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The tragedy of universal world order
conquest versus the scope and scape of nature
from Tehrain through the truthful priest
of Tibet to Queens then off to California
the Goldrush has arrived in this sylicone valley
Abysinia, Algeria, the caves of Tora Boro
said Ghengis Khan to all his sons hold ye well
to this protestation – ‘surrender or you die’
A despot perceived as second in popularity
to Jesus Christ both whose legions followed after
Temujin before death just an ironic if iconic statistic
created massive history with no followers apostolic
formulated by the exegesis of contemporary light
we view the hill of heads that were laid at the feet of
his great god Tengeri with only ruthless ferocity
before Australian wine, the Maori haka or the hakui
How long has it been since Japan became your brother
their cars and culture, your Kawasaki throttle open to a
captivating industry, Tokyo became a place you want to see
forget Hiroshima next to China, the rape of Nanking
women’s bodies lying on the street, hundreds and thousands
which is truth, which is lies, no truth without the smoke of fires
mass graveyard where khakied soldiers buried all your dead
where angels sing, peoples do recover and build again
Hard to mention the barbarousness of other foes
prehistoric murder, foundations devoid of closure
except my stomach turns over at the stench of humanity
we are happy to forget, turn blind eyes to society tourettes
one life to lead while others bleed, elsewhere war-torn lonely
where children pick through refuse for a meal without abuse
plagues and sickness, coronary disease, we wear it well
a smile upon the face it hides another Peyton Place
I’m receiving images of the steeple at Cologne Cathedral
it survived horrific bombing, what of the German people
a photograph or two to remember the aggrandized view
I was with my mother who recalled blood on the streets
bombing raids, architectural cascades, limbs severed in rubble
she was never comfortable in Cologne, how could she be
all she wanted was to forget the doodlebugs, the silence after
under the stairs in Mitcham, another night of awesome horror
We forget the holocaust at our peril or any evil we have known
perpetrators, the clue is in the name, humanity shot the sheriff
a quiff of pain, a soupçon of blame-shame, do you really believe
your god will forgive what you did or do, my god or any god too
Adolf and sons, painters and decorators who painted the sky
as black as pressed Shutzstaffel uniforms, if I lived in Cologne
if the morbid moon hung red for one more night over Aushwitz
or Chaldea, or Cambodia, Rwanda, Armenia, Yugoslavia, Haiti
Build your war horse outside the gates of Troy send a messenger
across the ramparts of the Crimea, raise your siege ladders
beat your ploughshares into weapons then beat them back again
when war is over count the dead, bury the dead, honour the dead
remember they are dead, they are dead and long forgotten
besides your illnesses, your ravaged health, your siege tested
capital wealth that is rusted, encrusted with mould and scurvy
the captains ship has been locked down aboard with dysentery
Blow the whistle, sound the horns we cherish, youths shout, come
enter drunk at our jubilation party let us bury this winter of discontent
raise new billboards, announcing new directions, sound warnings
hoist the flag, dress old Dobbin the horse in his Sunday best
we are so good at getting over, sliding under the precipice
our memories are not inclusive of past told stories
we make coffee-table books with photos that record our glories
battles ‘we’ have won, only mothers lose daughters and sons
Lay down weary soldier on another battlefield like Altamont
remember Meredith Hunter and James Chaney, Jimmie Lee Dixon
he was born in ’38, murdered in ’65, buried by Klu Klux fanatics
from ‘outer space’ we may view the tributaries, rivers and the spurs
of a snaking queue of peoples in different mourning colours
I hear the drums of war, find your stored, heaped memories
should I leave them by your door, or sad-eyed lady, should I wait?
