If you call up a demon, don’t be surprised
When it does arise
As some monster from the deep
And into your heart creep.
We at our own creations weep
But can not keep
Our desire
To play with hell’s fire
Under control.
The devil we did create
And, he will our soul take.
—
Rhodes is in his grave
Long since.
Oxford students wince
And call
For his statue to fall,
Yet continue to take the cash
Of one they would consign to history’s trash.
We all have feet of clay.
How easy it is to judge
And bear a grudge
Towards those who have passed away,
For the dead can nothing say
To mitigate
The hate
Of callow youth,
So convinced are they of their own rectitude and truth.
It is easy to look back through an opaque
Glass and take
The high moral ground.
‘Tis a truth throughout history found
That yesterday’s hero
Will into the garbage go
For they were not “progressive” (although they thought themselves so).
Do those sitting in student bar
Congratulating themselves on how far
We have come, ever pause,
look beyond the self-applause
And ponder
On yonder
Setting sun.
—
I agree with the historian Mary Beard that the attempt to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes from Oxford is a dangerous attempt to erase the past, (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/mary-beard-says-drive-to-remove-cecil-rhodes-statue-from-oxford-university-is-a-dangerous-attempt-to-a6783306.html).
I will be spending part of the week preparing for my interview this coming Saturday (26 November, at 5:15 pm, on Croydon Radio). The interview will be streamed live on Croydon Radio’s website and will also be available as a podcast, (http://croydonradio.com/).
During the programme, I hope to read a couple of my poems. I have yet to determine which of them to recite. I am, however considering reading my poem “Owl”:
“I have lain awake listening for the owl’s cry.
A note that chills
Thrills
Then does die.
One day
This bird of prey
Will carry my soul away,
Or so the supersticious say.
Mice hide
While I, in my pride
Decide
The owl’s erie cry
Signifies that I will die.
The bird has no interest in me
So why can I not be free
From his cry
That to my window nigh
does rise, then, as suddenly, die?”
You can find “Owl” in my recently published collection of poetry, “Refractions“.
I hope you will join me on the evening of Saturday 26 November.
Kevin
My old clock I wind
And much philosophy therein find.
I can bring
The pendulum’s swing
To a stop With my hand,
Yet I can not command
Time to default
On his duty and halt
The passing of the years.
He has no ears
For our laughter and tears
And his sickle will swing on
Long after we are gone.
“Tell me wolf, why do you howl
At the rising moon?
Is it that our little life is over oh too soon?”
“No, ‘tis the owl
Most foul.
He stole my favourite towel!”,
He replied with a growl …! …
It is a will-o’-the-wisp, followed by the frightened or blind,
Who themselves bind
To the delusion, that the mist does not forever close
Over mouth and nose.
There are few posies for the departed,
Just an idea started
In the mind
Of those who would salvation find
In a deep freeze,
Designed to please
The ego
Of people who fear to go
Down that dark track
From whence none come back
As a mannequin in a shop window, at which people stare,
She stands in the glare
Of the bedroom light.
Once, such things did excite.
Now all is null
Or on occasions, he
Takes a dull,
Almost professional interest in yet another she.
Gazing at the girl, in her birthday suit
He thinks on the route
Cause of his obsession with mannequins.
Loneliness or sins?
Where begins
A man’s cursed traverse
Of the path to the ever lasting bonfire
Where desire
Ends in mechanical sport
With a mannequin bought
Out of boredom.
He knows there is no true joy in hoardom
For him or her.
Still, in despair
He takes a half-hearted pleasure there.
Shall we speak as though we will go on forever?
I saw a feather
Borne on a summer’s breeze.
It did please
Me
To see
So carefree
A thing
Dance on the balmy air.
The breeze became a gale,
Then came the hail.
The feather
Was by the tempest tossed,
And forever
Lost
In that passing storm.
A man, alone, in a room, listening to a distant bird.
Not a word
Of his overheard.
The neighbours are friendly enough, not prying
Or spying.
Liberty’s flower
Blooms an hour
But he has heard tell
It may be dying.
There was a young man called Jack
Whose view of the world was black.
When they asked him “why?”
He said, with a sigh,
“because I always take the flak …!”
K Morris - Poet 