Poetry Fly Past

February 2024 - My poem called simply 'Gaza' . I wrote this because it seems so terrible.

Gaza

On the bonfire of the dispossessed

the vulnerable are cast like kindling.

The disenfranchised, the disabled,

discarded like detritus.

Rich men fan the flames while

poor men wait their turn,

lying like logs, cut and broken.

Smoke rises, obscuring the view.

So the perpetrators cannot be seen.

Insane and delusional, they rub their hands with glee

As they thrust the dross and debris of their dystopia

Into the conflagration.

They poke the embers into sparks,

which flicker round the violent death throes of their victims.

Finally, in the ashes at the bottom of the abyss

lie bare bones, stripped by the god of war andgreed.

Can the phoenix rise again ?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have been writing poems since I was a child. I chose to publish a cross-section of them in a collection I entitled 'Conglomeration'. The book was published in 2015. It's available from Amazon in Paperback & Kindle formats.

My Poetry

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Conglomeration-Philomena-May-ebook/dp/B017A3QSI2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493905775&sr=8-1&keywords=conglomeration

Here are three examples of poems from my collection entitled 'Conglomeration'.

_______________________________

TABLOIDWORLD

Passive passengers

Anaemic and bloodless

Carried on a journey into the drama

Of half truths and outright lies.

Recipients of gossip where lives and reputations

Are discarded like litter.

Minds, manipulated, transported elsewhere

Celebrities with lives more glamourous, more interesting

Than their dull reality.

Passive passengers

Anaemic and bloodless

Carried on a journey into virtual reality

Independent thoughts unwatered, unfertilised

Droop and fade.

Provided with a tabloid feast

They are fed with microchips and spam.
Fattened with bias.

Tossed into the gutter press.

Where messiahs of mediated mythology

Carry them into myopia.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MY IMAGINATION

I like to wrap myself

In the blanket of my imagination.

Cuddle up with my dreams.

My imagination is a warm world,

Secure and safe.

There I can do dangerous deeds,

Think seditious thoughts,

Then return to reality

Unharmed, unreached.

As I grow older

I like to spend more time

Curled up in my blanket.

As I grow older

Reality grows more grey.

My dreams become more colourful.

I might just snuggle down in my blanket

And not re-emerge.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ORDER

Order is in your mind.

Not in your filing cabinets

or soldier straight rows of neatly sharpened pencils.

Order is your own.

You make things happen as and when you want.

Dreaming and Dancing

Drowning in Despair

Danger or Delight

Watch opportunities pass

Reach, Grasp or close your eyes.

Pleasure or Pain

Reality or Fantasy

Order is in your mind.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CLOCKWORK ORANGE

This was my response toa friendly challenge for readers of Anthony Burgess – seeking a rhyme for ‘orange’

– in three stanzas each with three lines and each line having 10 syllables)

---------------------------

Finding a rhyme for orange makes me cringe.

A brain binge has me almost unhinged.

My fingers are singed, but I shall not whinge.

Spores are safely stored inside a sporange.

En France, je voudrais manger une orange.

In Wales is a mountain called the Blorenge

The long day wanes. The clock works against me.

The seed of ideas is wanting in me.

All this effort will be the end of me !

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My poems previously published in collections:

'A Cautionary Tale' in 'Her Mind's Eye', published by Pyramid Press (1996)

'Surburban Monsters' in 'The West in Her Eye', published by Pyramid Press (1995)