Turquoise Monster

Ghost of the ghetto
Your shadow is long
Reaching the present
In teachings and films

Ghost of the ghetto
The nightmares of man
Clouding the mind
Of one who was never there

Ghost of the ghetto
the I look to you
Is my fathers fear
Of you of the hate from which you grew

Ghost of ghetto
He never knew you
His father narrowly missed you
still he fears your return

Ghost of the ghetto
Remember of the crime
locked in a soul
perplexed by the insanity

Ghosts of the ghetto
Stain into life
So the truth cannot be seen
Your meaning hidden

Ghost of the ghetto
in resonance lies
An echo of hate
How propaganda binds

Ghost of the ghetto
A tradgedy full told
And yet the class missed it
We saw only facts

Ghost of the ghetto
yeild to me
so I may weep
the concept of family, friend, child

Ghost of the ghetto
I see you there
The key is knowing
one face, one name

Ghost of the ghetto
who are you?
Those smiling faces
or walking skeletons

Ghost of the ghetto
in images I’ve seen
people who could be my family
and so at last the tears

Ghost of the ghetto
Your enamies here
I saw them myself
But they did not know me

Ghost of the ghetto
They tried to tell me
I was like them
the way I look

Ghost of the ghetto
I knew their lies
Bundled in modern context
I turned my back on them

Ghost of the ghetto
I’ve cried for you
How can I help?
I fear I can not

Ghost of the ghetto
It’s time to rest
You may live within
I’ll remember
I shall mourn
Especially the little ones
And those that were never born

Rivers flowing locked in time
Carving the landscape
Pushing down, down,
Towards the core
That it will never reach

Rivers carrying pebbles
Rolling them over and over
Wearing them smooth
Knocking off the edges
Perfection in growing small

Rivers pure blood of life
Flowing out to nourish the world
To emerald beauty
Life to the barren earth shoot

Rivers meandering
Here and there
A sinuous twist
A delicate fan
From mountain to basin

Rivers fed from the air
From rain drops large
And rain drops small
From snow that melts
And ice that falls

Rivers springing
From the underground lair
An artesian well
in lime stone found
Aquifers of dinosaur age
A reservoir
For a future yet uncharted

Rivers anastomosing across the plan
But only in times of old
Creating braiding
And intricacies of habitat
For creatures that once abounded

Rivers carrying the silt
Of fertile planes
Needing to burst banks
That humans have made
Constraining all
Until it breaks

Burning Books

An idea is creeping
This concept is bleeding freedom dry
Bleaching our souls to dust
Carving loveliness into nothing

A vision is stealing rational thought
Turning the good to turgid insipidness
Leadership whips to spoil
Leaving people and lands boldly strewn

A nightmare is building out of the hate
Filling the belly of the best
Bubbling with grief that can destroy
Leaching humanity from its core

A cycle is beginning
Blaming, hating – are the new creeds
It begins with books and ends with people
Hold it together and no one is free

A pyre is belching a column in the sky
Smoke dirty as a sewage overflow
How many people will be maimed
For Pride and Glory and the Political Way

I Am An Ammonite is a poem written by Marcus Moore as part of the Cotswold Water Park Trust. I feel very lucky that a few years ago they all said yes to me illustrating it and placing it in the Science-Art Exhibition at Centre Arts in Cheltenham. The poem is on canvas and I attempted to make it seem as if it was in a sea full of ammonites and also a sea turned to stone – all at the same time.

The exhibition was fabulous and involved several other examples of science poetry as well as various sci-art projects.

If you wish to read the poem you can see it on here on Marcus’s blog. And yes I took a wonky photo.

Brains severed down the middle
Bloodied silver gleam
Echos of the self
Served in grey matter pulp
Memories disgorged
To the air
Swirling currents
Entering the mind
Thoughts erasing
Infection ingrating
Scrambling
That which is not cut
Grey-pink ribbons
A smell of iron jelly
Complete with spoon

A humming bird is the girl
Flitting from group to group
Stopping to drink but never her fill

A satallite is the girl
Orbiting around them all
Around and around but never to land

A firework is the girl
Waiting benign to explode
Contained potential but never lit

A dragon is the girl
Ferrocious in imagination
Tamed in the light never to fly

My dreams that where
Have all but shattered
Time alone would make them scatter

Within my mind you may find
Nothing but reflections mask
Deep within some repetitive task

Over and over
Learning the emotion pain
Express it or go insane

Legs dragging like rubber lumps
Stumps of trees used to bluggen
Liquid treacle air
Beware the morning song
Echos of dreams and future lies
A moment – such a moment
Such a dream
Scream light blossoms
Crustal liquid move
Nothing but for now
Me, you, them, us
All swirling thoughts
All memories of it all
Washed away
Dank drink binging life
Drowning in the under tow
Throttling the night
The gloom of the sky
Knotted hope of the forever life

Society wields a lobotomising blade
Severing self from self
Pushing into isolated darkness
That which needs the light
Hiding away arbitrary bits
For religion
For the state
For the neighbours
Society self lobotomising
Society self cannibalising
Swallowing their victims whole
Victims turned to automatons
Living flesh – the machine
Ordered and obeying
Self lobotomising, self cannibalising mind
Slowly the self dies
Leaving societal drones
In a stagnating nation

Whisper whisper shimmer bright
Glitter glitter sparkling light
Shiver shiver in the night
Glimmer glimmer hope or flight?
Bitter bitter lost in sight
Figure figure hold on tight
snigger snigger what is might?
Flitter flitter a new plight
Gobble gobble too few bites
Struggle struggle through the blight