http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
This may well be the last (new) poem I will blog before I go into hospital
next week (Monday) for an operation on my infected elbow. As it is my right
elbow and I am right-handed, keyboarding will almost certainly take longer for
some time. Even so, I will link to posts/poems via my Google Plus site as and
when I can. Meanwhile, I hope you will enjoy browsing the blogs as I may be unable to link to poems vis my Google + site as I try to do on a daily basis since being asked by regular readers to make accessing poems easier than random browsing:
https://plus.google.com/118347623673930289606
This poem was inspired by a conversation with a migrant from war-torn
Syria some months ago.
EXTRACTS FROM A MIGRANT’S DIARY
Dreaming of distant lands,
sapphire seas, golden sands, treasures
of mind-body-spirit
equal to none, prize worthy of a poem,
can’t be measured out in coin
Dreaming of distant shores,
where birds sing a welcome in the ear,
reflected in the shy smile
of a passer-by, equal to none for peace
and love, cue for a better life
Dreams of landing on the moon,
peering back through time and space,
seeing how Here-and-Now
offers so much more than once a place
to call home before crisis-hit
Waking to street sounds roaring
like a pride of hungry lions hunting prey
in a concrete jungle,
no sapphire sea, golden sand, birdsong
a warning, wishing them gone
Waking to damp stains on walls,
courtesy of landlords whose first language
a rhetoric counted out in coin,
invested in one-upmanship, measure
of a common nouveau status
Wide awake, fierce stirrings within
a body-mind-spirit so weary of battling time
and tide, yet forever inspired
by a rage to live, no matter the odds
against winning the peace
Copyright R. N. Taber2017