bibliocrat.com

Category: Poetry

  • Shocking

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    by

    Gally Maxwell
    in ,

    This is simply discrimination against afternoons and evenings. For I have known them all already, known them all:Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;[1] In the hollows of afternoonsYoung mothers assembleAt swing and sandpitSetting free their children.Behind them, at intervals,Stand husbands in skilled trades[2] Yes, it is mornings…

  • Quote of the day – Edwin Muir

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    by

    Gally Maxwell
    in ,

    The Child DyingUnfriendly friendly universe,I pack your stars into my purse,And bid you, did you so farewell.That I can leave you, quite go out, Go out, go out beyond all doubt,My father says, is the miracle.Edwin MuirSelected Poems, edited by TS Eliot, page 67. Faber.This is the first verse (of five) in Muir’s devastating masterpiece.…

  • Remembering a summer in France

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    by

    Gally Maxwell
    in , ,

    Source: Gally Maxwell working with Microsoft Designer, the prompt being “A collage of images in remembrance of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers at the Battle of the Somme”.Summering in France Five foot seven and seventeen, hungryIn Kells, brought up near the pits of BlantyreWhere his father hewed coal and fed the fire,He joins up in nineteen-fifteen,…

  • Legal Fiction

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    by

    Gally Maxwell
    in ,

    Legal FictionIf you want lies, go to law.Yes, the court was juvenile.The chairwoman a Lady.Wielding that crystal accentThat so sharded us in place.Our lad had thumped another.Faced a criminal complaint.To make him comfortableShe asked What do they call youAt school, and honesty burnedBack: They call me Wanker, miss.No aristocratic crack was shown:And can you tell…

  • I like a bit of writing to keep me company, said Sam

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    by

    Gally Maxwell
    in

    Cold AsA cubed eye, gazing up, implacable,You will feel cold as hate, granite-rock-hard:So far down, three last seconds. I walk past youThinking that is where… Knowing where… Is rare Unless you settle for the buildingWhere the old fools dyingly go. Not there, please.I gaze down again and again,The cubed eye follows me, Unblinking, waiting to…

  • Silent dawn

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    by

    Gally Maxwell
    in ,

    As a young man, inter-railing or just travelling, I felt privileged – if knackered – to arrive in a new city in the early morning, say 5am or 6am. I sauntered through cool air down Las Ramblas in Barcelona after grabbing sleep at the airport from a 1am landing. Stalls setting up, soft laughter, space.…

  • The One True Peace

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    by

    Gally Maxwell
    in

    The One True PeaceThe end of strivingSafety in numbersUsing my pseudonymBeing ignoredBy dangerous enemiesAt last, at last.No more competingA grandchild must winAnd that’s the pleasureNo colleagues to outdoNo opponents to outwitGames become games.The future lostBy dread diagnosisIs a horrific releaseIf you love lifeGod help youIf not, love death.Death is notThe mother of beautyBut the anti-midwifeCatching…

  • Save the World

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    by

    Gally Maxwell
    in ,

    Remember W.H Auden’s Epitaph on a Tyrant. The last two lines are: “When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,And when he cried the little children died in the streets.” Please, please, don’t vote tyrants into power. Gally Maxwell4 July 2024 (appropriately)

  • Love Wild Weather? Quote of the Day

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    by

    Gally Maxwell
    in

    What would the world be, once bereftOf wet and of wilderness? Let them be left,O let them be left, wildness and wet;Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet. From Inversnaid by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Gally Maxwell3 July 2024

  • Find Comfort Where You Can

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    by

    Gally Maxwell
    in

    Find Comfort Where You CanI cannot comfort myself. I cannot be comforted. Dreaded disasters descendOn us, and all we can hopeIs ordinary despairsAre not outdone by evil:Life and death work out in time.But fear ye the abnormal:Genocide or massacre,Torture or horror disease,Children dead before parents.Gulag and Stalag, far China,Incarceration US:Those behemoths of cruelty. Is it…