Angel Nash, ‘Fight For Wot’s Right’.

From the 2023 Narrowboat Sessions.

Plus she is beautiful

Why Do People Do It?

Why do people try to push me off the edge of a cliff,
Saying “you won’t mind – you don’t have feelings”
“You don’t mind if a trample all over your heart,
After all it is only made of mud and stone,
There’s nothing going in there so why moan?”

In innocent days spent at work trying to extract
All the poison darts aimed at me for no reason,
Surely, we could slice Peter’s heart up into bits
He can’t possibly feel anything, it is no surprise,
I mean look at him dour, stupid with dull eyes!

Don’t worry about telling him his father died
It doesn’t matter for he has the heart of steel
When we hurl abuse at him and he just stands still
Like an unfeeling statue with no expression
Beneath contempt he is with no intention.

Why worry if he is upset about the passing
Of his only father – it doesn’t worry me none
We don’t need to ask him how he feels
He has no real feelings so why bother to question
There are more important things to do like watch TV.

We can’t be bothered to explain to Peter the dullard
Why he should not go to his mother’s funeral
After all he has no place in our family at all.
A person such as this can not possibly feel
It doesn’t matter if he can – does it really?

Recognition of other people’s humanity
Through the fact that they have feelings
Is lost on many people and they don’t care!
Some despise their own feelings and dare
To transfer their disgust on to other people.

Tumbling through space as I leave the edge
Of the cliff far behind me waiting for the hurt
That comes with meeting the ground below
My tears warm my face and wet my t-shirt
Feelings extinguished by an unfeeling family.

Uprising by John Michaelson

We invented the systems within which you exist,
And created the armies where we insist you enlist,
Controlling you as our puppets with our cast iron fist,
Denying you any chance to persist or resist.

We constructed your illusions laced with afflictions,
Built on alcohol and sugar to become your addictions,
Which we manufacture in abundance without any restrictions,
To manipulate and influence your deepest convictions.

We removed your conscious choice that’s no longer missed,
To the point you cannot even remember the gist,
Your brainwashed mind is now numb and dismissed,
So you follow our rules with no fate you can twist.

Our media and content become your distractions,
With materialistic attractions to seduce your perceptions,
Spreading infections to increase your prescriptions,
While our monopolist board members toast their deceptions.

But deep underground where the masses are contained,
Lies an educated minority who feel unrestrained,
Driven by overwhelming desire to expose the unexplained,
Awakened and aware with their consciousness regained.

No longer are they fooled by the egocentric state,
That’s designed to encourage fear and amplify hate,
They will start a new slate with no need to dictate,
And create their own world in a new twist of fate.

They know the current system cannot be sustained,
And those already trapped in it cannot be retrained,
For most have sold their soul laying dormant and detained,
It’s the next generation who will live their lives unchained.

Unlike their predecessors they will not take the bait,
They will revolt and rebel to make our world great,
They will build a new paradigm on which all can create,
I just hope they awaken before it’s too late.

by John Michaelson~

#writingforchange#poetry#author
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John Michaelson - Writing For Change

Adrian Mitchell – Tell Me Lies about Vietnam, (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran)

This great poem by the late, very much lamented, poet and political activist Adrian Mitchell can be applied to any of the wars of recent times, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, or the planned war on Iran. Adrian, who was a committed activist in the anti-war movement, repeatedly revised the text, as lies for new wars were trotted out by the likes of George W Bush and Tony Blair. This video shows the celebrated reading Adrian made on 11 June 1965 at London’s Royal Albert Hall, when the Vietnam war was slaughtering millions in the name of “democracy and “freedom”.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN (TELL ME LIES ABOUT VIETNAM)

I was run over by the truth one day.
Ever since the accident I’ve walked this way
So stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain,
Couldn’t find myself so I went back to sleep again
So fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Every time I shut my eyes all I see is flames.
Made a marble phone book and I carved all the names
So coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

I smell something burning, hope it’s just my brains.
They’re only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
So stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Where were you at the time of the crime?
Down by the Cenotaph drinking slime
So chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

You put your bombers in, you put your conscience out,
You take the human being and you twist it all about
So scrub my skin with women
Chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies, tell me lies about Aghanistan.
Tell me lies about Israel.
Tell me lies about Congo.
Tell me, tell me lies Mr Bush.
Tell me lies Mr B-B-Blair, Brown, Blair-Brown.
Tell me lies about Vietnam.
© 1968, the estate of Adrian Mitchell
From: Out Loud
Publisher: Cape Goliard, London

The Forbidden Fence

The old rustic fence, listing at the end of the garden
Looking forbidding, yet tantalising.
When I was very young the fence was too high
Maybe not so brilliantly painted
Now naturally, against the sky, tainted.

