Paths of Glory

Tonight, swinging in the hammock,
smoking a Marlboro, musing,
more'n enough out there to kill ya,
I turn over clumped dead leaves,
damped by thick mist or fret, who knows,
but it's eerie,
eerie enough for that incongruity,
that stray thought of Saddam
after he was caught,
like some fierce killer dog beaten down,
head to the ground,
tired, finished, dirty, dishevelled,
and me, a twinge of something else
under the satisfaction because I'm human.

Alexander drunk and crown tarnished,
losing his grip, sword rusted to hell,
of Bucephalus fallen, and the dead
hounding his dreams. Did he not guess?
Napoleon imprisoned, not once but twice,
and those others, the rest of the pack
who followed cracked paths of power.
Gaddafi impaled, the bunker shot,
did they not know how it would end?
Her in the car wiping one salty tear,
confused, broken, betrayed,
for a decade of power, a decade of grief,
and me, a twinge of something else
under the satisfaction because I'm human.

Now Trump still sat in his tower
refusing the inevitable consequences
of flying too close, too high
on blonde obscene wings of wax.
He wasn't meant to do any of it,
interloper, uninformed, oafish,
kid on the hill, king of the castle.
How did he not work out he was played?
Cornered, suffocating, a bleeding wound
messing up their polished halls,
they are coming for him,
they always would at the appointed hour,
and me, I wait for that twinge of something else
under the satisfaction because I'm human.

Grounded down to ash, burned offering,
my forever and ever last cigarette hits the dew.
I think, maybe those other gamblers knew,
those shiny, tin god monsters knew,
and did it anyway.
Maybe Trump knew, and did it anyway.


Tonight, I won't be sad, even though I'm human.

© Cath Campbell

President Trump's GOP wall of support is cracking

Cath is a retired probation officer who lives in Northumberland, regards her poems as dystopian/political, and has been published in a number of magazines and anthologies including Poetry 24, The Writers Cafe magazine, Prole, Obsessed with Pipework, Erbacce and #Me Too; A Womans Poetry Anthology.

Build It

Build it then.
Get the diggers on the job,
but hear it for the creatures
of woodland and lake,
the great and the small,
of songs sung of long ago
when rabbits and toads
hopped alongside roads
with mad abandon,
their only worry
a hungry dog fox roaming.

Build it then.
Get the planes in the sky,
but hear it for the birds,
the sweet butterfly
the incandescent moth,
fluttering to extinction.
Let's have three cheers
for the buzz of bumble
dining on clover puffs,
attaining heights
of natural flight unaided.

Build the bloody thing.
It doesn't matter anymore,
but hear it for your children,
those yet to birth.
This was your choice.
A holiday in Benidorm,
or a clapped out earth.
Oh, build that damn runway!
It doesn't matter anymore.
It's far, far too late.
It's far, far too late.

© Cath Campbell

Friends of the Earth to appeal against Heathrow judgment

Cath Campbell

Cath is a Northumbrian poet who loves eating, dog walking, and the sea. She has an MA in creative writing from Newcastle university, and has had poems published in several magazines, including Prole, Obsessed With Pipework, Erbacce, and IAmNotASilentPoet. She also has a poem published in #MeToo, a woman's poetry anthology.

Best

Back to Manchester.  Him hunched,
hands in pockets, walking
down Oxford Road, the white Roller
keeping level.

My hasty glance and reflex smile
he returned, his eyes shot
with a shoulder-shrug sadness
behind the Irish blue.

He were always United, a red, though.
The best. Even Pele said so
when asked. Even better than you
they wanted to know?

But he were tragedy as well as legend,
and his search, his holy grail,
he could never find at the bottom
of that vodka bottle.

I am not ashamed to tell you I cried
when he couldn't stop,
and his liver, the second, gave out,
and ... you know the rest.

© Cath Campbell

'My dad was a heavy drinker'

Cath is a Northumbrian poet who loves eating, dog walking, and the sea. She has an MA in creative writing from Newcastle university, and has had poems published in several magazines, including Prole, Obsessed With Pipework, Erbacce, and IAmNotASilentPoet. She also has a poem published in #MeToo, a woman's poetry anthology.

In Gaza

I don't know how the telly can hold them,
those snuff movies of dead babies
suffocated in tents, or bomb-blown limbless.

I don't know why it doesn't sodding explode
when women, young boys, (men, i suppose)
never move again, but lie in blood and dust.

It should begin with a low growl rising towards
a wail that smothers the fucking applause
from cold-eyed shooters and spectators.

It should shake with sorrow, with electronic rage,
bust its volume control, cause local grid outage
in protest, then with maximum impact, blow out,

the fragments rat tat tatting as they travel widely
though the streets of our bloody-handed country;
etched on each burning part - a name, a town, a life.

© Cath Campbell

Three dead as Israel and Hamas trade heavy fire across Gaza border

Cath Campbell is a Northumbrian poet who loves eating, dog walking, and the sea. She has an MA in creative writing from Newcastle university, and has had poems published in several magazines, including Prole, Obsessed With Pipework, Erbacce, and IAmNotASilentPoet. She also has a poem published in #MeToo, a woman's poetry anthology.