Slaughter Tide

(Indian Ocean Tsunami, 26th December, 2004)

A groaning hole
In the ocean floor
Whips the water up
Builds a deadly wall
Of deconstruction

A million souls
On the sandy shore
Meet the slaughter tide
Ride the churning ball
Of mass destruction

Now watching world
See the sea surge roar
Aid the faltering
Hear the anguished call
For reconstruction

© 2004, Alan J Stuart

Donate all you can to Oxfam now

Territory

You'll go far where money offends
With your shiny necklace and your boardroom friends
The night will hold no doors closed
But in the daylight, darling
Will you become the toast
Of the tennis circuit and the church bazaar
With your casino smile and the thigh-slit car
Or will they scheme to etch your name
In blood to warn others of your game?

You'll go far where beauty upstands
With your saintly fingers and your bedroom hands
The years will spread with gold scored
But in the twilight, darling
Will you dip into the hoard
For the neckline cut and the buttock slash
Or the Martini habit and the fat-farm crash?
Will he conspire to scratch your name
From his to take another from the game?

© 2004, Alan J Stuart

Life Of Magic

I came across a beggar man
On a dusty mountain road
His garb was soiled and ragged
His face withered, sad and old
I asked him how he came there
Where were his family and kin?
His answer was low and bitter
Where should I begin?

How I longed for a life of magic
Yearned for the art of the spell
An enchantress, a dark mistress
Sir, listen and I'll tell

In the forest of the east
Where the oak and ash grow tall
I found a ring of many flowers
Beyond a crumbling wall
On the pathway was a vision
Eyes dark with hair of red
Her hand beckoned me to join her
And gladly I was led

She cast a smile towards me
On my lips she placed a kiss
And my purpose was forgotten
No past life did I miss
The spires of the city
My father's farm, my mother's bread
My sweetheart Mary, all were lost
To that witch with hair of red

Then I lived that life of magic
Loved the art of the spell
Enchantress, dark mistress
Took me to heaven as I fell

We lay in meadows sweet and green
We danced in moonlit streams
She taught me how to charm the birds
She brought life to my dreams
We travelled over hill and glen
On hidden paths unseen
Till I could not remember where
My heart had ever been

A year did pass, through winter snow
And summer hot with sun
And all the while she sang her spell
Her beauty urged me on
Until one morn I found her gone
By a lake with waters cold
And on the surface I spied my face
Now withered, sad and old

How I gave my life for magic
All for the art of the spell
Enchantress, dark mistress
Turned a heaven into hell

I journeyed lost and in dismay
Another year was cast
Until one day I chanced upon
The old home of my past
But my father knew me not
Nor my mother hailed her son
And sweetheart Mary was repulsed
At the wretch I had become

So here I sit a victim of
The folly of desire
A young man in ancient skin
My heart a dying fire
Take my warning and resist
Eyes dark and hair of red
On a ring of many flowers
In a forest garden bed

Never sell your life for magic
Nor yearn for the art of spell
Enchantress, dark mistress
Will curse your soul to hell

© 2004, Alan J Stuart

Rights Of Giants

The valley starkly darkens
A colossus on the horizon
Blocks the suckling sun

We shiver in shock shadow
Eyes swallowed, feet shackled
Heart terrified to run

The hungry spirit spitting
Inside a flame flutters
Birthed by a jagged rage

Identify the capital I
Fight the right of giants
And unstop the frozen age

© 2004, Alan J Stuart

Dream Fragments

Characters in China
Characters on wheels
Fish and people swimming in rings around the Pope
Take a bite
Take a big bite
The whole banana is there

No lessons slip from the frog
His hat high on the ropey chord
The ghost walking the hot years
While eleven cinema owners sweat and
Evade the shells on the shore

I was in the match
I was in the match of the day
And didn't know it
And didn't know it

The bean is far from fried
Hollow inside
Like the joining of the shadows
Where the wet, inky feeling flows
From the corners of my brain

Chaos on kaleidoscopic tyres
Lord of desire and death
And grey, grey hollows
Where the fog and the day awaits

© 2004, Alan J Stuart