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Gordon Scapens

My Thoughts Are So Loud

 

You stroll a ‘meet the voters’

as though an art gallery,

lost in study, analysis

and comment made-to-measure.

I watch from the sidelines

your face with built- in curtains,

wishing you were worth more

than the words you play with.

 

Sophistry tries to reach out

seeking the lost smiles

that hide from phrases

that put a strain on trust.

You want an easy ride to approval

but lack belief in ordinary people

that could get you a ticket.

 

A window in your promises

is letting light shine on

what you’re not saying.

My hope is the public

will see the thread running

that’s all about you

and those surrounding you.

 

Politics: causing problems

and making things worse

by wrong solutions.

 

Maybe tomorrow won’t be

just another day.

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Reaching The End

  

Everybody reaches the end

and it’s a frayed time,

needs a new compass

for those close.

 

Family and friends

will be flints,

striking grief

from each other.

 

Life will discard us

like soiled clothing,

our souls flying away

to a different sky,

names just memories,

sorry left unsaid.

 

A semaphored future

will plunge to the past.

 

The outcome

is intent on itself,

beyond explanation,

but all will meet

whatever they want

their god to be,

to explain forcefully

they were framed.

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Gordon Scapens © 2023

Checklist

 

Think of a country

that breathes carefully,

 

of faces daily ageing

a thousand years,

 

of questions

booby-trapped,

 

of smiles

a regime property,

 

of blows

as the best to hope for,

 

of disappearance

a currency of protest,

 

of escape

as a hole in the ground.

 

So extracting yourself

from inherited immunity,

 

try to assume the terror

of living in their shoes.

 

Then make a promise

to your loved ones

 

without shedding a tear.

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A Simple Man

 

Father didn’t confront

but his quiet umbrage

homed sins of the world.

He wasn’t a fighter

and disrespect and sneers

made him unlearn himself.

 

Weakness in the workplace

produced laughter and insults

to his feeble overtures

to be one of them.

Even his name wasn’t safe

from twists of their amusement.

 

There were many incidents

of him standing alone

incapable of a retort

as he shouldered daily

the pain of rejection,

ostracism in time and place.

 

He wasn’t the whole story

and his suicide note

would never be the end.

 

But now I don’t know

if his death

was a way out

or a way in.

 

 

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Gordon Scapens © 2023

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