La marche de l’extrème
Droit-gauche, droit-gauche
Chaque pas frappe le terre
Agaçant l’Europe
En train de convaincre
Les gens de leur peur
À fin de rappeler
À la foule la Terreur
Qu’il saurait ce soir
S’armer, dirigée
Persuader l’armée
De se reveiller
Et cracher par terre
La voie retrouver
Droit-gauche, droit-gauche
Vers le pouvoir du Pays
It’s the end of the world as we know it
And I’m feeling nothing is fine
Since slipping down stairs on the slime of your tears
As we stumble toward one more crime
With our pulses and tempers increasing
‘Til the drumbeats are all we can hear
With the pounding of chests just a signal at best
For there’s plenty out there now to fear
Do we dare raise an eyebrow to challenge?
Would majority views still prevail?
Those whose protesting shocks in the ballot boom box
Were a message: Society? Fail!
Is there hope for our woeful tomorrows?
Can we ever recover the cost?
Now we’re set on a course to an ending of force
May we mourn what it is that we’ve lost?
When they came by
For a cupful of sugar
Took my old man
And waltzed over the hill
I was still standing
Polishing silver
Gonna be standing
Forever, until…
Next time a caller
I’d hoped would be smaller
Tripped on her doorstep
Got carried away
I was still standing
To see to a Mother
Gonna keep standing
Another long day
One time you told me
That things never mattered
Half the amount I
Pretended to say
I was still standing
Alone with no lover
Not understanding
Which words made you stay
Then they came by
With a warrant for searching
Hoping to find
What I’d hidden away
I was still standing
In need of your comfort
No one to hear me
And nothing to say
Turn from the shadows
If you fear to follow
All those who greet us
And pass on their way
I am still standing
Myself and no other
One day I’ll falter
But never today
Under the same Abrahamic rite
Why is it one tribe must shoulder blame
For all the ills our tongues in spite
May mutter, hiss, jibe, joke, proclaim
Can all those bearing guiding star
And shunned as less than fully hale
In truth be held as such they are
Accountable by any scale
From other creeds and careful groups
And once again, ill fated, mean
Cast out as ‘other’… Story loops
Unfit to mingle, foul, unclean
How are we in point of fact
In any way so different
When we all, with lesser tact
Live and die with base intent
Dogma and self-interest
Returning fellows to their clay
Here with darkness in our breast
We’ll charge along this alleyway
Now ignorance and cruelty
False, Godless words have spat to shine
We in our turn may twist and see
Of those whose creed does not match mine
Our own ideals overturned
With harsh contempt, disowned, decried
And know ourselves as those who earned
The scaffold built when first we lied
And chose to follow to this end
The unrefined, archaic lore
Hanging decisions on the bend
Of what worked once some years before
To weigh as wanting one who had
An equal claim to all the Earth
As we ourselves who in our greed
Conspired to steal more than our worth
We care more for ancient ruins
And destruction wrought on tombs
By whatever means they may
Than for lives that end today
While the blood and flesh and bone
Leaving everything they own
To escape the latest purge
Travel desert, sea and gorge
Those who voyage only land
On their uppers, close at hand
To the help they sorely need
Yet the politicians plead
Not to have to break their word
To the xenophobic horde
Those whose votes they barely won
From the hardened right, anon
Thus with bottle-necks and fence
We corral and harry hence
Workers that we sure could use
Grateful, welcome, unabused
Skilled and keen to integrate
To prop up our ageing State
In permissive company
Knowing just who let them be
As the fight takes to the skies
And the waves fill up with lies
We would throw away resource
Inconvenient and coarse
With no tally of the cost
Nor of what support is lost
Though our leaders might feel tall
While our borders stand, we fall
Choose certain death and ostracism
Exile self-imposed; ‘tradition’
Loss of home and family
Born of faith’s supremacy
So young, with minds not fully fed
In fear of first missteps, unled
Some seek to live by others’ rules
And hope to never have to choose
While those whose choice was thrust upon
Unwary shoulders, far too young
Have just enough experience
To recognise their own good sense
And knowing that some errors will
Occur despite intentions, still
Are less afraid to persevere
And build the life they want right here.
Though actions have their aftermath
There is no righteous, clear-cut path
Please do not fear all consequence
Change is not dangerous; though dense
And unenlightened elders may
Feel life no longer goes their way
As age and distance emphasise
The loss of youth before sad eyes
Unready to relinquish reins
To those in throes of growing pains.
Decisions to abandon trust
Give up hope and freedoms; lust
For life of lesser contemplation
Out of social obligation;
Turn to ends more violent
Ignore suggestions, kindly meant
And quick condemn all other views –
Is this the path you wish to choose?
