Monday, 5 June 2017

Hand-made

Fingers once strong and sturdy
now gnarled and twisted
by an age of manual labour.
His hand-made livelihood lies disabled

© Sheila Ash, 5th June 2017

Friday, 2 June 2017

Trump’s up

Come on children learn Trump’s song
here’s the chorus you can sing along
it’s easy to learn, here’s how it goes
not a lot of thought but a lot of holes

step on out before we step back in
to a different tune
the one we want to sing
grab a balloon and burst the bubble
shout out loud, cause lots of trouble.

Against the world he stands so smug
undoing all that Obama done
jibing his finger at the air
America First
his mantra and prayer

The playground bullyboy’s at large
coded up for the final charge
was it a push, was it jostle
at G7 meeting in Brussels?
shoving Montenegro out of the way
positioning best for photo-op of the day.

alone he struts from plane to plane
pulled by an unseen Russian chain
He doesn’t see the melting caps
he doesn’t see the social gaps
all he sees are the dollar signs
party sponsors standing in line
All he sees is the contribution flood
not the fossil fuel lobby drench in blood
last ditch attempts to keep their kingdoms
black gold and working class opinions
dirty jobs over clean renewables
leading the way to the world’s funeral

He can’t converse with those around,
he’s pictured sulking as they drive around
the Gulf is widening day by day
twixt him and her the gossips say.

Now world leaders turn on him
for he’s committed a fateful sin
Nicaragua , Syria the only other two
not signed up for Planet Blue

Macron says it’s a big mistake
it’s not the world we want to make
to leave our children a world of hate
fuelled by migrations, wars and shortages
slipping and sliding into service outages,
continued austerity, political circuses.

Extending out the hand of Fraternité
climate changers ‘come to France’ to stay
work with those who won’t give up
help the world in the big cleanup.

© Sheila Ash 2nd June 2017

Two pieces about Home

1.

These arms always strive to seek those faraway others
on this day like so many, they sway out of reach in the breeze
two singularities adrift in the cosmos
the unseen umbilical intact but stretched and stretching
the world continually conspiring to break the bond
these arms ache to keep

© Sheila Ash 2nd June 2017

2.

Home, that incongruous, transitory state of fixedness within the chaos of continual movement
where the heart is
the point of all returns
that place of peace
where the body rests for a moment
before moving on
relentlessly searching
for what? home?

Its physical manifestation - paid for bricks and mortar
grants permission to feel grounded in a place
to be rooted.
A true north island in the ever changing sea of life
flinging you this way and that
bombarding you with no-choice choices
manoeuvring you as part of some grand strategy
orchestrated by unseen hands of unheard of Masters.
The economic pawn sacrificed at the altar of the High Knight rests unsatisfied.

I grew out of and away from childhood homes
the warm security of loving parental enclosures
safeguarding
yet restricting, limiting.
Nonetheless if asked to paint a picture of home
it may well be one of mum and dad around the fire
my comfortable, cosy bed, its thick feather quilt
holding back the night,
thwarting the cold and the ghosts of dreamland’s darkness.

But there’s a call, a song
heard under every star, every constellation
across foreign lands of settled scores
The magnetism that cannot be ignored
reaches my far-flung shore
enticing this émigré to cross oceans
dragging me across dodgy dominions
as irresistible as the allure of winged sirens
beckoning all homeward for the new day.

© Sheila Ash 2nd June 2017