Christmas

A frozen dawn crackles into view

Cottoned concrete, new and flawless

Lays ready for the impression;

For the session to begin.

Footprints puncture the pristine powder

As the march of families reveal familiar paths

Soon enough, they gather around sparkling trees

Propped on their knees, thankful for the company

And grateful for those that can join them

This Christmas day.

Spiced apples dance in the soupy air

Fair smells of roasting foods entertains the senses

As the sharing commences amidst happy chatter

The clatter replaced by the rustling

Of silvery sheets, sparkling

Against the crackling firelight

A wonderful sight, adorned with smiles

As the paper shreds in chaotic joy

And piles up in quiet corners

Into marbled alloys

The merriment drifts across sleepy towns

As crystals, sparkled with champagne beads

Greet to the sounds of laughter and cheer

A feast of no equal is polished

The sequel of which will repeat for days

Whilst the haze of the wine

After much time turns words

Into the most mirthful of mischief.

Witness the wonder of this time spent together

In company of those that we love

And remembering those that are no longer with us

That were lost in the year soon to pass

But we’re thankful for the time we still have to share

Under the remembrance air of the past
To wish all that I love a magical day

And a very merry Christmas.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin

Under the Shadow of Grief

Weight of the earth in thick rock and sorrow

Wish for release from regretful tomorrow

Burden the past as it blisters the brain

Force back the torment and choke on the pain

Weeks roll in seconds through forgotten time

Meaningless chatter within purposeless rhyme

Drifting in masses but walking with ghosts

Swimming the oceans but drowning at coasts

Clouded in judgements whilst clear in denials

Begging for inches then giving up miles

Facing blank walls when staring through spaces

Insincere pity from false smiling faces

Absence of feeling and sick of existence

Happiness muted through tortured persistence

Eyes full of rivers with hearts full of frost

And a world full of strangers in a paradise lost

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

Winter

Mist of midnight frost on shards of glass,

Peppered snow at rest on rigid grass,

Wind is still but whispers sleeted breaths,

Threatened creatures sleep in frosted deaths.

Frozen branches drop their tears for art,

As fashioned moonbeams split the world apart.

Air is thick with fog, heavy and blue,

Ground of steel is crowned with icy dew,

Crystal flakes descend at leisure’s pace,

Dusting whispered powder about face.

Hazy lights are bled of upper zones,

Noise distorts to ghostly baritones.

Man-made stars blink hard in absence heat,

Natural flows buckle in jagged pleat,
Roaring coals crack hard amongst the pyre,

Roasted bricks irradiate the fire.

Plated sheets of black coat corners new,

Splitting asphalt rocks at once in two.

Purple lights loom high above; surreal,

Endless twilight bleeds the ethereal,

Objects brought to life solidify,

Underneath an obsidian sky.

Sunlight glances, cuts the brume to splinter,

As life accepts the thick blanket of winter.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

The Titan

Too late, Titan lost

Touch the diamonds of the north

Fill her chest

Soak her lungs

See her drown to the ripening

Of stars

Body and soul deep in the water

Gliding softly at first

But the strength of the sea

Takes her slowly

Then quickly

As the mirror of night

Drags the willing

To die

And a sky

Full of sapphires

Gazes down on those left without hope

Hear them choke

On the crystals

Of god

The bed welcomes

She

Whilst above, hopelessly

Those that struggle to breathe

Do so slowly

Mournfully

The queen of the waves

Regretfully saves 
None

And bows her head

In acceptance

Regret at once

That a man

Who is full of the strength

To have all

Sent the irons of earth to the oceans

With but ignorance in tow

See the spirit of death

Rub his hands

Without passion

And pull in those lost

In a most desperate

Fashion.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

Two Minutes

Distant thunder rings out across pristine lands,

Hands, weathered by life’s lessons reach for heart and crown

And settle down for two minutes of peace.

The modern world ceases unfurling and rapidly curling

To once more remember those long since deceased,

For some, not so long, for the drums of war do not stop

Just because the earth has grown wiser with ages,

For the pages of history continue to be written in blood.

And whilst we cannot erase the stain of the battle

So often in vain, for those silent two minutes

We remember the bullets that cut down our heroes

And ended their turmoil’s in trenches and deserts

In distant lands, on foreign soils and plains.

Hats clasped in hands as heads bow towards stone relics

As the old boy picks his moment to rise from the chair

He is bound to these days, the metal reminder

Still sits in his back, where the three seconds of lapsed concentration

Cut him down to become yet another hero of nations.

