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Wednesday, 26 July 2017

Another 2 poems from my archive July 26/7/2017

Both these poems I wrote very early on in my poetry foray whilst active on the Roger Waters Bulletin Board website (RWBBS)  I was raw with poetry.  The first was written when I was in Foxton around 2003 (about a homeless man walking the streets), the latter around 1999 is about seeing the future.

Sandal Shuffle Dawn on Daybreak Avenue

Old man, weathered,
leathered and gray,
Shuffles down the Avenue,
nary a thing to do,
For what's done
has been and gone,
Sandal Shuffle Dawn walks on forever,
All alone!

Daybreak Avenue, awash,
the posh strolling,
and leading their daily rituals,
waiting for death,
vying to breathe,
Sandal Shuffle Dawn stands all forlorn,
His last reprieve.

Sun up and days end, morbid,
The rigid stupidity
of the restless walk of the living,
heads bowed down,
the gauntlet thrown,
Sandal Shuffle Dawn catches the sting,
never knowing!

Lo, there's Daybreak Avenue,
revue of the lifeblood,
caked in the remorseless hopelessness,
of many blinded,
And dumbfounded, it seems,
by the mystical passing of Sandal Shuffle Dawn,
in their dreams.

Can you see that figure?
Caricature of self,
Strolling in your many blessed skins,
That drear feeling,
of life failing,
Can you see the poor men who seek the light?
humans ailing!

If you can,
Thank you,
after all,
ain't Sandal Shuffle Dawn

each of us in waiting?


The Brakeman on the Brain Train

Life, like the steel of the tracks
is unbending only
when you're looking back
'cause you can't see the future as
straight as you'd like
can't catch a vision
on your imagined plight.
I am the Brakeman on the Brain Train today
the signals are switched
pointing the direction my way.

Passed the corners, round everyone's fate,
The driver he sees it
is it him I hate,
or can the desire to forget what has gone
disrupt my scopes
cremate our hopes
and send me reeling as ashes to ashes.
I am the Brakeman on the Brain Train my friends
the line is continuum,
Life never ends.

Baying for blood, the hounds they are howling,
the diners perverse
and the waiters be growling
and the chefs chop the fox up into demeaning pieces
as the viewers look sideways
and dream of their new days
at the prospect of finding a future ahead.
But I am the Brakeman on the Brain Train you scum,
though I only see what's gone
I don't pick up crumbs.

The dreamers and innocent sleep off their fear,
and the Sandman is creeping
as the Reaper is reaping,
And the children and the elderly think of the night,
behind eyelids tight shut
as the Reaper he cuts,
their prospects of continuum to a millennium rent short.
Why I the Brakeman on the Brain Train do cry,
for the ones ahead,
who've been, yet to die.

And the weight of the baggage, the conscience of possession,
the bigger the case,
the larger the obsession
and the miseries contained in the bags of the poor
are reeking their sadness,
the insanity of madness,
and the delusions of grandeur are packed for the ride.
See me, the Brakeman of the Brain Train look back,
at the scattered pieces
Of everyone's sack.

But the signaler is silent and the train it roars on,
and the towns pass by
hear the children cry
why the millions are gassed by the fear of the Maniac,
is the direction tainted
and the signalers' words painted
as graffiti on rail-bridges right across the land,
nay, if I wasn't the Brakeman on the Brain Train no more,
would you hear my call
and the Wolf at your door.

Catch the sound of the lonely as our whistle blows ghostly,
hear the sadness of the past
as it pounds along fast
feel the wind of change as the future blows in
raise your head to the sky
see the heavens roll by
and ask of the One who steers this great train
If me the Brakeman on the Brain Train is keeping
a modest bequest
for the dreamers still sleeping.

Ask the driver if he sees the two lines ahead
converging to one
lying dark in the sun
or shining out boldly for all to behold
is the future so clear?
are we getting there?
or are we just holding on for dear life today?
Because I am the Brakeman on the Brain Train you see,
my face is always,
out looking behind me!


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