You accuse me of hiding in my ivory tower.
I answer that I have no power,
Other than my pen
Which when
It scratches
Sometimes catches
The truth of the matter,
Causing the fine porcelain
Of your ideals to shatter,
Revealing the stain
Called human nature.
For each man is a prater
And the writer’s pen
Can interpret the hearts of men.
The poet in his ivory tower
Has not the power
To change
This deranged
Place
Where the lunatic’s face
Flushed with belief
Brings the world to grief.
Those who think themselves sane
Cudgel their brain
And impose dreams
(which they call schemes)
For the improvement of man.
When dreams fail
The believers wail
“We will get it right next time”.
Or, for shame
They blame
The poor
Gardener who asks nothing more
Than to be left alone to cultivate his garden.
The poet begs pardon
To be excused,
With an amused smile,
For there can be no denial
That time spent in rhyme
Keeps him safe from humanity’s grime.
The weather is drear
And none save my dog is near.
The new year
Beccons
As seconds
Are here then gone.
The clock’s hands move on
Towards twenty-seventeen.
I have no magic screen
To gaze into the future, but stupidity
And that age-old vice cupidity
Will, I venture to maintain
Continue to reign.
The human race
Has a face
Half devil and part divine.
There is a fine
Line
Between the two.
Looking through
History one finds dreams of utopia turning to hell,
Yet one can not tell
The idealist that he is wrong,
For he will answer you with the same old song,
“If everyone did such and such then all would be well”!
But we are saints with feet of clay
And the utopian’s way
Leads many to stray
Down the path to the ever lasting bonfire
Where the desire
To do good ends in the Gulag and the stamp
Of the fanatic’s boot in the concentration camp.
Small acts of kindness matter
And oft times achieve more than the chatter
Of those
Who would dragoon
Humanity into neat little rows.
And believe there is a man in the moon.
What is this youth?
This search for truth?
What is this heart
You have not the art
To conceal
But must reveal
Your ideals?
What is this age
This rage
That the world does not conform
To some abstract plan
of man?
History does warn.
Why then so forlorn?
Warm summer days.
The haze
of belief.
Time is a thief
that steals
our ideals.
The secluded garden.
Ideas that harden.
The truth
youth
doth know
Oft ends in woe.
A book.
The path forsook.
The backward look
to a place
lost in mist
he can not resist.
K Morris - Poet 