NUREMBURG 5

Posted on December 12, 2025 by edenbray

Nuremberg 5

..

Unashamed tears, a tributary
    rivers run grey without a sun
    banners unfurled in cardamom
    reflect an orphaned moon

Nuremberg, your clenched smile
    your rendered face stained
    till there were no trace of love
    cacophonic, bitter gall

Nuremberg by the Regensberg
    rejected Adolf stronghold
    rejected of unwashed regret
    clear Messershmitt skies

Allies to a spurned sacrifice
    old as the black trees with
    woodpecker notes stapled
    glummest scenery of war

Out of darkness rose a phantom
    poisoned cheeked flattery
    one honest wolf spoke
    of how far we may have fallen

Nuremberg, your gold epaulets
    your rain turned red
    would that Saint Augustine
    had held you in his arms

Soft virtue departed as crowds
    gathered at your Zeppelin
    to hear hollow voices
    of demon and denial

Oh unholy relics the edicts
    peoples choose to subjugate
    garner and appropriate
    their rhetorics of shame

Nuremberg’s quality of atrophy
    undenied, belies constancy
    human grievance lies
    mutilates beneath your streets
   
Unrevenged, relentless catastrophe
    burrows deep inside the fig
    awaiting fruit fly implosion
    which inevitability decrees

Old the testament of apology
    none surrender power
    except the word contains untruth
    God’s nature is revealed

In skirmishes of Hezbollah
    Hamas strikes the golden city
    in Nuremberg, Bahrain or Oslo
    words fried cheap potato

Besmirched of my laurel leaf
    my olympic quarter drawn
    I chastened do not reply
    goodnight to Vienna

Nuremberg you stand for nought
    I cannot wonder why
    in the heart of Bavaria
    witchy dark the eagles fly

..

..

©EDENBRAYTODAY24.08.2024
   

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OPTIMIST at the OPTOMETRIST

Posted on December 7, 2025 by edenbray

optimist at the optometrist .. .

optimist at the optometrist

1, 000 illuminated eyes
waiting to decide
Buddy Holly brides
endless eyebrows rising
space-pod aliens disguise
urban cowboys overheard
in private conversations
about their ears and eyes
Marianna’s blackened eaux
her mummified noises
heard inside cardboard boxes
where eyes stand on stalks
that only the poor people
think still are sexy
denied their laser surgery
they stand in queues
limited views, feline
pointy, pointy Siamese
elegante, palomino, suave
they wear tortoiseshell or ebony
black plastic frames
with camera lenses
amplify the senses
I am the cam-er-a
a silent listener to your
every thought on politics
economics, all the genres
considered non-essential
clan or controversial
this mechanical contraption
solid minuscule adaption
what aliens might wear
tune in, drop out, turn on
now that Timothy Leary’s dead
and lies a mouldering
while all his bona fide
fondue disciples
exit the programme
pilgrims halfway down
the open road
beatniks who stepped out
of Kerouac’s contradiction
who found a proper job
a job with payslips, prospects
black-rimmed spectacles
turtle necks and loafers
moustachios and goatees
who listened in on jazz
aficionados of the mellow
interdependence of
Miles, Getz, John Coltrane
counting meteors
and shooting stars
who fell to earth
clusters of the full moon
signatures to the authentic
signalled visitors
to our awesome planet
give me the beat boy
free my soul

.

.

.. ©edenbraytoday07.12.2025

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HANDWRITTEN ODE TO PASSING STRANGER .. . .. .

Posted on September 25, 2025 by edenbray

HANDWRITTEN ODE TO PASSING STRANGER .. . .. .

. .. shutdown the world
as if it is winter
oil your knives
and store your tools
for i have seen the winter’s edge
and i have stood on land’s ledge
the sum of all our burdens
all our loss and our discontent
bronze fields they wait
to tender resignation
at her brightest thought
give to me then
my surrender
let me fly like birds of field
let me run with the fox
dig deep with the badger and the mole
for here is my life
and here is my world
I seek no cause to engender

so, those who listen for the swallow
and the swift
those who wait for the summer that never ends
you like me will wait forever, yet
beyond the awful springs
cast your eyes upon the future
and cast your eye down the lane
of drills and farmyard pitch
where the tractor and machinery
have cut the earth till it will bleed forever
forever, in this dangerous earth

be swift my fair four-legged companion
be swift who walk beside my gait
and I will show you where we may end
where we may find each other’s friend
and wait awhile
and learn of song
and learn of wonder
and learn of skies
all scudding past us, grey
puffed like people are
and we have waited
for too long for this dark summer to end
and we have waited for so long
for softest badger baited on our breath
and in our sight, hailing
we work with words and thoughts and feeling
we work to show where humankind
can be apart from where all others fight
and give nothing back but fear to me

o’ soft, soft words
that light the fuse
the fire
the dream
the moment
that softened yet my blood-filled heart
that pounds within
the deepest ditch
no more can I expect your reason
no more can I expect your thought
for we
have given up on all that is wonder
to make our thoughts as deep as deep

..