His knees buckle under the strain of age, but his page

Is already turned and his strength has returned for

Two minutes, no more, as he stands to endure

And to honour his brothers that lie in poppy strewn fields.

His eyes still burn with the life of that man that marched

Across shell shocked lands. His strength therein peaks,

And the tears that have so long stung the back of his soul

Roll forward and fall to his battle scarred cheeks.

A minute has passed and still the silence is true

The boy with blue eyes rocks forward in his chair

And tries once more to steady his unbalanced frame.

The reminders of war are raw here and he bites on his lip

To try not to slip and let out yet another cry from the pain.

His phantom feet ache, and his one good arm is held firm

To his head in salute; resolute, that for one minute more

He will honour his brothers that lay strewn across sands

In distant desert lands that are still finding space

For their graves.  The cenotaph helps with his strength

And watches over the boy, holds the wreath, burdens grief

For his young haunted mind. But he still makes the time,

To forget his own burdens and remember those now underneath.

The thunder returns as chimes of distant bells ring about

And signs the ending of two minutes silence. Then, rising up

Above the retuning abruption, the eruption of bugles sounds out.

The Last Post echoes beyond barriers of history and time.

Divine souls lost in the eons of conflict once more return

From the grave, from the sea and the urn

And stand once again at the shoulders of those that remain.

For many still carry the pain of the injuries, memories of war,

But they endure, for their brothers have paid the ultimate price

For freedom cannot be won without the sacrifice of heroes

That we remember this day. And remember once more,

Until the time comes again to caress the faces of lost friends

In places beyond the senseless destruction of war.

But for now, just two minutes in a silent November,

Whilst we will never understand the loss, 
We will always remember.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

 

For my Uncle Gary x

Covered Tracks

The orchard trees left petals of blood on the ground,

The sound of wood and metal shaking hands

In cold winds, rattled through souls

Lost within the smother of snow

Unknown destinations map out in clouds of misery

The mystery of tracks leading forward

Toward the end of the lines entwined within the depths

Of human annihilation.

Aspirations eradicated beyond pointless skies

As eyes look out through splintered cracks

In frozen oak.

Smoke on the horizon entices as tracks continue on

Through places well trodden, sodden

With the tears and the blood of ludicrous life.

The well written strife of those whose story was never told

Are old and meaningless, clotted within the soil of one-point-one

Lost under a sun of glowing atoms; forgotten and rotten

In the obituaries of history and time.

But the tracks remain prodded

As the trains of the damned roll on across white waves

Where the slaves are absurd and they scream out the words

Of books that are burning and pushing their ash to the sky.

The lies of the men spread like fire and fill the desire

Of a nation that is blinded by death.

Understand though that some have been left by the tracks

Were the monsters forgot to look back and select

The delectable pain and to punish the same

And they wish they were lost in the boiling

Combusting of those that will burn;

That are fit for the pit, for the urn

And there still behind oak as the smoke rises up to an eternal sky

Those that die, they have done so in vain.

And as the slain turn to dust in the ravenous furnace

Where the ultimate end to the life of the man

Is decided, not by those who cannot

But simply, by those, who can.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 


This poem is based and inspired by the trains that took victims of the Holocaust to the
'Gates of Hell' at Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1942-1945

The Nazis established their largest and most infamous extermination camp at Oswiecim, near Krakow, in Poland and called it Auschwitz.

Between 1940 and 1945 they killed more than a million people there - the vast majority of them Jews but also Poles, Roma (Gypsies) and Russian prisoners of war.

Trains filled with victims from throughout occupied Europe arrived at the camp almost every day between 1942 and the summer of 1944.

Punishment

Caliginous cage at the ends of the earth,

Undignified prisoner of unnatural birth.

Beset by insanity; skinless and raw,

Cankered, decrepit and burnt to the core.

Bloodied and battered, left there to die,

Hidden in shadows, absent of sky.

Tortured and tattered; blinded and deaf,

Screaming in agony, longing for death.

Chained to the walls in a bottomless well,

Enraptured by demons… shackled to hell.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

Fickle Fire

Burning brightly, fickle fire,

Gift of heaven, man’s desire,

Boil the ocean, all admire,

Songs in honour, demon choir,

Brightly fickle, burning fire,

Born of heaven's dark desire.