Tufts of rough grass, enticing a tumbling foot
Looking innocent, from a distance
Like the wall the other side of the fence
I thought one day I shall look over
To find out what was on the other side

Many times I visited the end of the garden
Hardly noticing what lies there, at the end
Many times the feeling of foreboding
But never enough motive to investigate
My thoughts ran further that mere gates
My dreams of the beyond were with me
Day and night.

My wandering mind could try to leap the fence
But always it was higher than it might
Seem from a great distance
I summoned an extra helping of steeled nerves
On more than one occasion
Only to find myself in an invisible cage upon
Which set a force that would repel my efforts.

The rains washed the colour to dismal grey
The wood was tattered, felt like clay
Splinters finally invaded my hands
As I tried my luck at survey
But the years hadn’t destroyed the forbidden
Secret that must surely have lain
The very other side of the shaky fences.

Thoughts lanced the languid days of summer
With spectres and monsters
For the imagination is never satisfied
Without a sighting of what lies beyond
The near obsession would wreak dismay
For a conjured fantasy would only delay
What really had to be done.



Part II

For over twenty five years the mystery was shelved
The fence had all but dissolved
Into micro chasms in my head
The leaden expectation invaded my dreams in bed.
Those many years later at the funeral of a thought
I clasped an empty embrace
Let forth condolences, a trace
Of sympathy to help wipe away the dark tears
The drying attracted my eyes to the street tiles
My eyes sped along geometric lines
I couldn’t hold my breath
A fire was started behind my eyes
But darkness reappeared.

In the following minutes as the sun raged in
I was kneeling
Cleaning a large stain from the tiles
The sun hindered
The heat hinted
The sky was red tinted.
The stain was the colour of creosote.

My knees chafed merrily as mourners knelt in unison
The scrubbing of stains seeming not unusual
The cleaning was a sensible way to mourn
Everyone who could see the fence
As the priest sighed prayed,
Commenced the cleaning.

During the half hour it took over fifty people to clean
Passers-by smiled, they offered advice
Their teeth lied we winced our apologies,
How do you explain fifty people scrubbing the pavement
Outside a church
When the sky was tinted red?

I paid particular attention to the detail
of the carved patterns
That lay within every forty tiles
My eyes were magnetised
As I scraped an unwary elbow against someone’s fence
The cut was shallow the blood warm, the fence old,
In licking the wound the dream was played again.

Like the re-releasing of Gone With The Wind
The fence was now showing on the main screen
Energy spouted into every crevice of memory
The dream
The Fence
The Foreboding –
They had all revisted
The creosote catalyst had reacted
I’m in mourning
Incredulous
In the forbidden place.

The fence was warm in the dying sun
My fingers throbbed
The work having been done
My eyes were strobed
I struggled a sigh as realisation stepped in
I staggered as a new image awakened.

I’m on the other side of the fence...
In over thirty years of travel and dreams
The fence loomed large it seems
But now the cleaning is complete
The fence was fading in the heat
The sense of the forbidden view
Had collected a history of blue
The fence had nails
That rust in the sea air
The shiny stainless steel
Hadn’t a care
It now had to bear
The consequence
Of dull ignorance.

Am I standing in my dream
Or is the dream standing in me.

The fence won’t go away
But I’m so much bigger
Than the uttered word
That I feel ridiculous,
However could anyone be afraid
To look over the shaky fence.

The drifting dream carries on

Is it a dream?
What I sense it seems
Like the drifting dream that carries on,
Flying over soft fields of buttercup words
Unable to land as yet, it’s absurd.

Dreams drift in and out and can’t settle,
I can see a wooded area where birds rejoice
Their songs fill my mind, it’s my choice,
I can’t join words to their shrills and whistles
But it is as maybe, it is after all a dream.

