I came across this poem several weeks ago on Youtube and have meant to post a link to it for some time. The link is to the Poetry Foundation rather than Youtube partly owing to me not being enthused by the rendering of Larkin on Youtube, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178054
This young poet (Max is 16-years-old) is well worth checking out, http://maxmillerpoetry.wordpress.com/. I particularly enjoyed Max’s poem, The Boy On The Train. The poem resonates with me as someone who travels on the tube Monday through to Friday. I can imagine Max sitting or standing, on the tube, pen in hand quietly observing his fellow passengers.
“About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood …”.
Those lines of W H Auden came powerfully to mind when I received a call from The National Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Children, the NSPCC, who are running a campaign in schools to explain to very young children what abuse is and how to report it. As a donor to the NSPCC they wanted me to increase my direct debit to assist in paying for Childline in schools. The Society say they are receiving an increasing number of calls from children aged around 11 which has prompted the Childline initiative in schools.
The tragedy of the situation is that many children blame themselves for the abuse or somehow try to convince themselves that it is normal. Here in Crystal Palace it is a lovely sunny day but those lines of Auden, quoted above just keep replaying themselves in my head. Terrible suffering of children does go on while we go about our daily lives. As I write this a child, somewhere is being physically or sexually abused. I can give money. I only wish that I could do more.
For Auden’s poem please visit http://english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/auden.html
Not a second glance do you bestow on me as I hurry by, unassuming, heading for my lair.
Wrapped in darkness, encumbered by hate I sit fingers tapping oh so busily tapping, on keyboard spewing hate. I care not for you, my pleasure is your pain. Hatred like a stench fills the air, I am a troll ensconced in his lair.
A sun dappled path, leading back into the past. Losing myself amongst the green, half reality, part dream. At one with the trees, yearning to be free, to escape the hate, before it is too late.
This is a wonderfully enigmatic poem by the poet Roy Fuller, http://overconvergent.livejournal.com/29022.html
Listening to the rain. Safe inside, no fear of the midnight knock on the door. I am at peace free to think my own thoughts. No pyres of burning books, no sound of jackboots coming over the hill. Only the noise of the comforting rain wild and free.
I have published a couple of my poems on hellopoetry.com. You can find them here, http://hellopoetry.com/-kevin-morris/.
She smiled, awhile I tarried there, fashioned castles out of air. She laughed, set my heart aflame, tis love, or my overactive brain.
I think of her but who is she? A bird encaged longing to be free? Is she content in her cage? Or does she beat the bars with rage? Do I put my thoughts on her? Building castles in the air? Who am I? who is she? Both are struggling to be free.
K Morris - Poet 