As some of you know I'm a bit of a performance poet. My work sometimes gets put in books but I think some poems are better for being written and then read out within a short space of time. Polishing is for others. So this happened last night during a sermon on compassion. The only thing I've added since I wrote it is to have thought of a title.Let's Go Somewhere Else
Terrorism, HIV, tsunami, influenza;
The four understudies of the apocalypse?
The real weapons of mass destruction?
Page eight of The Telegraph, column six?
The cause of compassion fatigue?
The end of the world as we know it?
Nothing to do with me mate,
I never started it.
Children in Need
Millennium goals
Comic relief
UN ambassador for children
Band Aid
Live Aid
Slow fade
Early grave
Thousands die
But unless it's here
And a child
We're British. We'll donate by credit card but
We shall not, we shall not be moved.
(Holy Trinity, Nailsea 3/5/09)
2 comments:
I found it very moving as the lead-in to prayer. Final two lines particularly neat!
Not but what being unmoved would suit me personally quite nicely at times if I could attain it; my Irish blood (one quarter of the gene pool) seems to outvote the British with monotonous regularity. Still, Jesus wept too.
yes, that final stanza is incredibly powerful, st...
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