Flicker fire, fickle flame,

Out of power, out of pain,

Born so quickly, lost the same,

Move the earth through darker plain,

Fickle fire, flicker flame,

Lost before the pouring rain.

Flaming fire, brightly burning,

Boiling under planet, turning,

Hide the stars, the fate unnerving,

Warm the man, still undeserving,

Brightly flaming, fire burning,

Death in darkness, light in learning.

Flicker fire, burning fickle,

Deliquesce the ferronickel,

Freezed to forge the reapers sickle,

Cut to fever, blood in prickle,

Burning flicker, fire fickle,

Through deaths finger, lightly trickle.

Fickle fire, burning brightly,

Roaring flame from ember slightly,

Kiss the moth; consume the mighty,

Birth the dawn from ever nightly,

Fickle burning, fire brightly,

Praised on earth but cursed, almighty.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

Mortality

I see him at my window tonight.

The moon, full and bright

Casts his dark shadow onto an icy wall.

A familiar silhouette, unmistakable,

Pressed against the pane.

The cold melts his breath into feathery diamonds

Running in thin veins down the thick glass.

His face, hidden and veiled in black

Glances my way and nods;

I nod back

Acceptingly. Suddenly,

The glass no longer divides,

Inside with me and glancing forward

Towards my funeral bed.

My head, frozen, near death

Funnels my sight towards him.

His thin frame stops at my side.

The immortal guide

Reaching his ancient hand towards mine,

Soon to be part of the fabrics

Of time.

And as the warmth of my life turns to frost,

Acceptingly.  Suddenly,

I am lost.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin

Amy

The breath had left her, not long ago.

Her face, pressed into the pillow

Drained black tears onto white linen.

Her fight had been lost; the long battle had ravaged her

And her iconic war paint scrawled ironic defeat in tracks

Down her pale skin onto paler sheets.

A motionless husk; as she lays there;
Her raven hair, unravelled from familiarity,

Falls delicately on her back,

Carefully caressing her cold shoulders;

Shielding her from the dawn of life from which now

She has withdrawn.

Soft silhouettes draped across pleated sails,

Her frail body, brittle and delicate, finally rested.

Tested beyond its limits, too high the cost

And too great the affliction.

Lost in the struggle of the addict

To the addiction.

And now her Palladian palace enshrines,

As the afternoon sun shines through gaps

In drawn blinds.

A silent room, ordered and decided,

Expects an arrival beyond the survival

Of the girl that had no more to lose.

In a time where spirits take spirits, she;

Three lifetimes lived in seven and twenty.

But here, at the very end in her empty home,

The girl that thought she was nothing,

Died for nothing,

Alone.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 



Amy Jade Winehouse
1983 - 2011



 



Dreamer

The space you stare into is vast,

I can see behind your glass-like gaze, the maze revealed

Is twisted and infuriating, concealed within

An enigma, wrapped in a riddle

And shrouded in mystery.

You whistle Dixie as the seconds

Unravel into days, unconnected to the world

As you collapse through the motions of time.

To you; sublime.

But a lapse in your absence brings you back to me

Briefly. And as quick as you came you are gone

Once again as you fly away off with the fairies,

The prairies of your isolate mind unravel before you

As you travel amongst them in awe.

The wondrous heat of a sun that’s not there

Warms your skin, which is cooled

By the wind in your hair that you’re so sure is real,

But it’s not.

You’ve forgot what it’s like to exist in the place

Where your face is caressed;

Where your presence is blessed every day, must I say

Anymore how I love you and need you here with me?

Not off in a place where I cannot be with you

My darling, come back to me.

Briefly.

But you’re gone yet again as your eyes roll to white

And your sight is emblazoned with visions of heaven,

The rapture entices, the vices of life

Are dissolved in a sapphire ocean.

Admire it darling but do not forget that the waters are shallow

The jade fields lie fallow

And the radiant sky is as empty and frozen as night.

I cannot offer perfection

But here your reflection is as true as the day

Is the day.

So please bring me back into view

And let me gaze once more on you and see all the beauty of life

In your eyes. Liberate from the lies,

Let your head fall from clouds to my arms

And you’ll be my redeemer, come back to me, dreamer

To exist with me here once again.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

Why Make Man That Which Man Can Never Be?

Why make man that which man can never be?

Why give him eyes to cast from misery?

Why give him ears to blot out cries of pain?

Why give him arms to fight for selfish gain?

Why give him hands to build a tool of death?

Why give him legs to crush a final breath?

Why give him feet to run from those that crawl?

