Hayat Baumediene

by Gub, (10th of January, 2015)

The world wants to know You now
Your 26 year old face Cast
Like a net into the waters of w.w.w Notorious enough?
Yesterday a blank space 

Now blood fills the headlines your brotherhood wrote
Deaths that cannot be unwritten,
Nor lives redeemed against lies told.
What belief or faith could ever sanctify
Such theft...
Vandalise victims of their right to life;
Yourself, your youth, beauty, your choices
All stolen.

November

By Gub, 10th of November 2014

Through fallen leaves,
November bares the darkest scars.
Two generations felled by war and
The drum of pomp that led them underground,
Silent and broken.

How be unmoved by an ocean of blood,
And un-pumped volumes of life and love in human veins?
A loss that left a century of children
Bereft of comfort and a legacy 

Of survivors crazed by grief.

Hope can recover, just,
But some tide must turn.
Moral progress not falter
Fear of each other, vanquish,
Trust rule this new domain.

Easy to forget what precious truth
Human Sacrifice brought:
That consciousness
Remains both a gift
And a curse

If we could break the trance
Uphold a beacon - find
A masthead on which to hang
The brightest sail -
Then the unfelt pain of future
Struggles would not entirely pass
But a belief in peace
Unbroken - might be regained.

E Pericoloso Spongersi! (Nu va aplecati in afara)

(the 12th of December)

The game is to catch the tail of the beast
As it sinews East
Along the tracks
Clack, clack
And this is happiness:
Chewing the strands of my whiplash hair
As hot summer air
Kneads my face
That first glimpse of the sea:

A collapsed kite
Drying its putrescent lace
In the moonlight

A Walk With Frost

From up here

The world seems

A ripe, un-plucked apple

I step ahead, I step aside

I cannot step too far

We walk

With aeroplanes,

With hunters

With Frost

It was the road that chose us.

Job Description

(the 12th of January 2014)

I pull black birds
Out of the tar pot
Deformed bodies
I live
In overspill
Ripped bandage in one hand
And salt in the other
I scrape walls
Reclaim the unclaimed

I watch
Happiness
Play knives with the kids
And shame
Eat its stale bread alone

Love Crescent

(the 24th of December 2013, HBC)

Winter’s bent spoon
Feeds
Rambling pheasants
Moths swoon
Against cold windows
Dark owls
Salute
Venus and the Moon.
Night casts its last frock,
Light
Writes a new days’ blog
Where mud meets sky
Our dreams
Blunt the spear
Of Tomorrow
Awash with feeling,
Weighted in the mire,
I limp
on a cobbled street
Called “Love Crescent”.

The Child

(the 15th of October, 2014)

When the morning’s saw tears through the last ragged dream bands
I bury my nose under his chin, cup his head in my hands
I relish his sweet scent and it’s power to soothe
Grieve the closeness we’ll miss with the shedding of youth.

Stars still hang on his ceiling, suns and moons on his wall
A bite-size universe, galaxies rolled tight, offered back as a beach ball
For him, I’ve conjured up wonderlands, shovelled snow in a sack
Enchanted forests, spider-webs and other miracles - he no longer needs me to hack.

I’m a cast-off stone he keeps in his pocket
And he’ll smooth the rough edges, grind the teeth on the old sprocket
I’ll watch him bounce on river-banks, pray his shoulders won’t burn
Though my own childhood pools gawp empty and the swimmers are gone.