Well, here we are in December, and not a very happy world right now.
Let’s hope we can draw a little strength from poetry.

   Creation myths seem to come second to birds in popularity on Keep Poems Alive. This one is our third and they are all very different. Slightly creepy this one perhaps, which our Spider poem is not: it’s about intricacy in a piece of music.

   The other three poems are about people in couples. Separate or together? You decide. This week’s poets are P. C. Vandall, Chris Jackson, Alice Major, Rachel Bentham and David J. Costello.

   Hopefully you’ll keep sending your favourite previously published poems and keep sharing the posts, so that as many people as possible can continue to enjoy all these poems.

 

 

P.C.Vandall
What’s Between Us

What’s between us is this space, dark
matter that makes up billions
of particles…

Source: Keep Poems Alive International

(one week on from 13^th November 2015)

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if

whilst idly turning pages

in an anthology

absorbing titles and maybe

the shape of a poem,

though not the essence

or its density or detail,

or if,

whilst wandering through a gallery

gazing at the small print beside paintings –

the name, the date,

and passing the frame

with only the vaguest impression of colour,

blasted by the hurry of our own small needs,

but leaving behind

points of light, the point

of those magical brushstrokes,

wouldn’t it be wonderful if

we might come to understand

what it truly is

to be human, the complexities

and, perhaps, how we owe it to ourselves

to pause, to delve a little, to learn,

like now, thinking about

the world

and all its rage

and titles that say something

but are only a small indication of the whole

inclining us…

When people use fund-raising and donations,

As ways to pacify their rising guilt.

When trafficking destroys a generation,

And shelters are unfunded and unbuilt.

When children under ten are mutilated

For sinful natures they do not possess.

When bodies are both lusted for and hated,

And violence is blamed on how she’s dressed.

..

When healthcare is denied to those who need it,

And twisted morals fuel indignities.

When foul abuse remains an open secret

And all of us display complicity.

When shame is used to drown dissenting voices,

And threats of death are served to those who speak.

When we are all denounced for all our choices,

Deriding and defamed for being weak.

..

When half of us are crying out for freedom,

And rape is just another act of war.

How can we say that we’re all truly equal?

The damage runs too deep to be ignored.

When…

We are
concerned, of course,
mortified even, but
we wouldn’t want them near us as
things stand.