Sliding over mountains purple without rage
Their majesty projects an unrealistic stage
Who would want to climb every one of them?
There are those who consider themselves to be brave
They would try and try again, their face to save

To prove a kind of recklessness out far
Where with a grizzly bear they would spar
And blood would be their scant reward
What are they to prove, in this sliding dream?
Clouds tinged with the dying light of the day.

They glide into my gaze escape attention I’d say
I mean who notices them or their colour?
at least there is no argument about their sound
For there is none, a factor in their favour
I watch clouds as they drift into my hair

I kiss every facet of them, never is there a spare
Space I leave untouched, not this day.
In cities which drain their feelings,
What do people notice in the clouds, they say
“What clouds? I don’t see any, not at my feet”

As they hurry along never lifting an eye upwards.
Clinging on to gossamer thin wisps of droplets
I hunker down wishing my day was longer yet,
No surprises rise up in the cloudy domains
So disappointment will steadily release the reins.

Damp rows of roses dripping perfume into the air
The water from a tall pink tinted waterfall is there
Talking, as it does, to passing animals and birds
Swathes of yellow daffodils giving up their task
As tulips begin to show how to lower their masks

Lines of soldiers waiting to be taken to hell
In a boat made of past warriors bones which tell
What rain droplets will slowly slide along noses
The men watch them as water falls to the ground
Many dozens of frightened souls not a sound
From anyone, no questions are asked
Only insane Generals barking orders aloud.

Why can’t they walk along paths of roses
Throw away their weapons and uniforms
Naked amongst the bushes could become the norm
When a man takes his life into his own hands
who doesn’t lend it to another, to those insane for power,

Become part of nature and worship the importance
of real nature’s love that grows without interference.
Seeing the point of view from that of clouds drifting
Where questions of the mystical collide with prayer
Revealed to the world as the brightest lights of all

The mind is churning out messages to one and all
Try to capture one if you can
Hold tight keep it in your hand.
In meadows where grass grows the tallest I am surround
Listening as I do to every natural and sensual sound

Dig deep to find the brightest energy escaping around
What satisfaction in this natural place can be found?
Watching as the day starts to dim and shadows abound
Two nude lovers covered in soft red roses
They grasp the scent as their bodies are joined

The natural act of love they display and enjoy
The warmth of the tongue is the language of love
The stiffness of the wand is the gift from above
The wetness of the nest is the sign of the climax
The look upon their faces as at last they relax

Tells a story that can be told a thousand times over
A natural and sensual setting for the naked lovers.
Sweet talk rests softly upon their ears smiles are rich
Declarations of love are exchanged there is no hitch.
They join the drifting dream as it carries on

Thoughts they cannot pretend dance in the fires
Which reveal over and over again their deepest desires,
In warm feelings they melt into the natural vibrations
Upon which all in nature seek their satisfactions,
It’s not only flesh that can ask the right questions

Truth will stride with trust in the darkest hours,
keep your dreams in your hearts reveal only a little
let the strength of determination keep you from unsettled
dreams you have, those to which you are entitled
those to which you deserve, stay only within circles.

What do you want to be realised, listening to a call
that embraces a background of simmering gentleness,
leaving clues being an advocate for the natural oneness
realising our sensuality is vital to our emotional survival;
sitting upon a dune that cascades sand at every second

My mind’s eye goes out to sea and collects my memory,
that persuaded my inner self that there is more to see
than what we think we can perceive, dreams are electric
they are powered up by love and understanding, a trick
that we can all enjoy, every girl and every boy.

Lively are the shadows in the approaching night
Meaninglessness is the verse they wish to recite
I turn my back on it and wait for the following light
With eyes shut the drifting dream carries on.
With ears pricked all sounds are absorbed upon

An instruction from a thousand previous times
When darkness over took meaning and laughed
As it watched the pain taken on by many lovers
Those who were persuaded that paradise can be theirs
If only they would do as they were told, to be spared

Much worse than what was on offer – such is the evil
That comes readily to some without any real effort
It is as easy as taking a breath, controlling without thought
For the consequences to themselves and to others ensnared
With the lies the drama the sneering, with teeth bared

They take a dramatic bite from the inner mind and laugh.
Conclusions confusions and intrusions to the bleeding heart
Is not their concern, nor do they even know this little part.
In times when I feel that I want to collapse into small pieces
Drifting dreams are over head it’s their energy that releases

Pictures of how we really look to others – an alien aspect
For our own perceptions, a different opinion I expect
We receive as an honest description grips our hearts,
We cannot deny it nor do we wish to, not any part
Of the drifting dreams that carry on in to our past.