©edenbraytoday25.09.2025

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WORLDS in COLLISION .. .

Posted on September 4, 2025 by edenbray

worlds in collision .. .

.

.

I reminded myself of a book I once read
in around nineteen seventy one
which described images
of planetary chaos
that fired me up to try
and understand about the universe
and later on that day the earth stood still
beside the sun and I still curious wondered
about where it all began and if it were in Ireland
course it were in Ireland
where my maiden sweet grand-mammy
wi’ her frightening carrot top spent her cailin days

I wonder what the sea was like
the day she boarded ferry and if she cried
as Ireland slipped her memory
people change their habitat for this n’that
it seems plenty are the travellers
who came to this English side o’ plenty
and Jesus said the few
would outnumber the many
but still ! wish to understand
what gets into a someone
like sweet Adeline of Monaghan
that made you leave your land

As migrants cross the seas
it must be hard to believe
you will ever find your home
or separate disease from war
when your brother lies dead upon the floor
and your dreams for children shattered
as if ambition mattered
my copper-pot grannie made her silent way
found a place of resolve
bore my father and the rest
it is written in my history
the mystery of peoples and their past

..

©edenbraytoday04.09.2025

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DRAW A LINE UNDER .. .

Posted on September 3, 2025 by edenbray

..

draw a line under .. .

.. .

this Prussian green night scene
where people never returning
say goodnight to borrowed hope,
turn on their down at heel,
their autumn rhythmic murmur

sleep long at the shoulder
of the eternal beloved, listen
to graveyard rustle, grandmama’s
starchy tunic, people cancelled of
barbaric philosophies of blame

shame dressed in uniforms
shined of round, polished
buttons, double-breasted,
pressed sharp within inch of lives
exhumed they would shudder

under painted letters, conflicts
of disorder, relative and strange
under the ignominious lantern,
searchlights trained on atrocity
of murder, unwashed, stained

the iron fist, fragile constraints
have no wish to translate, they
duplicate the winter over coat
an iced metaphor as dehuman
eyes construct unholy treason

under all we wish to disappear,
the nemesis of fear, saintly prayer
and mother’s tears collect with
river kisses, run through earth’s
granite fissures, omnipotent as sea

..

©edenbraytoday25.08.2025

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ALCOHOL and IRONY .. .

Posted on August 23, 2025 by edenbray

alcohol & irony .. .

ode to a bum on the street .. .

i resort to alcohol
what do you do
to cope with atrocity
moribund, culture shame

i resort to alcohol
what is your poison
that you would never
reveal, your gun at hip

i resort to alcohol
it suits me well
i, having no intention
of living life in hell

i resort to alcohol
to numb the pain
of what is seen each day
non humanity to man

i resort to alcohol
which tears me up and
tears me down and out
another torn, moist page

i resort to alcohol
so that then, finally and
even sometimes – the irony
forms a laugh in me

i resort to irony
i resort to alcohol, not anger
i resort to look away
each and mostly every day

i resort to alcohol
then later I feel bad; sad
when the thrill has gone
they will ban this song

and if you write one piece
or one poem of what you
honestly do feel, humanity
only offers you another drink

i resort to alcohol
so I don’t have time to think
i resort to writing
i use alcohol instead of ink

..

©edenbraytoday23.08.2025

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WAKE UP SUSIE .. .

Posted on August 21, 2025 by edenbray

wake up Susie .. .

The world was simpler then
when Phil and Don strummed guitars
and Mahalia Jackson sang of love and mercy
we thought we saw Gagarin’s shadow on the moon
but it was really blue cheese spread on pizza bread
with anchovies, salami and hot peppers
wake up little Susie you might soon be dead
and all the books you own will then become unread
and all the magic smokes you puffed turn to clouds and ashes
and all the drinks you sank blindly will be as though
you never held a single man or kissed insistent lips
and the genie goes back inside the old green bottle
when we all sit around an open fire and laugh at what we did
wake up little Susie your parents thoughts                                                                  – do they still matter?
your life now so meaningful, so rich and special
don’t listen to the poet inside of you
listen to the poet who slipped the noose
where are all the true poets like Ginsberg and Kerouac
Sylvia Plath or the great Bukowski who were freed
to pursue careers extolling the virtues of ‘freedom’
( hedonism, smoking, drinking )
from the sham of bureaucracy and deregulation
– break out Susie your time is still ahead
don’t you want to rail against those masters of war
today’s political leaders of whom somebody once said
they build their big guns and all the hypocrisy that surrounds them
wake up little Susie it is still a crowded house
and you still have a voice and your own life
wake up, you may have spilled the coffee on your sun dress
but your children or your friends ooh la la
those living, maybe give them a call
cliches, cliches, cliches
everyone’s tired and afraid of cliches
the end

©edenbraytoday21.08.2025

..

