It is the greatest lie
that can bestowed upon a child
with drive, ambition
and belief,
that patience is a virtue,
that they should wait for the time
when life is ready for them,
that lack of complaint
is a gift worth pursing
and if it is not meant to be,
then there is nothing
you can do about it.
Rage, fight,
persist, persist, persist,
do not give in
to their defeat,
be bold, persist,
there is no greater lie
than wait,
Keep me from dreaming,
the vision is too much to handle
and I am afraid
of the tears that stain my face
and collect like man-made marbles,
pretty spherical toys that crush
like glass underfoot
the moment I am conscious
and caught staring
into the dazzling day, the moment I exist for real.
Let me sleep if I must
but do not let me dream, do not
let the vivid nature of these spectres
feel free to roam anymore,
for they are ghoulish
The view
from the Sacre Coeur
was worth the agony
of the push
that the three of you
had to give, with panting curses
of the chair’s inability to propel
itself uphill, however
the taxi back down
after lunch and seeing the Eiffel Tower’s
steely resolve, sure made
an excellent ride.
Ian D. Hall 2016
They were caught playing football
on the broken street
of Aleppo, one brief glimpse
of normality taken and destroyed,
imagine if it was here, where boys
in rags and girls in tattered
woollen stocking remains were seen
to smile as they played in the brown,
water filled crater where a mortar bomb
had exploded the night before
in the rain of fire; imagine
if that was on the streets of Bootle,
on the blown apart roads
leading to where a school bell once rang
I
have no
natural inclination
towards
Art,
I love to stare and immerse
myself in the artist’s
mind and feel the flow
of the brush
on canvas;
however
I cannot draw,
keep the palate
still and create,
no The War Bride,
no Death of Nelson
or Mark Wilkinson classic
forth-coming
from these stubby, inadequate
fingers. I try though,
I attempt to paint
in the manner of the great surrealist,
I practice all the time, yet
somehow I cannot
I could hear the sound
of another stilled conversation
beginning despite our closeness
for three quarters
of our lengthy lives;
“You only call me when you are melancholic
these days”, she shuffled the words
off her tongue as if she was slowly
delivering a speech
long prepared, long practised,
yet short of meaning, for I refused
to retort with blind obedience,
“You only call me when you are drunk”.
It was my fault for going sober,
kicking the one thing that brought
our pain together and gave us collateral
She looked at me
with seduction in her eyes,
the rolling pin
clasped firmly in her hands
and the taste of yeast in the air,
hanging desperately in the clouds
of flour-ing current abandon,
“May I interest you in having a good feel
of my rock hard buns?”, she asked
with the faint whisper of suggestion
lavishly drawing themselves
across her ruby red painted lips.
As her eyes fell upon
the packet of crumpets
I held between my thumb
and forefinger,
I vowed,
Lift your Cornish head,
let that Tamar heart, Saltash
spirit, a rememberance
of all that you have mastered
fill your mind, for all
you have spoken in volumes,
in tenderness and all you have taught,
remind you that no matter
what I could achieve,
it pales
into insignificance to
the love in your heart;
may you always be there to guide,
for without that light
I am lost.
Ian D. Hall 2016
Bright morning sunshine,
the day betrays the evening
in which I know
you search for a small glimpse,
the testimony of 89
in amongst the crowd,
to know where your brother was
and I wish I could take that pain away
for you.
We had spent the morning
putting flowers on a grave,
windswept and council unloved,
an old man on a tattered bench
sits and watches as I say a few words
for the underground,
the flowers laid, we bow our heads
They will always murder
an honourable man, or at least
they will try.
They couldn’t get anywhere with making
Him look a fool, dress him up
in the tabloids as a traitor
to the cause, a danger
to the people and yet,
with knife in back, with
the blood pouring from the wounds
caused by his friends and the severing
of ties from his enemies,
the intended murder victim
rises clean and vindicated,
some will cry foul,
some will howl and call it a disaster