Monthly Archives: July 2016

Circles

Countless pages,
Throughout the ages,
Filled by people, a few perhaps sages.
It goes in stages,
Toleration then repression
Of the world’s oldest profession.

Some cry “shame!
The men are to blame!
Fine or confine
Them in jail,
Such a policy can not fail
To bust their lust.
One must
Prevent
The descent
Of women into prostitution. Shame! Shame!
The men are to blame!”

Others say
“Let the men pay.
Providing the women are willing
It is no business of society how a man spends his shilling.
Many do freely choose
To use
Their bodies to obtain financial recompense,
It does not make sense
To fine
Or confine
A man
When a girl can
Continue in her profession.
The answer lies not in repression”.

The nights are growing longer.
The earnest ponder
On the solution
To prostitution,
While John and whore
Go on as before.

This poem was prompted by the following article, by Julie Bindel, advocating that those who pay for sex be fined or imprisoned, (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/13/decriminalising-sex-trade-protect-workers-abuse
).

Forest Glade

The forest peaceful lies
Under English skies.
The rain will come
Ere the sun
Casts it’s rays,
As in bygone days
On pools
Where schools
Of fish splash
And seeing the herron, dash
For cover
Lest he discover
Their woodland joy
And with a stab precise, their life destroy.

Girls in Unsuitable Shoes

Men their hearts lose
To girls in unsuitable shoes.
Fire will always burn.
No lessons are learned
While the world, unconcerned
On it’s axis continues to turn.

I owe a debt to Kiplings’s “The Gods of The Copybook Headings” for line 3 of the poem:
“As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”.
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm

To My Dog Trigger, Who Lay On My Book

trigger-in-his-bed

You lay on my book.
Perhaps you mistook
It for a bone
And discovering your mistake, left it alone!

You creased it’s pages.
Oh the ages
I took
To write that book!

You lay on my book
But look
I have many more,
And ‘twas entirely my fault for
I should not have left it on the floor!

Dogs have such short lives
While the poet’s work survives
Long after master and friend
Have come to their end.
You lay on my book,
My faithful old mutt.