MWC Attempt to Write the Longest Poem in the English Language

[Lin]

MWC  Lin  - Holland


I'm changing my life tomorrow
I’m becoming more independent each day.
I’ve got nothing to stop me from travelling,
Perhaps I should become gay?

What if I changed my nationality?
Supposing I'm black instead of white?
Does the sound of my voice do your head in?
Do you see a different person in me now?

No longer do I wish to be a loner,
I want to be social and bright.
Ill give all my money to charity,
Would you really care when I've gone?

If you ever change the person inside you,
Will you think how it is for your man?
Do you love him any less on a Friday night
When the beer has flowed down his shirt?

Take a chance and make changes,
Feel the fear and go crazy
Be slim instead of fat
But most of all....................

Stay focussed

[Bubbles]

MWC. Bubbles, Wales.


Focussed, hocus pocus.
His magician's hands swiftly blind us
Sly, fat and bald, all the bad bits
Like his hidden, mould rimmed apples.
The stall holder in the onion-wafted market
never changes.
Nor do his clothes, sackcloth moss-green itchy jacket, ox-blood leather patches on the sleeves.
Patches on his patches.
But he wears a real Rolex.
Smile at him, perhaps he's got a wife who hits him.
Or kids who pretend he's not there
because they hear us say,
'Swindler.'
Smile at him, he could change.
Today is maybe the day he smiles at me.
I always walk by, there are good apples in the supermarket
at half the price.
The checkout girl there wears a Timex.
And smells of scent, not body odour
like him, but,
perhaps today he will change.
Perhaps I will, my hands scrabble for a pound, in my jacket pocket.
But, I can't do it, eat what he's touched.
His rusty bolt voice slips under my feet
and I retch on the machine oil miasma of his breath.
Yes, he is unsavoury and I am not sweet.
Perhaps it is me who should change.

[kalikan]

A pound of what?

A pound of meat,
a pound of dough,
a pound of fat
jig'ling to and fro?

An ounce of knowledge,
a feel for work,
a gleeful poem
with the slightest quirk?

A poem here,
a poem there,
a poem from countries
everywhere.

[caliban1]

And a poem of a far country
where weather will always dare
to intrude into our life, so...
from six o'clock on snow fell
huge white flakes floating
on to the early green grass
and with it the mind float
into a swirl thinking of the change.
That change is coming is inescapble
all that matters is to see the beauty
in the coldest, wettest fear.
Inside the halls may wind in darkness
but outside the paths in fields
take us ever on new journeys
and when we come to the fence
remember it is only wire.
One hand on the solid post
even trembling as we climb
it is not long before we cross
to the new path over the water.

[Gyppo]

MWC - Gyypo - UK

Over the water and far away
my daughter is teaching English
to children who want to learn.
Eighteen years old, five feet tall,
and as Cornish as a Standing Stone.
With a class of one hundred
most of them taller and some
much older.  But Kizzi's in charge.

Knobbly black knees forced underneath
or jutting above child-sized desks.
Their hard won words erased each evening
so the precious paper can be used again.
I glibly throw words into my keyboard
whilst they clutch a short stubby pencil
and wrestle with the language of hope,
knowing that daydreams can come later.

Gyppo

[Leigh]

MWC: Leigh, USA


Ah, the words, thrown into the keyboard,
instant gratification, in black pixel on the screen.
Just an insignificant wiggle, a thin mark,
easily, with press of finger pad on plastic.
So many years, these hands flew over the squares
depressing and releasing, instinctual aim.
I can tap-dance my heart and mind with fingers
through channels, down my arms, and out again.
Fascinated with the visual manifesto
of my own mysteries revealed, lying plain
almost leaping, through the space before me
from my neurons to the neat reply rectangle.
So far from slate and chalk dust, or the quill-
All the same, still.

[Lin]

MWC - Lin -Amsterdam Artis Zoo, Holland

Gorilla
Still, the tiny childlike ape,
Cradled in the arms
Of its mother
Just as a human child.
I watched  her at the zoo,
Today was Tuesday and
All was quiet as
I crept behind her
Watching as she slept.

Orangutan
Borneo man, orange and arrogant,
I watched your youngest son,
Perform acrobatics on the iron railings.
Staring out from behind the glass
You were looking  right through me and
Me looking through you.
A meeting of eyes,but no conversation.
You'd had enough of visitors.

Chimpanzee
We opened the cage for the chimp
Who poked her finger through the bars
Desperate to touch me
I wanted to touch her too.
She tried to tell me something,
Was she really happy in a cage?
She gently squeezed my hand,
Had I really understood her communication?
Were my manners and protocol correct?

