From the safety of my shattered glassed bus stop,
I watch him shuffle past, worn shoes,
possibly one inherited black, matches his panda
bear eyes, these days reflecting
nothing more but his own stale scuffled
disappointment and the latest craze
of hitting every crack
in the fractured pavements; dying now
but someone forgot to tell him,
so he keeps shuffling onwards,
panda eyes squinting for a point
and I watch him from the safety
surrounds of broken bus stop glass.
Ian D. Hall 2018
It is a sense of guilt,
a Methodist instruction
or perhaps
a reminder of my own pound of flesh
owed, measured
and found to be in
continuous debt
if I plan some time away,
even from just doing
the pressing down of keys,
there is the voice in my head that whispers,
no, no, no,
you must, you owe your time
to everything else but you, for you,
the voice whispers,
have nothing else to do.
Ian D. Hall 2018
First, they came for the homeless
on Britain’s streets,
because that’s what they do, pick
at the fringes and the easy targets, the vulnerable
and the uncomfortable on the eye,
and you did nothing,
then they come, excited
by the work already done, the first small ticked box
for the disabled and reduce them down
to figures of ridicule and suspicion,
do they really need to be seen,
salivating now, the painted smiles
of ministers as you tore yourselves apart
to say nothing,
I stubbed my toe,
not well enough,
on entering the room,
I noticed it was still smoking.
Ian D. Hall 2018
Just
because
the ground shakes
when the Elephant
trundles past, its trunk swinging
from side to side,
does not mean that the Pachyderm
is responsible
for the Earthquake you feel.
Ian D. Hall 2018
Briefly, several suns light up the horizon
and burn the world, this fragile land
torn by hands, ripped apart
on the consensus of one
behind the black door, no prize,
and as enough money is spent destroying
our souls that would feed
and give shelter to the homeless,
to the child in our schools, food to eat,
nurses the reason to feel valued,
but oh no, not now, not in our name,
we want you to hate today, this phantom trick,
to make you scared, and then the accusations
The wound is healed, new skin
grown and you cannot see
the join, where the ribs were exposed
to the harsh light of the surgeon’s eye
in the centre of his forehead, bones
but no muscles, convulsing, pumping,
in and out, in and out
watered down blood
now coursing through proper veins
and on time, you cannot see the join,
but I can, I still feel the tick
of the open pulse, I see the pain
of open heart surgery before me
and left exposed for a month,
Society’s thoughts on writers are wrong,
and shown to be flawed
when celebration
is seen, waving the Dollar
the pound and the Yen
around like confetti
at a bride’s sixth wedding,
when a letter in an author’s handwriting
is sold
at auction
for more money than society
allowed him to live on
as he began to close his eyes.
Ian D. Hall 2018
Some people will slit their tongue
in half
to prove that they have something to say,
that they can be different, entertaining,
shock value
express, a picture in which they defy
even the unconventional
and the actively irregular, slit tongue,
twice the lies, double the truth
with saliva dripping forked tongue.
Some will manage this feat
without even resorting to surgery.
Ian D. Hall 2018
I would call you shallow
but I fear
You would think
it was
a compliment
and that you
would try to walk
on water.
Ian D. Hall 2018