HALLOWE'EN FUN

Here's a bit of macabre fun for Hallowe'en in the form of a plea for more compassion towards that much-maligned social group, the Undead.

 










ZOMBIEPHOBIA     

Others, they call us The Undead
and everywhere we go, they flee;
if trapped, they shoot us in the head;
they simply cannot let us be.

For we can’t help the way we are:
with rotting skin and clothes not fresh.
It’s hardly our fault if we all
enjoy the taste of human flesh

and clump around on shaky legs
or claw at people that we meet,
so you should not discriminate
and keep your distance in the street.

We tore the postman limb from limb?
Hands up, we did that: a mistake.
But these things happen, life’s not fair.
We only kill when we’re awake.

So what, if we smell of the grave?
Most days we are polite and good.
We are not the repulsive bunch
portrayed on screen by Hollywood.

Okay, we ate your mum and dad,
and maybe others, quite a few,
but you must make allowances
for Zombie folk are people too.

Compassionate society
should make us welcome and be fair,
enjoy diversity, be cool.
Embrace a Zombie, show you care.

THE YOUNG ONES

If anything is likely to make one feel old it's to blunder into the midst of a group of enthusiastic young people on a festive day.

SUMMER WEDDING

A wedding party gathers on the steps
that lead up to a sombre roadside church,
the guests resplendent in eye-catching style.
They’re mostly young
so swathes of tattooed skin predominate 
this sunny, summer day.
The girls, all young, in ostentatious hats,
resemble flocks of strange, exotic birds
while the young men, a dozen strong,
parade in tight, flamboyant suits  
and look like cheeky gangsters on the razz.
The air feels charged with energy and youth
and who’d begrudge them this euphoric day?
Come on, I say, 
and firmly take your arm.
Invisible and old, we hurry by.

STILL CRAZY ...

To meet, to know, to love and then to part, is the sad tale of many a heart. 
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

CHANCE MEETING

He takes her hand, then suddenly,
impulsively, embraces her.
Unchanged! 
He stands tongue-tied
while old familiar feelings stir
and she, acutely conscious
that she only dressed to shop
feels suddenly complete again
and prays that time might stop.

Still Crazy (after all these years) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo1naJEacE8

A GOOD INNINGS

Cricket to us was more than play, It was worship in the summer sun. 
Edmund Blunden

The late Edmund Blunden was one of the First World War poets and is among those commemorated in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey. 
Passionate about cricket, Blunden was the author of Cricket Country, the tale of a man whose interest in the game was, in the words of one critic, "fanatical".
In his review of Cricket Country, George Orwell referred to Blunden as "the true cricketer", and went on to say that the test of a true cricketer is that he prefers village cricket to 'good' cricket, that his fondest memories are of the informal village game, where everyone plays in braces, where the blacksmith is liable to be called away in mid-innings on an urgent job, and sometimes, about the time when the light begins to fail, a ball driven for four kills a rabbit on the boundary. 

THE CRICKETERS

A makeshift platform in a cherry tree
afforded views beyond the garden wall
and far off in the distance I could see
some cricketers, with pads and bats and ball,
at play, all shining white. 
A stirring scene
with radiant figures on a field of green
which, to the naive child that I was then,
spoke of a wider world, somehow more true,
inhabited by dashing, fearless men:
a braver, wider world than that I knew.

OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS

Creative writing and the imagination allow us to explore other worlds, other lives, that might have been ours had we followed a different path.

THE ROOM

The room is furnished just enough
to qualify as furnished: a bed, a table,
chairs that look the worse for wear;
but it’s affordable and so I say
I’ll take it and hand over cash.
She nods and, with a downward glance,
leaves me to settle in.
I sit down on the threadbare bed
and study patterns on the wall,
the paper faded and forlorn,
the picture of a weeping clown
and, by the door, a pitted mirror.
The window faces to a street,
with graffiti and shuttered shops
and nothing, dog or cat or man,
is there as evidence of life.
Quite suddenly the walls encroach
and all the ghosts of tenants past:
the failed, afraid or just plain old,
assail me and the room feels cold.