Spread poetry, not fear

and Antoine Cassar, the guy from Malta who started it.

And I will also do my bit of sharing poetry, so here it is:

Spring has come

Spring has finally arrived

and it is a glorious sunny morning

over winter

some turned to begging or turning tricks

and many became  homeless

people are starving and a lot of them will not see the end of spring

because they failed to upgrade the selected few

from stinking rich to XXX  filthy rich

(or however these graded quantifiers go) 

ambulances came rushing to the scene

but turned away in disgust when they saw it was only a middle aged tramp

who used to be a middle aged middle class father not so long ago

he was left in the middle of the street to have his epileptic fit

without a thought whether he will live or die

during his fit he hoped that he might actually die this time

‘cos he just can’t take it any more

his life turned around on January the first

when he came to work only to find out nothing was there for him

and nobody looked or turned around as he left the factory

nobody even nodded or spoke a word

because everybody who stayed was just glad it wasn’t him that had to leave

‘cos let’s face it - one in two are high odds when facing redundancy

at the end of the month his car was repossessed

and by February the twelfth he was thrown out of his small semi-detached

onto the exceptionally cold February streets

where he tried to build a cardboard shelter for his wife and 2 children

the elder, a daughter of nine,

the younger, a son of two - conceived during a rare optimistic summer night

 at the very beginning of what turned out

to be a much greater and longer recession

than anybody anticipated

by mid March he lost his two year old son who was suffering

from what at first appeared to be common sniffles

but soon turned into full-blown pneumonia

as the young child could no longer take the daytime frost

and the ice at night that slowly captured his shallow breaths

even though they took him to the hospital frequently

they were never allowed past the front doors

without a major credit card to swipe the door open

on the day the boy died

- it was a cold March the seventeenth

with a splash of shy sun thrown in  -

his wife walked away and took their daughter with her

he assumed and hoped she went to live with Frank

who always wanted to jump in bed with her

and who was one of the few to still hold down a job

and one of the even fewer to receive a salary

well - at least on most months

two days later

the only friend who still remained

crossed the road

to avoid him and his sad life

it was clear from his face

that he was afraid he might catch the bad vibe

spring has finally arrived

and it is a glorious sunny morning

as I take a cup of tea

to the grey haired Romanian musician

who lives in the car across the street.  

(April, 2013)


and to end on a high note, one of my rare optimistic ones

green haiku

rolling in the grass
rolling in the green green grass
rolling with you, love

(February 2011)