Blog Archives

Order Police Battalion, by Guy Fletcher

27/3/2017

They were ordinary people:
teachers, doctors, lawyers, carpenters
brought to the Lebensraum in the East
to shoot men, women and children too.
Most were not psychopaths
but cogs in a malevolent machine
with the banality of evil shown
as the angels watched with tears dripping down.

They killed with as little compassion as boys
whose feet crunch ants on a summer's day.
Yet these same men would hug their children
and tenderly caress their loving wives.
I wonder if ghosts from these killing fields
haunt in the star-flickering Ukrainian night?
We have not learnt the lessons so that still
much innocent blood continues to spill.

Black Clouds Over The Beacons, by Guy Fletcher

20/3/2017

Bruised grey clouds cling to the bleak
peaks of the lofty Brecon Beacons
drifting slowly past snow-capped mountains
weathered smooth and round over time.
But the early spring sun breaks through
so that the reservoir sparkles and shade
spreads across a scene looking Heaven made.

Sheep freckle the verdant slopes
as a steep stream hisses angrily,
Wordsworth would have been inspired by the view.
You are free to contemplate up here
far from the bustling greed of city streets,
Pen-y-Fan is hidden by clouds today
as a mighty kestrel sweeps down for prey.

The Drone Controller’s Monologue, by Ian Fletcher

18/3/2017

The coordinates relayed
are exact and precise,
today’s target a dot
on my computer screen,
the drone I control
a GA MQ-9 Reaper
unseen in the skies
hundreds of miles away.
When I press the red button,
its missiles are released
and, hitting the bulls-eye,
enemy action has ceased.
Another mission completed,
easier than any video game
for nothing ever fires back
and now it’s all over
it’s time for a coffee
an espresso I think
and maybe a snack.
Oh, I understand at times
there’s collateral damage,
innocent blood on our hands,
women, children, civilians,
maimed, dying or dead,
bodies without names
from primitive clans
in barren desert lands,
yet I have found
that since no American
boots are on the ground
the public back home
simply doesn’t care
so we can kill at will,
yes, anyone, anywhere.
My commanders in chief
bear ultimate responsibility,
Bush, Obama, now Trump,
they’re all the same
and it is they, not me,
who should take any blame
for I’m simply following
my orders, don’t you see,
ensuring the safety
of the land of the free.

Have No Fear, by Ian Fletcher

17/3/2017

Have no fear,
Tepco says,
we’ll have Fukushima
fully cleaned up
within fifty years.
Yet radiation levels
in the reactor cores
remain so high
that even robots
cannot work inside,
and day after day
contaminated water
pours into the seas
crossing the Pacific
continuously
to poison the fish
in Los Angeles.
This deadly waste
will pollute the planet
through untold centuries
so though Tepco claims
everything’s going to be OK
I don’t believe a word they say.

Sonnet To The Moon, by Guy Fletcher

13/3/2017

Radiant moon, fully formed, you peer down
indifferently, illuminating a cloud
which appears as a vague ghost figure
as I try to transport my petty spirit
to the craters as if an Olympian god.
So imperceptibly you move tonight
as I wander in you strange, alluring light.

Moon, so admired by Keats, Shakespeare and Homer
when only birds flew in the darkened sky
but now an aeroplane flickers across,
a precarious tin tube like a falling star
but stars are merely extras in your movie.
You are the queen, a jewel of more worth
than any diamond that shines on this earth.

Hymn, by Ian Fletcher

7/3/2017

All things bright and beautiful
all creatures great and small
the Lord God made them all.

The fecundity of nature
that’s red in tooth and claw
the Lord God made it all.

Our sad diurnal world
full of suffering and war
the Lord God made it all.

The viruses and cancers
that plague the human race
the Lord God made them all.

The whole uncaring universe
the void of infinite space
the Lord God made it all.

Strangers In A Lift, by Guy Fletcher

6/3/2017

A crowded, claustrophobic summer lift,
smells of perfume, sweat and cigarettes
pervade this human tin,
there's an electronic ping,
a soulless voice announces the 7th floor.

Strangers in the lift avert their eyes
each locked in their own little world
of dramas, fears, the odd glimpse of joy
but not at this moment.
Oh, we all wear masks playing a role
but I can still see pain in a woman's eyes
and if, by chance, the lift were to jam
all masks would be thrown aside
but no, the door opens, I leave strangers behind.