above your station, and emerge nominally into theirs;

Wherein, from your perspective:

Tortured fables berate and assail ;

Like rapids over jagged stone,

Worn down to smooth pebble,

As the journey slowly creeps forward,

Crawling on bended knees:

Over barbs and broken glass of every description;

On scuffed knees and trailing blood-soaked,

Before the altar of hope;

Until health deteriorates,

Morale fragments,

Haunting you with doubt,

As you reach nearer the doors,

Will you be un-bent and undefeated,

Or a total spent force?

Counting the minutes in anticipation,

Bearing criss-cross scars,

Near-crippled,

Nursing open wounds, and more besides,

Both within and without;

Then stand-up on painful broken, deformed limbs,

No matter how pathetically,

And scream your defiance at your maker,

Or, whoever stands behind those pearly doors,

Your would-be-torturer-by-proxy,

And, decry:

‘You have taken everything from me i’ve ever had,’

‘Done your worst and then some,’

‘But, here. I. Still. Stand.’

‘Do your worse,’

‘For I have long passed caring’,

As you have become numb to all feeling, save one:

Revenge.

Life, Society

Human Tides

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Blood lettings in the distance drawing near,

Preceded by an almighty sandstorm;

Many flee in its wake,

Some wait it out,

Fewer still seek it out;

No matter who, no man chooses misery for him and his, if he can help it;

Desperate inhabitants of an oasis amidst a frightening, unending, sandstorm,

Risking all in pursuit of sanctuary,

While rulers far and wide fuel the winds of chaos this way and that,

Few will offer water to quench the searing thirst of the dispossessed,

Even in the lands of plenty,

For chaos is evidently cheaper to fuel than salvation is,

When the mother of democracy has birthed a generation of stillborn leaders,

Nurturing inaction, if not yet full indifference to this exodus;

We might as well be ruled by stone mannequins!

Courage, Society, War

Patience & Experience

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Patience and experience,

Can you have one without the other?

Or, before you have the former, must you have a proper grasp of the latter?

Like receiving a savage beating to the head and torso:

Bearing through the pain;

While being beaten to within a whisker of meeting your maker;

And, even faced with wave upon wave of unbearable pain:

Managing to break out into a blood-smeared, broken-toothed, savage grin,

It does not make it any less painful y’see,

But it does give you perspective to abide and hope by,

To put away the hollow helplessness of before,

And mock your attacker with defiance,

To do their worst!

For, this is not the first beating you have endured,

And, though the experience left you near crippled,

You – even, now, in this present extremity – recall:

It hurt far more the first time round!

Perhaps it’s the onset of delirium and madness mixed with concussion,

But, if it provides you even the slightest hint of hesitation in your attacker,

A narrow opening:

To launch yourself  at him to rip out his bastard neck, and taste his life force ebb and flow away from him,

As he had taken great pleasure in leisurely shattering yours moments earlier;

Tables turn on occasion,

And, it is experience that allows you to judge when to time your counter-strike ;

Whereas, without patience, you would  never have reached that opportune moment at all.

Life, Society

A Fool’s Errand

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Plenty have tried,

Few have succeeded, they say;

‘Cause, you can’t change people,

You’ll be a fool to try;

I wonder:

How are we all still here, then?

It can’t just be coincidence, surely!

Perhaps, it’s influencing the habits;

Linking need to goals;

For, people ultimately change only if they chose to,

All you can do meanwhile, is:

Earnestly, advise.

Courage, Life, Society

Forged in Adversity

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Don’t let success go to your head,

Don’t allow failure to do that to you either;

Savage words and deeds will take its toll on saint and sinner alike,

For, the core of all men is forged in adversity,

What’s left behind, none can say for certain;

Only the principles that have guided you throughout,

Will hint at your motivation and character,

For those interested, to casually speculate upon, or not.

Courage, Life, Society

Trojan Horse

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Reborn in a firestorm;

Trapped within the cooled embers,

Shaped into a trojan horse,

Unremarkable to look on,

Learning to observe the minutiae from the interior;

Of all the happenings in the exterior,

Unable to partake and forgotten by the wayside,

Learning the reality of the surroundings within the neglected irrelevance;

Until you’re ready to walk beyond your enclosure,

Like a child’s tentative first steps unaided,

To walk, run, work and play, avoiding the potholes;

Demonstrate the sum total of your observations and experiences,

To add your unique perspective to the mix;

And, yield maximum impact.