Future drifting carries weight so fine it is nought
Into every crevice of memory, every hidden word
There is a meaning waiting to be discovered
A drifting dream carries a thousand souls rejoicing,
The sound is powerful and rejects all false choosing

To resist the natural is like creating a dark situation
Where curses dance freely with fine attention
Could they not be knocked down to size at all
How much effort is needed to make them small
Insignificant ants that plague each and every heart,

We cast them aside we rehearse we play the part
We look to the heavens at last in every second
As we see the drifting dream that carries on.

What It Is to Be Without

Without what? as I have been without I don’t know.

Feelings of being so small knowing no one notices me,
From an early age I learnt the harshness of adults,
Making me feel at once, unwanted, now – unworthy!
I was born 10 months after my elder brother
Clearly, I was not planned, nor wanted, I know.
Playing second fiddle to my older brother
Filled me with frustration and certain anger,
I was the also ran brother, arriving unwelcomed,
Early memories of sexual abuse cast down
My feelings of self-esteem – what is that?
I was often shy and blushed for no reason,
My needs were unmet and love was deprived
No one took what I said seriously at all, why?
I don’t know.
My love of music at an early age spurred me on
To ask for a guitar for my birthday to learn on.
I was given a plastic toy guitar to play upon.
The disappointment of not getting a real one
Made me go through the floor and down to hell
It was the worst birthday I had ever had.
No one took me seriously no matter what I said
These were the early days of feeling rejected
It is why I take rejection or people saying no to me
In a rather difficult way – but I cope steadily.
I was ripped away from my best 2 friends
at the age of 5 years – the harshness of adults.
Because my family decided we were moving
I felt a kind of shock like the sky just fell in.
School was tolerable apart from the petty rules,
But my family were never acceptable to me
I knew I was not accepted by them anyway.
When I reached about sixteen I discovered poetry
I have been scribbling away ever since really.
None of my family wanted to read my poems
They thought I was going a bit funny
so they shunned me, and my poetry.
Does a marriage bring with it being wanted?
Yes, it does – but I never felt wanted by my wife.
It is a feeling I have had to live with all my life
Being unwanted, what does this really mean?
A 30 year marriage built on sand
A precarious existence with many interrogations
Accusations - not believing a single word I said,
Female friends of mine were tracked down
By my ex-partner – but I don’t know why,
Because I never knew at the time only years later,
Treated with indifference and coldness when
The old jealousy got the better of her,
5 years of no affection, no contact – destroys;
Living all the time feeling as if some catastrophe
Was about to happen – so I had better watch myself
In case I cause more reasons for the questions questions questions
Wantedness is the cornerstone of my happiness
I have yet to feel whether I am being wanted
So this causes great sadness.
There is a pain that sits neatly in my chest
Makes me feel like an unwanted guest.
I have anger inside of me under control
It never appears publicly
It is there just smouldering calmly without relent
In private I have displays of anger
Shouting until my throat hurts.
Some say I am a kind, nice and caring man
And then they take advantage of me
Thinking I am some kind of mug asking to be done.
Feelings of being so small knowing no one notices me,
From an early age I learnt the harshness of adults,
Making me feel at once, unwanted, now – unworthy!

The Caterpillar Smoked

Like in Alice in Wonderland a smiling curly-cued
Giant caterpillar smoked on top of a mushroom,
He rapped on as usual about the music he’d heard,
Smoke billowing all about him in trees it’s absurd.

White hot ants danced all around the big fungus
To the music, which was turned down too soft,
For anyone to hear, but the insects danced in time
Remarkable really for they really don’t like music.

Giant lily pads festooned with colourful noisy toads
Glided passed my window so close I could touch them
The croaking was comical like schoolboys eating lunch,
Corn-flake river boats sailed past they were in overload.

A merry go round like carousel was spinning too fast
The people on board had to use an extra strong grasp
Just to stay on the up and down horses with manic eyes,
Let go now immediately into space they would all fly.