for sleep to settle, sun to rise, the march of time to dry your eyes
Ye chronicles of pestillence and war, etched in sorrow, wide as any hell
becomes a desert we must cross to find the seven fatted calves
and when we cross we may announce that god is dead, we alive
attesting no virtue to a maker, a helper, an aide, a saviour
we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down, we start all over again
without a show of Nicolaas Tinbergen’s theories on emotion
instinct is the mother of us all and by consensus we deploy
wait only till tragedy wraps its fateful arms around us once more
©edenbraytoday07.08.2021
©edenbraytoday02.08.2021
Three score years and ten … an odyssey
Above the tempest and the squall
I cannot remember the first time
I heard a train approaching
travelling down the stone-laid track
the purple smoke, the rhythmic panting
the rush of a woman birthing
lying on her back
the birth I never knew
those coal black engines greased and shining
thundered through my home town
on the Southern Region
We played football
we broke windows
watched the smoke curl from the chimney
on sunny days drifting
sights that last forever
in the quiet of suburbia
or earlier where the summer brush grows
my dimpled rubber wheels and spokes
ran over snaking, antique roots
rode steep mud tracks
beneath some ancient trees
cowhorn handlebars
my canvas paper-sack
enterprise and commerce
thus began my salad days
Childhood, a softest pillow
despite the constant wheezing
my asthma curse
a needle in the ass
from old Doctor Williams
Christmas eve with emphysema scrooge
pictures of my understanding mother
jocund brother, blond, beguiling
and father it seems always emerging
from out of platform three
from the smoke, the smog, the empathy
of post-war Britain and Billy B
his redcoat land-trains, taking trips
round seaside towns
Filey, Bognor, Pwhelli
and Grandad’s knees
were they ever knobbly
or were we ever Dutch
Grandma’s hair, ginger and so curly
she had that Irish touch
twas’ not taters brought her over
to our very English sod
only British valour
and the war to end all wars
our personal Abaddon
when we stepped out of one past into another
a Jackson Pollack splash of adolescence
Charlie Drake fell through the window
it made you laugh out loud
normal service will be resumed
on our black and white telly
we watch the death of Kennedy
Life moves faster when you’re seventeen
reggae, reggae, reggae
pushing the world’s soapbox cart along
also learning to be strong
write words of verse about your condition
the sedition of the political few
before Bob Marley started really sing-ging!
the fab four turned on
dropped out, then in again
on psychedelic acid
and you like Alice
and her big white rabbit
come tumbling after
in search of a lost dream
or joyous laughter
True answers always just out of reach
blowing in your avalanche of reason
heroes, urban and cultish
for that small season
give way to personal freedom
suddenly God is not dead but much alive
he is a docker called Ron from Peckham
who met death alone
founded a band called Resurrection
took a look inside the church
it still remains a sadness
that Auntie Pat was sectioned
taken from the family home
with her troubled thoughts
she was left alone
Seven years phenomena
extends to fourteen
a rash more than an itch
and twenty one announces
that you are fully grown
experiences with women
love and lust
the essence of musk
when wedding vows still make our day
without a dowry
beneath the canopy
my fountain pen is always ready
we find each other
and because of love
we sign upon the dotted line
though I will write letters seven feet tall
with our loves children on the beach
at places with names like Anderby Creek
Workaday years
a blurred collection of motifs
picture cards, memories like logos
we catch the stars in moments sifted
we say and do some things we choose
much of out truest selves we lose
with my pen I lie, late at night
examining my conscience
searching for my beginning and my end
caring for our mother
we loved our children well
earned a living, bought a house
ran a car, the usual things
did not travel far
The train it never stops running
across the yellowed pages
crisp like dried straw on the heath
the hills of hope, mauve and feminine
we search for visions mother
I paint, I draw,
engage the brain on heavens shore
O’ feeling, you are my bitch
and you are my blood-soaked brother
I clutch your war-stained head
raise you, gasping air
to search for life inside your eyes
is this only my imagination
or my God-given spirits incantation
the poet in me leaves this question
by your nakedness
O’ beauty of the written sonnet
Shakespearian, ruche or honest
I’ve scribbled in my cardboard notebook
tampered, played with words
fought the great wars
wrestled with deception
my greatest fears
I, the honest poet
wrapped a beat
laid my heart at my ladies feet
consideration, revolution
I’ve challenged you O’ mighty contradiction
to find a meaningful solution
I’ve fallen spent upon my knees
a broken Job’s comforter
but made it through
the psalmist as my tutor
the days of our years are three score years and ten
and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years
yet is their strength labour and sorrow
for it is soon cut off and we fly away.
©edenbraytoday28.07.2021
The walls are bleeding by the south terrace
running down the chapel of Santa Andronicus
the colour of walled flowers that grow
the large weeping petals of the hibiscus
Running livid across the painted white bricks
those painted, once were the colour of cinnamon
beside grasses bowed like mourners weep
and where a helmet lays, two black holes staring
A parade of stuck mothers, blood-spattered brothers
torn nightdress, tear-stained lovers, corpses silent
moving the awkward path blood follows down a rendered wall
snaking the bond of bricklayers lines, his shrapnel trowel
War in the afternoon, smoking fires are burning fervidly
its payload wrought angry, its payback stained history
rebels, guerrillas, soldiers of fortune, of might or of glory
loss rationalised, convictions quaterised by crimsoned mud
We seek to balance an august moon atop a Matterhorn
square up the finest order of nature without atonement
without compromise, only madmen’s sighs mid ideology
alone nature weeps, guardian crows the executers
Who clear away the bodies, tie the flags low, remember
who exchange your smile for piles of shit-brown guile
overgrown death yards where the lazy cats still piss upon us
armouries choking the bonfires of our burning emotion
Given to this shame we fashion, indignant we all rise
discard our jesters eyes, turn ploughshares into knives
broadswords, guns, anarchised of reason, despised
roll dice in war-game arenas, still shun cowardly demeanour
©edenbraytoday17.07.2021
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edenbraytoday
I like to think that this BLOG PAGE is a celebration of the written word and from time to time I like to run a GUEST poem or a song lyric that I feel has something pertinent to say. During the past few weeks and months I have been exploring areas of the bizarre and random thought loosely connected around a current theme of exploration concerning mental illness.