[Allie]

MWC:Allie:Irl

We touch one another
Every day,
Hold hands, hug, kiss.
Our bodies reach and feel,
We see and hear and smell and taste
The presence of the other beings
Who inhabit our world.
And yet
We are nearer to one another
In our minds,
In some place we cannot see.

When you physically hurt yourself,
I do not bleed.
My blood does not run
In sympathy with yours,
No matter how much I wish to share
Your pain.
But when you are wounded in the soul
I, also, cry:
My soul bleeds with yours.
We are joined to humanity
In some secret place
That is not just skin and bone.
So do not tell me that the flesh is all,
My tears know different.

[noelgama]

MWC: noelgama : India

      She gets up all by herself
   And then she limps back into the dorm
   She rests her head on the pillow
   And through the tears
   Thinks of her son
   Her lips move as she whispers
   “Lord, watch & keep him when I am gone
   Ah! Till we meet someday up there in paradise”

     No one to talk to, when she’s feeling so blue
   No one to cry on, when the pain comes on
   No one to lean on, when she cannot go on
   She’s a destitute woman
   Just a destitute woman

   So she lays awake all the night thru
   Still she’s all dressed up
   Waiting for someone
   She looks up expectantly
   Up at the ceiling, ready for Him
   Tonight she’s very sure
   That the Lord will knock on her door
   Ah! Yes, tonight He’ll be callin’ on her

   And then there’ll be, no more feeling the blues
   No limp, no shame, no more tears of pain
   No ‘old’, no ‘young’, no more sorrow beyond
   She’ll be destitute no more

[Amie]

MWC: Saturnine: UK

The Southgate demolition is underway
it looks like Baedekker's struck again
mountains of rubble, concrete
no longer reinforced with coiled steel strings

[Leigh]

MWC: Leigh, USA

We met at twelve, down at the faded picnic table.
The children gave no shadow. There were games,
and guilty snacks in crinkling plastic wrappers.
No shortage of sweet apple juice, for thirsty mouths,
after clambering over painted metal castles.
We watched in patient pleasure, swings and slides,
and shared the age-old pleasantries of mothers.
Beneath the new buds reaching for the sun,
we sat in speckled shadow, looking on.
Until my friend leapt up, and shot across the bark dust,
a denim blur, to grab her youngest child.
A girl of only two or three, she'd fallen-
from atop the blue and yellow structure,
a drop at least of seven feet and change.
We inspected every inch, the wailing child,
my friend held her close and closed her eyes.
She was fine, she said, just fine, and kissed her.
And indeed she was; soon, back at playing-
all unaware, with wood chips in her braid.
We wiped our eyes, and tried then to remember,
what had been so important,
just moments before.

[Allie]

MWC:Allie:Irl

To be a Catholic this day, when I was small,    
Was a very serious thing.
You were not supposed to laugh or have fun,
And there was no cinema or TV.

Instead there was the endless church visit,
Stations of the cross, and priest’s dark drone,
No flowers on the altar to ease
The mournful screeches of the church choir.

The nuns said everyone should be miserable
Because Jesus had been put to death.
That didn’t make sense to me, however,
Since Jesus was God and couldn’t die.

On a day supposedly of redemption,
When all the world was cleansed.
I thought everyone should have been smiling
And shaking hands.

I know now the sadness was another myth,
Just a grown-up pretence.
The glum faces were because the pubs were barred,
Making Good Friday anything but.

[caliban1]

It is Good Friday here
birds singing and the grass growing,
it is the spring air of Easter time,
a holy time to many lifting spirits.
I feel a great connection to the whole creation
and do not doubt that some intelligence
has made this for all creatures to perceive.
The hows and whys are debated
by wise and foolish and are cause for hate
for some who cannot see behind the glory
that is the world in which we live.
We know that today many are joyful
while some, fellow beings, just as much,
suffer for sins they did not commit.
The only true saviour speaks quietly
urging us to love, forgive, and practice joy.
Our undertaking is to live
until we know this reality.

[Gyppo]

MWC - Gyppo - UK

Reality?  Today I found
it's still there.  Lurking
inside aching muscles
and 'clickety' joints.
Despite 'those damned adrenaline blockers'
the Warrior still lives,
inside the easygoing Hippy.
An aggressive young thug
picked the wrong 'old git' to annoy.
No bloodshed on either side
but, when I turned,
uttering words of peace,
he saw a different message
in my eyes, dropped his own,
and shuffled away,
as if he were the older man.

[kalikan]

kalikan--USA--MWC

Past the thousand pound shoulders,
past the leaden chin
lies a shame that smoulders,
a dreadful thought within.

Actions are more powerful than words,
But what of words laced with
poison,
poured about through a perforated
mouth for the roots of all to hear.
Or maybe even words like cracked
stained glass,
clinking about the bloodied ears
of all shined upon by its
glory.

Blood and flesh are part of me,
yet are they mine or are they
His?