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CHRONICLES of a SEASIDE VISIT : i – iv

Posted on August 16, 2025 by edenbray

chronicles  of a seaside visit : i – iv        

                i

if I were asked
to define what is ugliest
or ugliness
struggling for identity
a birthing whale
fish caught in a net
dark dreams you forget
while seagulls cry
in this undulating heaven
where two old lushes blather
what they talk on does nae matter
for this is life below the coastline
a chance for us to squawk                               
with necks held back
and jack-a-daw the laughter
semolina clouds departing
all lemon curd disasters
warmed by hazy sun
flights of battalions
from white-stone cliffs
colour of prancing ponies
that tumble ever forrard
one stubborn black buoy
refuses to dance with
sparkles on the water
holds such ominous line
a spike-less sea mine
warning of imminent danger
as other gull brave enough
lands, stares, upon its brow
leaves its ugliness
behind it

                   ii

two sheets to the east
two sheets to the west
the land falters at the sea
where boats and sailors
take up slack and mermaids
swim with porpoises
and freedom

                  iii

sandwiched
beween
old Melville’s tales
O’ captain
twas a winter fish
upon its soon arrival
flumes of memories
of caution and departure
rusted adventure
china petals
in the wee small gift shop
talk to me of strangers
I take a bite
of the sea wolf
of the minesweeper
fishing boats
collecting lobster
flushed, pink as
baby cheeks
from the old blue-grey
and green
the spey which tells our future
holds firm secrets of the past
shipwrecks and their masts
I take a bite of seaside fish
the great Zoltar
within this apothecary
of our island
naval tradition
ice cream sundaes
as big wheels turn
in seaside towns
as the sun burns
mechanics cylindrical
among the cogs
and gauges
that like are we
bound to this sea

                    iv

our arrival
was evident
booking made
and paid for
in advance
by bankers
order, wholly
matched by
acceptable
accommodations
a sufficiency
of towel and
pillow, of cup
and knife
fork and plate
it was also
adequately
matressed
and overall
held a fine
open view.

.
 

©edenbraytoday16.08.2025 

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CULTURE VULTURE .. .

Posted on July 30, 2025 by edenbray

CULTURE VULTURE 

..

..

Listening to a poet
breathing at the festival
Is like leaning against a wall
In 1950’s Britain
to welcome young black men 
arriving in suits and ties
other suitable disguise

I often stand alone
in fields watching
natural disorder as once
I walked Westminster Bridge
where culture had a dotted line
marked ‘cut’ as in old movies
until the falcon arrives

see culture, feel culture
bleed culture now on your
overpriced vinyl records
on your Jamaican boxcart
in your lands of neutrality
where honest people
forget how to fight

my first notions
of peer pressure
occurred standing in a
grey school playground
feeling poor with only one
channel on the television
and there was no Popeye

but the hypocrites
absorb everything
without taste or tact
untruth, relevance or fact
their cyclops eye is 
trained upon confusion
ponders not the human solution

seven verses, seven lies
the cattle just got fatter
as despots, ingrates
and tyrants assume control
vindicate their atrocity
that people still starve
that children still suffer

I cannot watch the news
with its sing-song rhythm
cannot sleep content
in a red brick house
as just another culture vulture
who feeds on scraps
of misery or joy

©edenbraytoday30.07.2025

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ROAD MOVIE ITALICS .. .

Posted on July 25, 2025 by edenbray

ROAD MOVIE ITALICS :

.

..

We were not taught
    how to love
    or give out properly

    and when you do
    you find out how ugly
    people can become

    you say it’s not their fault
    the way they were taught
    a virus they had caught
    except
    is all that ever true

    perhaps it’s even slander
    as you may never
    get the chance
    to live or love
    that way again

    caught in an avalanche
    that thundered past our door
    a negative maelstrom
    of conflict and responsibility   

    claws of suffocating guilt
    that made you wish
    only you could spit
    not try to escape

    join another army
    take to the bare streets
    rob a grocery store
    tell the parson you are leaving

    and after love is injured
    nothing ever quite
    that awesome same
    just one more bloody stain

    i grew up on the rough side
    of the town rail-track
    where outcasts grew
    aware of pleasant lane

    never quite accepted
    fought for all we earned
    worked for life respect
    it never came easy

    changes of mood and
    philosophy informed us
    culture can be frozen
    wrapped in jargon

    down the road awhile
    we learned how
    to clip fears like gangsters
    follow street hunches

    turn into Joads
    excellent Jim Casys
    Clyde Barrows or
    Bonnie Parkers

    you begin to settle
    put stakes down
    never quite sure
    of the next horizon

    while we are here
    may as well
    live a little
    and pay a lot

    spread out like
    animal skins
    under the stars
    dissected frogs on
    dirty bed linen

    always the train
    rumbling on and after
    through the valley
    to the open sea

    we ain’t never coming back
    we burned bridges
    planted yew trees
    in the name of being free

.

©edenbraytoday25.07.2025

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