Today I am sharing a song lyric by BOB DYLAN whose poetic writing I generally admire. I am inclined to agree with Alan Ginsberg who stated at one time that DYLAN was the one true poet of the 20th century. Interestingly, this piece wouldn’t count as one of my favourite poetic pieces by the great man as I get the feeling it was written at a time when DYLAN was reacting to overdue analyses of his work and influence by followers and critics alike, consequently he wrote a few songs that might be termed satirical in that they were partly Dylan’s attempt to respond in a humorous way to a kind of media obsession, an increasing tornado of speculation over his life and work. I say partly, as ironically these satirical backhanders and their lyrics actually invite further psychoanalysis of Dylan’s mental health at the time and go some way to exposing the personal stresses and pressure he was working under. Stresses that no doubt were reflected in his personal life with Sarah.
Inside the soldiers drum
rat a tat a tat a tum
the imagination of science decrees
within the vortex of constructed value
the causality of our genetic stream
Adam meets Jesus
rat a tat a tat a tum
meets himself as father meets son
soldier meets lover, meets death
lowers captors flag, conversion disorder
Captain cries murder
rat a tat a tat a tum
Olivia deHaviland, the gates of death
sucking the skeleton’s thumb
wet feet adorn the dead screen
Carnations for the victor
rat a tat a tat a tum
the actor’s voice is calm, measured
the feeding of the five thousand has begun
the document ordered is delivered!
In this wild, cotton phase
rat a tat a tat a tum
ideas and papers scatter the place
damn damn marvel’s salvation man
where is peace in the valley?
Women like their strawberry jelly
rat a tat a tat a tum
pouring cream on autumn’s belly
time talks things through slowly
the Bentley’s running on empty
Wolfgang opera’s applied gently
rat a tat a tat a tum
the scorpion hides within the breast
Pablo plays his mandolin best
Shafts of newsreel buildings
Dong dong, Dang a dong Dang
rat a tat a tat a tum
the anthem we all sang, together
in the market, by the ironmongers
whilst we queued for bread
Where elders of the city gather
rat a tat a tat a tum
It’s miracle stuff they chatter
Portia dominatrex of proceedings
bluesmen in their grainy pictures
We need passports to escape
rat a tat a tat atata tata tum
my friend John says he can sort this
Swedish step stools at the ready
dimpled white and plastic
©edenbraytoday4thofJuly-2021
Sometimes it happens. Sometimes I’m a writer and sometimes I’m a liar. You can’t pick up your life and live it for two hours and then put it down again. When Horowitz or Henry, Patrick or Marlow decide to paragraph their upbringing or record detail that would shock your closest friend or possibly spoil your reputation with your mother’s. That same lady you used to call your Auntie but she wasn’t, then you realise you are stepping over the divide. Finally saying something that makes your nipples stand on end and moves you down below.
When women meet together, to lunch, they want to know things. Personal things, but to reach deep inside to those things they have to find a reason to talk anyway as though they were discussing their shopping or possibly today’s weather, not their fathers embarrassing prostate problem that they understand about completely. Then, it becomes just matter of fact. Men can always subvert it because they are not afraid to lie or at least exaggerate things. This way you can hide the detail and bring it back coded. The detail and the fact are kind of rolled together like you are making pasta or kneading dough.
That’s what a writer is supposed to do, right? To write and unfold things, unpack stuff, important stuff as natural as unrolling a carpet or rolling a spliff. You don’t have to write to shock, only to find your level.