Suddenly all at once but gradually I stumbled upon a table
With crazy creatures lying about having tea, some unstable
Of mind others just crazy, saying things that made little sense
A dormouse said – I marvel at his acute Osbert Lancaster

Well, what can I make of that – it isn’t even a sentence.
I queried the small creature who promptly went back to sleep
“Never mind him” said the Hatter, “ he’s only got a PhD”
“Sit you down sir and have some cake or sandwiches or tea”

But I could only see cups and saucers a tea pot full to the brim
I asked for milk and sugar and was put off with a fart from a hare
“Don’t mind him, he’s just bad mannered he doesn’t really care!”
I had enough of this madness, so I left and meekly thanked him.

I was drawn to the man standing next to a white limousine
And asked him for a lift to the nearest town which is nearby
But not too far to go, the man declined my request it seemed
he was unable to drive – he didn’t possess a driving licence.

I thought that was strange for a Chauffeur being unable to drive
So I asked him about it – he said he had always wanted to strive
For those things he knew he would never be able to do or see
I was dumbfounded what is the point of living in a dream.

A white rabbit strolled slowly passed me going at a fast speed
I followed him up a long steep tunnel only to be blocked
By the backside of a blonde-haired girl falling towards me
“Excuse me sir my name is Alice – pleased to meet me”!

Strands of Words

There are strands of words I put together at random,
Now I discover there are some spaces between them,
The spaces are filled with music that I did not put there,
Beautiful music from where I know not but somewhere.

There are strings of sentences I manage to combine,
Each ending with a sigh only audible every time
When I breathe inwards collecting the sense of them,
But what meaning in between can be revealed then?

There are small paragraphs I have crafted this night,
That seek only to reveal the brightest of bright light,
What purpose is the meaning when revealing happens,
Is it a joke, a phrase to ridicule what comes from my pen.

There are longer paragraphs potted with words too sound
To be dismissed like a cavalier wave of your hand,
What can I do I am sitting at the beginning of this page
Looking about me for meanings – this could take an age.

There are pages of words swimming around in pools of blood
That have sweated all the droplets from me – a real flood
Of words, phrases, holding the knives for someone’s back,
Ready am I to shove the blades right in so life is lack.

There are chapters of my life that I wish to happily discard
But I warn myself – life is hard enough but to be this hard?
What is the purpose over creating mountains to climb,
Am I to boast to all and sundry that this work is all mine?

There are books I have in my hand all of them incomplete
Why bother starting another one when I know I will defeat
The very reason why only my words are to be displayed;
Do I conjure a pattern or words only to have them slayed?

There are libraries full of books that I will never read
Nor ever know most of the titles or authors indeed,
This is the paradox, how could I have met these words
And not understood a single one, this is too absurd!

There are streets of libraries but I have ignored them all
I will use my own words – I write them no matter how small
The meaning or how great – to stir the mind into action,
My laurels I have rested too long for my satisfaction.

I’m in Rapture, the lake will save me

My arms are outstretched and very wide 
As I try to capture you floating nearby,
Your rays of sun are hitting the backs of my eyes
And the dance of angels are just starting,
There are cascades of lights warming the air
As I go wandering in and out of clouds everywhere,
So that you can explore what the world wants of you,
Are you surprised the world takes notice of you;
I am not!
You are in the infinite variety of words and song,
I cannot choose the best of them, I am always wrong
But with you within my measure, I can feel right again,
I dance on the worn out ashes of time and space
I cannot joke with the moon nor look into its face,
But with you inside my private surrounds I can smile
You are the woman who is not content by taking a mile,
There are consequences for not being as one ought to,
I can’t explain it only revel in what was brought to
My attention as the sun sinks below its reason,
“Can you shoot me?” was my plaintive cry out loud,
There are words meant for horizons in unwanted colours.
Can you tell between lazy motives and love itself?
I have explanations in each of my pockets
And none of them made any sense, because my mouth was hidden.
Did I tell you about the warm sunny meadows inside my head
A thousand maybes if I didn’t but it is better isn’t it, instead
When I’m in rapture the lake is there to save me, cool me,
Stepping outside the grasslands and into the desert sands
Not bothered by the heat melting me, but I understand
You are not really there, you are outside of my warmest dreams.
Don’t give back all the words and songs I have given you please,
What will I do with them now they are used up, worn, old, shabby,
I prefer you as you are in strong womanhood you make me happy.