The Rage Rages On

The Rage Rages On (edited) – Retro Post

TableLight

We are coming to the end of #Movember and, as I think on matters mental health, I am reminded of this set of lines that I penned years ago. Back then, due to various reasons, I had spiraled into a situational depression. I am fine now, but was not then. It was important to get help. So, in these last days of #Movember, I urge men especially to get help from their doctor or other helplines in places where they come from. The idea to do another retro post came from witnessing our esteemed blogger colleague, Robert Okaji at O at the edges, do a great retro post recently.

The Rage Rages On

And the rage rages on!

The rage is maintained:

Surging up,

Billowing forth,

Pulsing through the veins.

The rage rages on!

War against terror,

Against Wall Street,

Against each other,

Against ourselves,

The rage rages on!

I feel it in me

Like a twirling tempest,

Like a surging sea,

Then I feel flat:

So flat,

Heavy,

Weighed down,

Septic,

With exhausting, raging weight.

I anger

At where I am,

At who I am.

I know not who I am anymore,

Save that I want to write again.

Verses, poems, stories

I want to write again.

My eyes are dry and heavy,

My limbs, like suspended concrete

Stiffly droop from my frame.

My head feels heavy

And thick like all its

Liquid is turning solid,

Or like gooey grease.

I am losing my memory

Or am I in fact retaining or attending?

I feel as if I am shutting down

Like a flower retreating from the evening time,

Closing its petals to the gloom.

And I feel in the eventide of my years

Ageing, old-ening, arthritic in body and ideas,

Stiffening against the blows of life

And the pains of past excesses

And yet

To put it down

To lay it on the page

Somehow that helps,

Anchors it,

Shapes it,

Puts it in its place,

And ejects some of the venom.

Original 22 February 2008, edited 28 November 2015

Fields of Broken Dreams

Fields of Broken Dreams

There has been much sadness in our world and nation of late. Added to this, each of us has a network of loved ones weighed down in difficulties of their own. Yet, in all of this, the goodness of humanity still abides. This little rhyme wrestles with the pain and the potential of such a paradox.

Fields of Broken Dreams

Sometimes it feels as if we walk

Through fields of broken dreams,

Wishing as we face the odds

That it wasn’t as it seems.

We grieve the air disasters,

Where lives flew off in a plane,

To the final sounds of “Alright, goodnight!”

Then they were never seen again.

Lives that had been a-flying

Were shot down from the sky,

Followed by calls to ‘shirt-front’ the responsible,

And still, we know not why.

Then, closer to the home front,

Fires blaze across the land,

Ashen faces lament ashen places,

And many houses no longer stand.

Then there’s all our local sadness,

The dead, the dying and the lost,

The marriages that are no more,

Make both the measured and measureless cost.

As we face up to it,

And walk through the rubble of these fields,

We fossick through the stubble,

For any meaning that it yields.

As the ashes moisten

From the dew and soaking rain,

As the beloved bodies are buried,

And people go home again.

As the sands of time grind onward,

And the broken pieces rot,

A healing slowly grows within,

Till we see what we have got.

The broken shards of pottery

Form drainage for a newly potted shoot,

For from the stench of rotting compost

New life is forming root.

We bare our scars of brokenness,

Shining in new springtime sun,

And from our anguish comes compassion,

As we realise we are one.

For we all feel it in our guts,

For those trapped in the Lindt shop,

Our hearts too plunged in the ocean

As the aeroplanes did drop.

We walk these global fields together,

Through the ashes and by the streams,

And we’ll walk on to tomorrow,

With more wisely tempered dreams.

Simon C.J. Falk 7 January 2015

Little One

Little One

Surely the saddest funerals or memorial services that we attend are for children. The verse below accounts one I led recently for some parishioners who are really friends as well.

Be warned – it may trigger emotions for some.

Little One

For Anonymous

(i)

Children heralded your coming.

We waited

As you were formed

Like seed sprouting

From succulent soil.

Then

We heard

The tender shoot

That is you

Had withered.

How the pain hit

Like scorching sun

Over a shoot

In a dreadful drought

The sandblasting wind

Buffeting us

Bruising our tender hearts,

Longing hearts,

That had

Been full

Of expectation.

So we handed you over,

Dear little one,

Handed you to

The refining fire.

The cleansing, burning, bright flames

To shine in our inner darkness.

There they sat

Your ashes.

For a time.

Until the summons,

The gathering of the clans

Who would come

With tears in eyes

But love in their hearts.

They were clad

In joyous

Verdant

Floral frocks

Brimming with life and colour.

They formed

A cushion

Of caressing care

To carry you

On the wings of prayer

To where angels dwell.

He has gone to join the angels

And is singing angelic song

Do not doubt his destination

For with God he does belong.

(ii)

And they carried others too

Those Colourful Companions of care.

They carried your parents

Who

Exhausted by their grief

Needed a fence of family

Around them

To keep the darkness out

Or hold them

In those dark moments

Of heavy eyelids

And limp limbs.

Little one

We will remember you

Please remember them

Who love you oh so dear.

But they may find some consolation

That you are loved so fully in heaven

As well as with us here.

Simon C.J. Falk 29 October 2014

Flame

Over ten years ago this verse was written to mark the Christian Feast of the Epiphany – Christ the night to all the nations! Although we face different challenges this year to ten years ago, we can substitute our own, as we look to “a beacon of hope.”

FLAME

A passing over

Of a peaceful flame

Illuminated our nation

In 2000.

Bearers of the flame

Gathered our nation

With many nations

On an Olympic scale.

2001 was dazzled

By flames

On the New York skyline.

Towers of unity

Uniting nations in commerce

Were rent asunder.

As the year passed on

Flames of destruction

Of ill intent

Ravaged our land

Driving away

The people from their homes.

As Epiphany dawns

Another light shines

A light to all nations

Aglow in an infant

A simple splendour for all.

As the flame burns within us

May our light be:

a warm glow

a touch of love

an embrace in peace

a beacon of hope.

Simon Falk, New Year’s Day of 2002.

Colours Shaded Blue

This one is hot off the press! News has not been good in recent days. There have been various changes, griefs and losses in our lives. Friends move away. Others have family with cancer. People in our State (of NSW) are beset by devastating fires. This poem takes up some of the mood and moves to concrete, Christian hope.

Colours Shaded Blue

If colours fill our lives

Then these days are shaded blue;

As fresh news comes upon us

We face this shadowed hue.

Change and loss and illness

Fill our spoken words and screens;

The unknowing makes us wonder

As we tremble at unseens.

Sometimes we have too much information,

At others, not enough;

But when those near us suffer