©edenbraytoday22.05.2018
Desolate mountaineering
when the guides have all gone home
you can’t reach them on the phone
Or the pilots, or the guppies
Lost and lonely, can you phone me
I am your Dad, your one and only
I am your father lost and lonely
The world and all its feathers phoney
I picture you smiling, making happy face
When I was seventeen I had a dream
Of what my life would be like
And it was nothing like this, no not at all
The Bridge over the River Kwai
the film in which Sir Alec Guinness dies
guinness and champagne relieves the pain
London Bridge 1973, went box-girder
replacing stone-arch bridge that replaced another
this stood 600 years, witnessed medieval murder
Before those bridges they were made of timber
before that Roman order saw them cross our border
Pontem Londoniarum falling down to find a singing game
At Leicester Square I watch from my small apex window
above the rush of celebrities and classic films, they arrive
chauffeur driven, lead-lady smitten, director bitten
Stand by your beds watch out for the reds
Holly GoLightly and the things she said, Audrey Hepburn
sophistication on the big screen became a kind of queen
Our cultural history caught like stranded wildebeest
gnu savaged at the crocodile river in the blistering sun
our sweaty horses set, our race-start gun, the finalé run
Attenborough pass the gauntlet, pass the baton on
and on. Greta Thunberg, pass to Xiye Bastida, Xiye
pass to Lesein Mutunkei watch Antarctic’s setting sons
Come daughters of the revolution and Tyrannosaurus Rex
who birthed a notion with their elemental child, their suffragettes
before the electric storm or even Greenpeace was born
All allegiances, all loyalties sworn, Sally, Sally Greensleeves
don’t ever leave me, pride of our alley, yes you mean the whole world
and all its tiny houses made out of ticky tacky
El-awrence fought for Brit-ain on the silverscreen, David Lean
upsides Arabia, Boadicea fought the Romans not for the black oil
Welsh Queen Buddug, Tee heE Lawrence, hero or agent royale ?
Polanski’s creative energy ran out much too fast
Hollywood has its demons tied to HMS Bounty’s mast
LA cinema viewers their mouths aghast
Down on Sunset Boulevard, their fifteen minutes in the sun
William Holden, Gloria Swanson their glossy tile review its in history’s can
cinemagoers view the reality of earths sadnesses, O’ the horror
Apocalypse Now bled from a heart of darkness
Joseph Conrad sat at his typewriter, tippety tap, ‘all work and no play’ ‘makes Jack dull boy’ the moon still ‘shining’ for Kubrick and King
Sydney Pollack sang a song of Af-rika, of Mozart strains and aeroplanes
Runnaway Trains, Jon Voight searching for Nazi stains in Turtle drains
Eastwood on the High Plains a Drifter moseying on down, nosing around
The starlings are in a murmuration high above the Leicester Square
Just hours before the Premiere – Judy Garland, Fred Astaire
The trees are bare where the starlings and the people stand and stare
edenbray ☢︎ - a BEAT POET 
O’ FRAGONARD
O’ Fragonard .. .
O’ Fragonard you wished to become a serious artist
to climb the stairs of fame and fortune to the stars
your accomplishments are known, wise and certain
as we lift the purple, velvet curtain, hide those scars
..
O’ Rosalind your body beauty is for the view of all
Utrillo paint Saint Sebastian in your palest umber
leave the gash of crimson, foil the Augustine design
still left to feed and nourish thee the beautiful mind
..
Salvatore then leave your studio, venture far to find
embrace the sorrow of your choosing hue the bruising
Guernica enslaving, empowering lays flat on its back
commands the viewer rape and be raped it is your fate
..
O’ Diego, Diego you who grew so old before your time
who believed the great royal painter Velazquez should
not ever wear a frown but lay his viscosity down upon
the folded garments of Phillipe V to not only just survive
..
What to tell of Auguste Rodin a sculptor of greater charm
his modelled, clay structures, plastered, porcelain replicas
tidied, mined, refined, the artist almost forgotten reappears
underneath such bronzed ligatures he speaks full his mind
..
Arabana county people, Leilamarie Stuart-Likouresis especially
contemporary and indigenous, she goes slowly through the night
carries her own aboriginal light, not trite, meaningless or empty
the traditions of your people are defined forever, artwork bright
..
George Roualt the unclassifiable – though they continue to excuse
pitre et crucifix dans l’exhibition de l’Académie Royale entre
honneur and recognition beloved to his nation saleur the bench mark
with constraints of a heavy border, the artist’s sperm is overflowing
..
Candied, branded, bound and collated these artists’ works cold, unrelated
sedated as we are, rise, lay upon your platformed structure Michelangelo
draw with such intensity, imaginatio, Leonardo, your artist’s cross was heavy
his – ‘hellicopto’ impasto, grisaille, camaieu, murale, his Goerges Rousse graffiti
..
Aditi Veena a name as good as any other, not a painter, not a model or a brother
yet a faithful artist, true, tried and tested, architecturally invested, female chested
sing for us of peoples values, all the living, long day, wind it round, your ghoonghat
there is no shame here, no mystery, no fake smile, no prejudice, no hidden agenda
.. ©edenbraytoday03.08.2021
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Author’s note – this took forever to finish, might not seem like it, hope it was worth it
SHOWCASE:
sedated as we are .. .
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