Why give him strength to build a higher wall?

Why give him speech to whisper wicked lies?

Why give him thoughts to overthrow the wise?

Why give him love to batter and abuse?

Why give him hope to arrogantly lose?

Why give him light when darkness he will seek?

Why give him peace when havoc he will wreak?

Why give him warmth when frost will chill his soul?

Why give him freedom when he seeks control?

Why give him choice when errors he will make?

Why give him truth to falsify and fake?

Why give him earth when fires he will burn?

Why give him sea to pollute in return?

Why give him power to bend and corrupt?

Why give him skill to make atoms erupt?

Why give him courage when ensnared in fear?

Why give him life when death is ever near?

Why make man that which man can never be?

When man alone can change his destiny....

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin

Vultures

Her face had lost its stare, as she lay motionless.

Blood, thick in her hair and painting her cracked brow,

Ran like a sacred river across the fractured ground

Into more cracks.

The picture split her eyes, her face nestled

In broken glass. The dust peppers her cotton clothes

And billows on, unconcerned,

Unconvinced, that this one is ready to cover completely.

Neatly placed, her fall, perfect; just the right angle.

Perhaps slightly jarred but no matter, its better

And makes for a wonderful shot.

The patter of rats, already aware

Of the meal that lays waiting there.

They’ll soon eradicate her and turn her to dirt,

And the world will spin on unhurt, unconcerned,

Unconvinced that she was ever really here at all.

The thrall gathers around, not for pity, not for care

But to stare at the girl that lies dead in the dust,

On the island that fell through the earth

For they must get the picture, the fixture, the prize

Is too good to miss. Snap her eyes as they clearly show

She is dead.

Turn her head, see her face, catch the blood on the floor,

It is raw; such an artistic scene for the world to admire,

To send down the wire and marvel at all of the beauty

Of death.

What is left for them now, should they move her

And show off the wounds that had broke her and sent her

Crashing to the concrete ground that is buckled and broken,

The corpse but a token of the desperate madness of man.

Her blood, no longer flowing so quickly

But thickly and curled through its journey to carry her soul

To the depths of the world.

The vultures that have taken their share

Are full from the meal that they savour;

The flavour of death is fulfilling.  Unwilling to leave but a morsel

To those that may snap up a better piece of her flesh....

A distant gunshot signals the fall of another,

Her body suddenly no longer the exclusive it was.

As they scramble once more to the skies

What surprise will await them across these crumbling lands?

But far below still lays the girl in the broken glass.

The blood soaks her clothes as the world without recall

Rumbles on, unconcerned; unconvinced
That she had ever existed at all.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 


 

Inspired by the tragedy of Fabienne Cherisma.

Fabienne was a 15 year old girl from Port-Au-Prince in Haiti who, in the aftermath of the earthquake, on January 19^th, 2010, was shot in the head by either police or security forces. The country was devastated, a quarter of million people were feared dead and the looting was underway. It’s believed that police were firing warning shots to disperse the looters when a bullet struck Fabienne – a tragedy upon a tragedy upon a tragedy.

But Fabienne’s end is where the story starts. Because once she’d been shot, she was shot again and again – but by cameras this time.  Her corpse became one of the defining images of the earthquake. In fact, the image of her lying dead on the slope with oblivious looters in the background has struck such a chord that of the 15 international photographers who took her picture, five have won awards. 

But of all the pictures of Fabienne Cherisma, one has really caused a stir – this shameful image of photojournalists just going about their business and trying to secure the best photo opportunity, absent of mind that this young girl has been left dead in the street:

Paper Lanterns

Oh little lantern,

So delicate,

So pale.

Frail; nothing more than thinly bound paper

Stretched over fragile quills

And filled with emptiness;

Effortless the wind that blows you

And shows you the way

To the ends of the sky

And the place of our birth

At the ends of the earth where the tears of the world

Build the clouds that will swell

When we cry.

A tenuous traveller

Cast to the heavens with a message,

A vestige of hope, carry love

On the breath of the last

To the ones that have passed and have left us behind,

Little lantern you remind us that we are still here,

Seeing clear in the midnight May sky

Looking up to the place where the face

Of our loved ones smile down.

What a beautiful sight.

Paper lantern, please take up our prayers,

For nobody cares more than we do

This night.

You fill up your sails

With the heat of our hearts

And it starts to release you from bonds

That you bore since the day you were picked

From the floor.

