Home Grown

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

[Update 20/4/17: Yet again our hearts go out to the people of France after a police officer was killed and colleagues wounded in a terrorist attack on the Champs Elysees in Paris; our thoughts are with their families and friends as well as other colleagues who, of course, risk their lives every day during these dark times. On Sunday the French people will elect a new president. He or she will face a tough task ahead, not least - along with security forces worldwide - in thwarting the growth of home grown terrorism. Open borders are a wonderful sentiment, but impractical given the times in which we live; border checks are a necessary evil and anyone who cannot see that is well and truly blinkered. It would appear that prisons, too, are a breeding ground for home grown terrorism so security forces worldwide need to monitor anyone released who may be suspected of being radicalised; this is not an infringement of civil liberties, but plain common sense.]

Terrorism remains a global threat from fundamentalists and fanatics who think they are right so everyone else must be wrong. Tragically, their message is one of warped idealism, but idealism all the same to which young people especially are vulnerable; few have sufficient experience of life to appreciate that there are more subtle (f no less effective) ways to help initiate change for the better in what, after all, is a much flawed world for all its focus on progress.

Most if not all of us, too, have our own private terrors within our own personal space; many of these are spirited away into the rose coloured mists of time by kinder forces to which we become more sensitive we grow up, but ... rarely if ever completely.

Before we can hope to defeat global terrorists perhaps we (and they) need to address and rise above our own private terrors?

HOME GROWN

A cry in the night, could be

human or beast,

sneaking past the Old Man

like a snake

A stalking star, fallen upon

its victim?

Feet dead, thought paralysed

by indecision...

Someone badly needs help,

but in what direction?

Probably a cat, trapped in that 

dark alley’s jaws

Quiet. Blood rediscovering its

everyday route...

Mind functioning sufficiently

to agree inaction

Body heading for home, as if

never disturbed

A cry in the night, marking us

for human or beast;

heart beating madly, madness

everywhere

Of global terrors, none greater

than home grown

[From: Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]

Note: The original cover design for this collection is by my dear friend Graham Collett who has designed  covers for (many) other books besides mine in the course of his full-time job as a graphic designer. He also finds time to shoot the videos for my You Tube channel:  

http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber. 

I am fortunate indeed to call him my best friend.