My Poetry Library

There was such colour and bustle
where now reflective calm.

In the thunderbox room
nearby the melon yard
haunting echoes of silent voices

once green fingers that pressed
a trigger for King and country
gently call from an early grave,
who once scattered humus here.

They shed tears for weeds
that stained the fresh leaves
of Spring, unfolding, unseen

cold frames of mouth-blown glass,
warmed the summer fare
that meant so much to those
who dug one last trench

so many lost at such a cost
shovelling cold organic mud
to sow the seeds of future green
in very unmilitary drills

and who would say what
could have been had peace
been thoughtfully nurtured
like the fruits of this place.

Inundated by nature’s mission
their names forever bleeding
from these crumbling walls

so few in the flesh of then
left much in the earth of now.

© 2019 John Anstie

[A visit to the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall revealed to me a very poignant story of its gardeners, 16 out of 22 of whom lost their lives in the First World War; of the gardens, which subsequently fell into ruin until the 1990’s when a descendant of the original owners set about restoring them to become one of the UK’s most popular botanical gardens. The scene is set around the ‘thunderbox’ room where they would carve the names in the walls as they sat and the very peaceful garden adjacent to it, where you can feel the history of the place, which was powerful enough to compel me to write this in their memory

… this was intended to be published in the March edition of the BeZine, which I rarely miss, but didn’t make it this time. Here is the link to this worthy quarterly journal, whose mission is to foster ‘Peace, Sustainability and Social Justice’ and whose theme this quarter is “Waging the Peace” … https://thebezine.com%5D

Have you ever felt the mocking tone
of those who disagree with common sense
whose point of view bears truly little weight.

To deny understanding. Socratic debate.

For whom jocular bullying is their choice of stick
to avoid a dialectic path to contradiction
better to decry with pejorative rhetoric.

To belittle rational thought. Compassion. Love.

Blinded by niggling insecurities
to win, at all costs, to conquer all
too keen to let the ego’s triumph reign.

To understand the conflict … between Demos and Kratos.

[You’d best have a dictionary to hand. This poem alludes to both direct and representative democracy, as well as to the unwillingness of politicians to engage in Socratic dialogue or dialectic debate. It is also about an unwillingness to recognise the ‘Kratos’ in Greek mythology, as the divine personification of strength, prevalant in young men, who are so often preparing for conflict … forgetting that, if they are prepared for conflict, they are far more likely and willing to engage in conflict. As the years pass and the generation of those who returned from the World Wars with their physical and mental scars, die and their ability to communicate the horrors of war is removed, new generations of young men will continue to be willing to go off to war, or fight in the streets for whatever gives an outlet to their anxieties and quest for conflict … it also bears comparison with new generations of ambitious politicians, who do have the advantage of learning from the wisest of the old guard, who themselves so often become worth listening to when they no longer have to tow the party line and are beyond selfish ambition. But the new generation cannot, because they are blinded by their own ambition … their own version of Kratos, the divine, entitled personification of their intellectual rather than physical manifestation of strength]

© 2018 John Anstie

All rights reserved

Photo: Andreas Trepte http://www.photo-natur.de. Available under Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.5 license.

Your red-rimmed, mystic, all-seeing eye
that asks of us the question …
why you’re first to rise, not we
in time to hear your cry.

A share of this full Earth is how,
you feed your Spring-time pride.
An earthworm meal is all you ever
ask it to provide.

Months of dry and we forget
enslaving you to sink …
your beak in water anywhere
but n’er a drop to drink.

Yet you gift your song’s duet,
its echoes beguile, but we,
by our neglect, ignore your need
and forget to think of thee.

© 2018 John Anstie
All rights reserved

Mother Earth expected your arrival
her hills and mountains tumbled into plains,
but fault-lines held for your survival.

She is made of you and you of her,
atoms and molecules indistinguishable
inside the organic life you share

now the planets, just like wise men of old
align to honour you, look down on you
and from the star-filled skies behold

their will, it is foretold, to bring us rain
to wet your head and yield a flowering
of joy that sings a sweet refrain.

You are as welcome as any life could be
the seed from which you grow will never die
and flourish for eternity.

© 2018 John Anstie
All rights reserved

[This poem was written for my seventh grandchild, and third granddaughter. The first poem I wrote, in this phase of my life, just over nine years ago, was inspired by the first of my grandchildren, “Jessica Tenth of May“]

Crossing the great divide
between the dark age
and a brave new world,
sailing from the safety
of knowing your place
into uncharted waters.
In a deep and sickly swell,
an ocean of uncertainty,
struggling to recall
the purpose of the mission
for control of life, of lives,
and death by ownership.

From a certain time when
the have-nots had not
to one in which they have
a chance to trade their life
for aspiration, for riches,
for stuff and things,
for dukes and knights,
for castles and kings,
in suits that shine
with lights and bling,
for queens and knaves,
who didn’t know that they
would be just money slaves
but didn’t see the price
they’d have to pay.

Rivers flow with mighty force,
and carry away the memory
in a flood of whys, for what
and where will this all end?
Where are we now,
where will we be …

… may be Utopia, the place of dreams
to while away our wild ambitious schemes?

We fail, as long as we can feel the pain
of having less than someone else’s gain.

Or we, by virtue of the coin’s toss,
have more by far … of someone else’s loss.
~~~~
© 2018 John Anstie
All rights reserved

~~~~

A slightly different edit of this poem, along with an associated essay, was first published in the BeZine on 15th June 2018. The essay is also published in Forty-Two.