Views in Verse on ‘political correctness’

Time and Space

Political correctness
The enlightenment of our age
A Proustian exercise 
In ritual disdain
As with ‘Christmas in our schools’
We’re judged to be such fools
For calling out 
Such ill-informed refrain

Who are these backroom idealists
Masquerading as realists
Their intentions seem to hide
Their common sense
Our cultures develop
In their own time and space
Without a need 
For cavalier pretense

Notwithstanding…
The norm must not be
Simply a veil, well designed,
To hide the rank exclusive
Moreover a platform
With adequate time and space
To be judged...
‘Authentically’ inclusive

Views in Verse Grahame J Flynn 

Views in verse on 'old ways'

Country Folk

She hears the pots a’rattlin’

As she patiently waits outside

He’s usually back home around six

A farmer’s wife knows a lot about waiting

Always something else to fix

Her day’s work done,

Her gaze now fixed upon the gate

A meandering half mile away

Lately she’s seen the dust a little sooner

It’s been so dry these days

For forty odd years

He’s worked this farm

‘Bloody hard work”, says he, “nothing to do with my brains”

Wasn’t always the case for her in truth

Now the bush runs through her veins

She often worries about him though

Out there, on his own

Can’t afford a hand; that’s for sure

But as she returns from her round of the kitchen

His frame now fills the door

“Ran into the neighbour just now…”

“Up for a yarn”

“…a little late getting back”

“But you know old Norm

“…he’ll never change”

“Always up for a chat!”

“He’s missin’ Shirl, 
…couldn’t help but think…”

“He’s lookin’ a little bit thinner?”
“So look luv, 

Can you set him a plate…?”

“I’ve asked him around for dinner”

From my desktop Grahame J Flynn Views in Verse

Views in Verse on resilience

Resilience

Dark omen blights my day

An iceberg in the northern sea
It leaves me reeling
Impacts
Unmistakably

Bounced from wall to wall
Rocked, stunned
Bereft of direction
Enter
Uncertainty

Unwelcome to said intrusion
Finds me deep
In forced reflection
Thinking
Euphemistically

Clawing from the wreckage
Spent, breathless
Somehow lifted
Save
Unknowingly

The human spirit responds
When challenged to the core
Reason provides
Succour, 
Sustainability

What doesn’t kill us
In turn makes us stronger
Life’s struggles abide
In step
Enduringly

Ready to hand trade-offs
Spring to mind
New horizons dazzle beyond
Not
Unsurprisingly

Views in Verse Grahame J Flynn

Views in verse on 'the sacrifices of war'

Moving Day

Following the soldiers back home
Along the track from Bruce
Came a ragtag troupe of ‘carnies’...
Not fit for His Majesty’s boots.
They crossed the River Namoi
At the town of Jindalee,
out back of the Mallee stoop.
There, the humble circus
It brought them all out
To help them with their war;
A wall,
Of pain and shattered truth

Young Jimmie Malone
Didn’t feel right, at home, these days
As he searched for life
Deep in his sad father’s eyes.
His Dad, Bert,
disconnected,
At best,
No matter how hard he’d tried.
Had said he wanted
To go to the circus...
Jimmie knew in his heart that
He'd lied.

Sgt Malone, as feared,
Winced at every crack
Of the showman’s whip
So employed to teach
An unwilling beast to dance;
The tortured lion
Roared back its’ discontent
As Bert’s head regaled
In battlefield noise
With random addled rants

Another soldier, Murph,
Reported daily to Nell’s bar
Ensconced there,
Safe from all the hullabaloo
The white tiles clean
A refuge serene,
For the needy
Solitary, few.
By the third whiskey chaser
A warm friend arrived; enter
This fond and calming ‘bracer’

Alone on his boarded porch later
Malone sat restless
And staring,
Lost in his own drinking time.
Instinctively fearing,
A circumspect vigil for
‘Next orders, Sergeant’
To filter down a distant line.
Despair silently, but surely, negating,
Life’s mandate...
A subconscious ...somehow waiting?

Young Jim was seen about
As the clan,
Had left, disorderly,down the one shabby street
The weathered parade passing
With the odd thankful wave
As it rattled o’er the dusty peat.
The boy, meantime, tried
to quiet his racing mind
Stowed, safe, beneath
A sturdy waggon seat

And as the two serviceman
Again, searched their glasses deep
For answers to their plight;
The circus meandered
Out toward the Barwon Plains,
For a matinee show next night.
The lion trussed in a wooden crate;
The performers bedraggled along;
Their eyes locked on the trail up ahead
The odd one humming a hopeful song...

And so on they went
One day at a time,
A ritual of the ages
In an attempt to somehow
Rewrite over time
The story
Of their pages.
Leaving behind this weary day
A new life to begin
Far from dark provost,
Cruel discontent,
Of faceless, driven men

Grahame J Flynn Views in Verse

Views in Verse on ‘dementia - a two-edged sword’

Dementia

A giving smile designed to assure
All is well within my world
A stifled grimace, seems all too quick to follow
Requests for forgiveness asked
For oft' strained moments masked
Forgotten names, a pain that’s all so hard to swallow

Home-care lost in a whirlwind
Of danger, risk of damage done
Frustration too can lapse into wild curse
Soon to value whatever way
Can be gleaned from each day
Now headed down a road without reverse

Fear of control, a wry factor
In the eye of the afflicted
“Wherever please have my keys and wallet gone?”
A full grieving soft begun
Glossed pride now too undone
Why, oh why, was our beloved 'the chosen one'?

Grahame J Flynn Views in Verse