Consider this, before you do
For truly, this choice rests with you:
Such suicide invites abuse
Of others that may follow blood
For love, for family, for feud
Will throw themselves away; – jihad
In mourning for those gone before
Their minds made waste, still immature
And more than one will idolise
The first to die – if death you prize
Above the life you hold in hand
So understand, if you have planned
To be the martyr for your tribe
And leave the others still alive
The minute you take up this course
Imagining rewards; Firdaws
You lose control of what is shown
And once you’ve gone, the whole thing’s blown:
With ashes scattered over sand
Your image will be used to brand
Misinformation into truth –
Deserted and abandoned youth.
Fleet of foot, we rose up on new legs
And crawled from the ocean,
Found caves by the shore more secure,
But ambitious, precocious, we wanted more.
Overtaking the bones of dinosaurs
Forging weapons of our bodies
We set out to outsmart competition
Surpass them with strength and speed.
It was not easy. Some fell early
To malnutrition; attrition rate high,
But we were stubborn, focused;
Too intent on growth to die.
Hurdled germs on our own terms
Through the darker ages, lettered pages
To illuminate and illustrate
Our superior ways, our mind, our fate.
When prayer for days fell out of fashion,
Revolution wrought new passion
Choosing sides and burning towns:
Spoils to victors, death to clowns.
Bloodied our hands in War and Peace
With the drawing of borders and global police
Such inventive solutions to building new homes
That we thought we were Gods, not flesh and bones.
And now we have entered a digital age
We find new forms of life engaged
In fights for supremacy, violent rage
Evolved to the glare of a flickering page.
But we haven’t forgotten our primitive roots
For one, in anger, aims and shoots
To rid this world of other tribes
Ensuring only “ours” survives.
The girl that cooks bakes cake and pies
And plays at house and tells no lies
That can’t be wriggled into line
Parading truth and saving time
The girl that cooks makes soup and stews
That chase away the taste of blues
Her kitchen hums with spitting fat
She works and cleans and strokes the cat
The girl that cooks whips up dessert
And bandages the parts that hurt
When all the world is making war
She’s tossing aubergines in flour
The girl that cooks is canny, chaste
Her sauces never go to waste
No eggs are dropped, no milk gets spilt
Her apron strings are edged with gilt
The girl that cooks with fiery flame
Whose every nuance tastes the same
Is ready with another dish
To feed you meaty, wholesome fish
The girl that cooks is clever too
She knows what suits won’t always do
When with a smirk upon your lips
You peck her brow and grip her hips
The girl that cooks in every room
Will not be left alone so soon
While every mouthful, reels you in
You’re caught within her roasting tin
The girl that cooks must take the blame
For ruining your filthy name
Enticing you with food so fair
You hung your hat and took a chair
Simple lines are drawn in sand
Before too long a raid is planned
Evading those so underhand
They would presume to claim this land
Off we sneak in battle dress
Such gentle men and ladies, less
To mop and mock the endless mess
Than blow things up, as merciless
To violence we’ve long adhered
We have become the thing we feared
And afterwards may not be cleared
Of careful killings, well prepared
Poor War has wandered far and wide
From hill to valley, mountainside
And sunk such fortunes, fear and pride
To foster thoughts of suicide
Promoting causes, long since lost
He breeds support and hides the cost
Our future terrorists to host
More pointless conflict, until most
If not quite all are lying dead
Two tribes with matching holes in head
Surrounded by twin pools of red
Both died for an ideal, it’s said
And what is left to selfless men
But legends of their struggle, gain?
We heed such calls to follow pain
Our children reach for arms again.
How ironic it seems
That a selfie of Jen
Has eclipsed other headlines
Of conflict again
It’s as if through a lens
Entertainment appears
To be focused on comments
By anchor and peers
Though our hungriest, game
For a laugh as may be
Under clouds and on Sky
Must disrobe for TV
Where it leads if it bleeds
All depends on the dress:
The front cover of Vogue
For a dazzling temptress
Or a reddit thread, late
Where true fans would agree
Little more than click bait
Will be all that you see
There’s a choice for the viewer
And it’s moral – how quaint!
Pick which story to follow
To see through the paint
While there’s Isis; the Syrian
Conflict goes on
And shells still fall on Gaza
All through Libya’s Dawn
Civil war slowly creeping
Through Ukraine and East
As the whole world sits, watching
Awaiting the feast
We have crackers and hackers
Stampeding both scenes
And celebrities dropping
Like the flies of their jeans
We may be quite discerning,
Pick a view to a kill
Or an intimate evening
With a very cheap thrill
When the freest of thinkers
Chooses girls in the buff
Over lifting their blinkers
To examine the rough
I’m amazed readers make it
This far through a poem
Without pictures explicit
To lighten the tone
So the best we may hope
For a future of peace
Is a world that’s too broke
To afford to release
All the weapons still stored
Under ground, as above
Though it’s MAD to assume
That when push comes to shove
Such assurances mean
There’s a soul in the flock
Still refusing the fruit
That’s created to shock
Here’s an uncivil liberty
Waiting to pounce
While the government votes
For less private accounts
Katherine Shirley 