Oh frail lantern, as you swell with a fire

To fulfil your one purpose entire.

Please build up your strength for you carry

And marry a piece of our hearts and our souls,

As your goal is no more than to passage,

To shoulder our message to loved ones that stand

With the ageless divine, beyond the very fragments

Of time.

Little lantern you will soon soar on high,

To a place in the sky where we cannot follow,

Our sorrow is deep but we will not keep it

For you will soon take away sadness,

With gladness and help us adjust to the loss.

Delicate paper, enrapture our feelings;

The ceilings of heaven cannot keep you,

For your destination is far from the reaches of all

But you cannot here stall as you cradle despair,

To disperse in the air as you travel,

Unravel these feelings of anguish

Please vanquish these thoughts and scatter their scars

Far and beyond the most distant of stars.

Paper lantern we thank you for staying,

We’re praying that one day we’ll travel with you

To that very same place,

Where we’ll once again look on the face

Of our dear loved ones lost,

For they wait in an Eden, far from our side

But not from our hearts, deep inside

Where they stay here, forever.

Endeavour, little lantern, to carry our love

High above all the clouds that are filled with our tears.

Vanquish fears we’ll forget you,

We regret that you left but are thankful

We had you at all.

Though your life was a flash,

It was stunningly bright,

For you far outshone all other stars in the night.

And as we send up the lantern

To say our goodbye,

Your star shines forever in an endless night sky.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

Forever dedicated to my uncle, Ronald Austin and family xxx

Humanity Lost

I freeze,

And fall to my knees.

The earth is cold tonight, my sight

Is sorrowed as I place my hands on its frozen surface,

No furnace to warm me, but bereft.

Here, on the borrowed hour

Of my death.

The frost seeping through my clothes

Chills my bones, I am lost here, alone.

The precipice in front of me is wide, and deep,

But full. I keep my head dipped,

Knowing they watch me

And mock me.

A pathetic excuse for man

I am; a parasite they long to vanish,

To banish and go from these lands that were free

Not so long ago….

How did I end up here?  Such fear.

What evil have I wielded in this life

Or the last

That justifies my final moment?

I have seen the past and the present, but no future,

No more will I stand as I grasp at my knees

On the floor, in the dirt that consumes me

And is ready to lose me to the worms

In the bullets and blood,

Left to die and to rot

In the mud.

Soon now, near obsolete,

A front row seat

To my own annihilation.

Devastation, wiped clean, buried.

When I, the very last in 'sin'

Of twenty-eight thousand lost,
Falls in.

I sink further into the soil.

Turmoil.  Lingerer.

The harbinger of death

Extends my suffering,

Shuffling behind.

For the sheer joy to witness my distress,

They aggress.

I hear the serpent tongues licking the air,

Tasting my fear;

Rejoicing.

I peer once more into my open tomb.

To fall soon, I see my place

Between the face of the old and the young,

The father, the son,

The well and the weak,

The proud and the meek,

Innocent, all, now done.

I feel god smile,

Thanking me for my presence

But turning away, shielding his eyes.

Even he denies that man can wield such brutality,

For my finality, even the heavens

Cannot stand.

It is said that only the dead will see
The end of war - a small salvation,
In the face of a nation destroyed
By the passing of law.

It seems though I will live long enough to witness

The perdition of sanity

And the destruction of hope,

At the end of humanity,
Here, on the very horizon of my life.

I hear the click of the barrel,

His apparel rustles at the effort.

The cold steel, real now,

Presses against my temple,

And chills my soul.

My skull, braced.

I close my eyes

And whisper ‘please’

But useless these words are,

In such hatred, such darkness,
As everything,
Suddenly and permanently passes,

Into nothing.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin 

Based upon and inspired by the photograph 'The Last Jew in Vinnitsa'

In summer 1941, in their push to invade Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler’s German army marched through Ukraine. On July 19th, Vinnitsa, Ukraine was captured by German troops. Some 28,000 Jews were massacred by the Nazis. According to the census data of 1926, 21,800 Jews lived in the region which means the entire Jewish people were exterminated in Vinnitsa.

This famous picture, inscribed on the back of the photo as of the Last Jew in Vinnitsa, was taken by a German SS Soldier. The man, thought to have been the very last to be executed in Vinnitsa, is seen kneeling in front of a mass grave, his haunting face and hollow, distracted eyes became symbolic of the Holocaust.  Present in the background of the photo are members of the German Army, the German Labor Service, and the Hitler Youth.