DElectable

If I were one, not two or three
I wouldn’t care what you thought of me
I’d have the choice to change, to be
The person inside, outside. Free.

But there is you, and her and him
And cool, and chic, and fair and slim
I don’t know where I should begin
To twist myself to meet each whim

Opinions hover overhead
What might she think? What would be said?
You couldn’t tell what’s in my head
I gathered thoughts, but lost the thread…

They’re moulding me to something new
To shine in every interview
And sell my soul – in shades of blue
With hints at things that could be true.

Jerusalem Nativity

Blackened cloud, torrential rain
A flood of cheerful dripping splashed
To irrigate our thirsty plain
And water lawns where drought had lashed

To prickly desert once again
Verboten hosepipe, coiled and dry
Now stretch the root and drink it down
This manna falling from the sky

So all may see how Fortune vaults
And stamps her foot at those who’d planned
To sell this Earth, the very salt
That makes our verdant, pleasant land

Patriotism in far-off places

My sometime love for hearth and home
Lies not by fire, nor yet with those
Acquaintance of my passing day
For things material fade to grey
And colour-leeched, do turn to dust
They in my plains of mem’ry rust.
But lusty, strong, my heart does beat,
Not gazing ‘pon familiar street,
No haunt it loves, no buildings stir
My choosy organ, yet I fear,
That trav’ling through a countryside
All brown and barren, far and wide
Doth wake in me a tender gleam
For skies of grey and fields of green.
As seen from windows of a train,
My mind’s eye flashes ‘pon the rain
And ‘midst the warmth of climes more sunny
Tho’ yes – I also find it funny
Born not of humour, more of pain
I wish to be back home again.