Words in Passing.
Words in Passing
By Amfortas
We were not ready.
We were distracted.
Exhausted.
Battle had taken its toll
But the Family survived.
The children played.
Malevolent Smile.
She was Ready.
Definite. Ordered.
The Blue Pencil, poised,
Poisoned,
re-defined the land,
The familiar, the family, the Form.
The first was FAIR, our childhood’s most cherished friend:
Resolver of squabbles, distributor, sharer,
Fair cared for all:
a string of rubies around her doomed, pale and lovely neck.
It was so sad.
They said it was consumption.
All used up, in tatters, shrouded,
she just faded away.
Next to go was that sturdy, quarrelsome EQUALITY, which surprised us all
as he was so in demand, they said,
by all,
especially some;
aye, and relied upon.
For so many years a staunch friend and fighter.
His burial dressage, a white cheesecloth, yoked neck.
Naked beneath,
his scarred skin a testament.
Parchment.
Burned Beyond Recognition.
TRUTH tried hard.
Was Tried. Hard.
Derided, Derrida-ed,
denied existence;
perjured,
Falsely accused,
she struggled
as she was garrotted.
Died hard.
Soon after that, JUSTICE
suicided off a nearby cliff.
Lover’s Leap, a place then
from which many a couple had gazed out,
seeking the broader vista.
Now has Disabled Access.
Was it in despair?
Perhaps sympathy with the others.
No-one saw her silent fall.
Was she pushed?
Who could gain?
Her handmaids will argue for a time and time,
billing Innocence by the hour,
Kept in chains, for gain.
The old, wise man, HONOUR, lost his marbles, they said.
He languished as the village idiot for a while,
The butt of jokes and calumnies.
Taunted.
His body was found in a ditch one day.
Starvation.
They left it there.
The loss of these good companions all
has been followed now
by LIBERTY and FREEDOM,
two noble and leathery old soldiers.
They put on their dress uniforms, immaculate,
faced each other squarely and
blew each other’s brains out.
Such fine shots, both.
They left a note. Signed as written together.
They could no longer support the malignancy of the vile regime,
the note said.
They felt duty-bound to remove themselves
from further abuse,
the note said.
They took DUTY with them.
An Altar was discovered in the woods
On which the charred bones of hermaphrodite TRUST
Were found,
Sacrificed to Narcissus, elevated to the Pantheon.
Tears flowed down Olympus’ stony sides.
Even God cries.
After, there was Laughter, Music, Whine.
High pitched.
So much fun.
The departed were only words
After all.
Oppressive words.
Now dead.
Like Fathers.
Dead, white males.
What, three were maids?
So? Whatever, said the wenches.
No one noticed LOVE fall to her knees.
Her calls for help were drowned by song.
Trampled to death under dancing feet.
The last to succumb.
Four.
The surging mob, with popular will,
Tied Democracy’s hands, and,
fattened and degraded on suet foie gras
trotted it to the abattoir.
The Impostor was on the scene quickly.
Ready, Definite.
Re-defined.
By Order. She said.
Scripted.
The Princess of Lies rides
over barren lands.
Long hair her spider-silk, chain-mail
down her back.
Across her breast,
Over her steed’s flank.
Hooves on skulls.
The children gabble and cry.
No words
describe
their pain.
They were
FORBIDDEN.
Eloquently put. Perhaps this could be posted on the offices of the offenders…. I’ll have a go at doing that….
Comment by noconfidence — Wed 11th November 2009 @ 11:13 am
BE-AU-TI-FUL!!!
Comment by julie — Wed 11th November 2009 @ 8:14 pm
Thank you both. Feel free to use it as you deem fit.
And now…(drum roll)… in another sad attempt to export culture from Tasmoania to our cousins in New Zealand, another one.
(Seriously though)
A Life Observed.
By Amfortas
If a life is lived and no-one noticed
Was it lived a way at all.
If a life is lived and someone noticed
Was is fondly, did it appal.
If a life is lived and no-one loved it
Was it worth a ping-pong ball.
If a life is lived and someone loved it
Was it that someone-else’s call.
If a life is lived and someone casts it
Was it honoured in the fall.
If my life’s from you divided
Who will write upon this wall.
(Note, someone has taken exception to the ping-pong ball -presumably because it lacks ‘gravitas’, but ‘basketball’ is a bit too ‘large’ don’t you think? Anyway, feel free to substitute another line if you wish. I am a lousy poet without shame !)
Comment by amfortas — Wed 11th November 2009 @ 10:58 pm
Good stuff Amfortas,
If you wish to amend the ping-pong line, what occurs to me is:-
If a life is lived and no-one loved it
Who shall stand and bear the pall?
(Just an idea – if a life is lived – it is over, and if no-one loved it, what of the send off – the funeral, did anyone care?)
Comment by glenn — Thu 12th November 2009 @ 9:31 am
Nice one Glenn.
Comment by amfortas — Fri 13th November 2009 @ 8:53 pm
By the way, I wrote because I feel that my life is over. I will leave it wondering. I have been loved by some people but my beloved daughter does not love me. She is estranged. PAS. I miss her terribly. It is like a black hole consuming me.
I always wanted a daughter, from well before she was born. I waited years. I adored her and we were great together when she was a little girl. She was just the Best child. But there are years and years of her experiences missing from my heart. Half a lifetime.
My attempts to reunite have been rebuffed, often with cruelty. But to me she can do no wrong enough to cause my love for her to diminish one iota. I forgive her. I can do no differently. But the pain is intense.
Comment by amfortas — Fri 13th November 2009 @ 9:07 pm
I remember 2009, clearly.
But I wasn’t reading here, then.
But I had protested, once.
#6 is sad.
How could nobody, see that was sad.
That we allow, such things to happen.
Is that not, a victim impact statement.
For sometimes petty things.
Victims say there lives are destroyed.
And justice demands it’s punishment.
My guess is this man got little.
Of justice.
For his sadness.
Comment by DJ Ward — Tue 27th July 2021 @ 7:11 pm