Fools Circle

I remember growing up

under the nuclear threat

first with Nixon,

with his Mutually Assured Destruction.

Then under Reagan and Thatcher

with their studied

belligerance and

half-cooked idealism.

Our teacher in Room 14

told us about the

hands of the clock

showing 5 minutes to

midnight.

Told us how it showed

the state of the world.

Which quietened us down a bit

as we looked at those

skeletal fingers so close together.

And now, there's another,

seemingly mad brained man.

Full of testosterone

"look at my missiles"

and "we'll head them off at the pass".

God save us

because

no one here will

if this guy pulls

the

damn

trigger.

© Hamish Mack

'Fire and Fury' - Trump launches himself at North Korea

Hamish Mack, a New Zealander, is a part-time microbiology technician. Aghast at the world as it careers down this very strange timeline.

Prisoners

Munitions fall
and a family disappears.
While another family
watches on TV
until they can watch no more
and turn it off in stunned silence.
A third family also watches
and cheers loudly,
maybe records the report
for a highlights DVD.
The fourth family watches
while the father
lectures them on what has happened
and explains that
you can't trust these people.
Look what happens,
you must always hate them
or make them fear you.
Their leaders talk of
political gains and
moral highground
and the right to
defend themselves
and how the others,
always the others,
have no legitimacy
and theirs is a
 fight for liberty.
While only the disappeared
truly have any freedom
now.

Israel and Gaza will struggle to get tangible gains 

©Hamish Mack
Hamish is a co-editor of Poetry24 and has been writing poetry for some time now.

Bake off.

She stands, wings outstretched,
to commemorate
the uprising of the people
who worked and lived
to try to make the world
a better place for
their children.
The stance is also
reminiscent of a
crucifixion,
the expression
of state coercion in the
service of an empire.
And today that empire
will be a mercantile one,
suborning the symbolism
of the populace to sell more bread.
 Which  leads us to
one of the ironies here:
 that story
about the loaves and fishes.
How would that work
 now that angels are used
for advertising?
So there's a lot
of symbolism here.
A lot of metaphors.
About an act
of vandalism
that bruises us all.

                                              

Angel of the North to Sell Bread
©Hamish Mack

The Secretary says

The Secretary says that history
is easy.
The good guys won,
and it was just guys,
no woman did anything much.
The baddies were driven off
and it was all
just marvellous
just and glorious.
The Secretary says that historians
are all lefties
and probably spies
who have been telling lies
about the war to end all wars.
Although even he
could see
that it hardly did that.
Then the Secretary says
he won't take it back
he stands with what he said.
He looks for credibility
and for his good name.
But he did for them both
By his plan of attack.

The last two lines are from The General by Siegfried Sassoon
Gove Blasts "Left-wing myths about WW1"

©Hamish Mack

Sláinte

Don't let me keep you
from fucking the world over,
but Seamus Heaney has died.
Just some old poet
guy with a funny accent
who wrote about stuff
in peoples hearts and minds.
Not serious things like
gassing and bombing
and killing, I know.
Some old guy
who looked between
and saw what was there
and reported back
so that we could ignore it
and buy another TV.
I think that it's
worth noting that he
bought Beowulf
back to life
and wrote of turnip snedding
in relation to life
but that's just me,
what do I know, poetically
Things I learnt from him, mainly,
though he was the man
and I am a boy.
Yeah,
sorry,
going on a bit.
He was a good guy.
You have to get back
 to your work, eh.

©Hamish Mack
Seamus Heaney dead.

Sunday Review

Hello everyone, I went to Leeds festival last weekend which was filled with music and torrential rain. I came back to your poetry on Monday which was started by Maurice Devitt with Me and my Shadow. This was a haunting story of a boy who was kidnapped in 1964 which turned out he had been returned to the wrong family. Maurice write from the perceptive of the boy, making it more haunting and heartbreaking.

Wednesday we had Cheesy Chips and a Huge TV by Carolyn Cornthwaite. This was about Jamie Oliver criticising cheese, chips and huge TVs as part of modern poverty. I felt a kind of disgruntled irony in this piece, filled with satirical imagery. I actually thought the structure of the poem was impressive.

On Thursday our own Poetry24 editor, Hamish Mack, took the reins and wrote for us, Hooray for theWreckers. The news story was a list of vice-chancellor’s salaries. It was a poem rich with imagery and irony. Carolyn Cornthwaite commented on the cannibalisation of our young and the snakes as being particularly vivid images.

Saturday was Wendy Nicholson’s Clarion Call. I chose this one to go out yesterday as I felt it was particularly strong near the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s famous ‘I have a dream’ speech. I liked how it began with ‘Why has nothing changed,’ and ends with ‘One day we shall be free!’

Unfortunately sometimes we miss days to post something, but that’s doesn’t mean we don’t read your work. Every piece is read over by all of us and we appreciate them all. Please continue to submit to us at poetry24@hotmail.comwith the title of your poem in the subject and, as usual, spread the word about Poetry24.

Michael.

Hooray for the Wreckers

Hooray for the wreckers.
One can see, that what they leave behind
is fertile and grows things.
Hooray for the smashers,
"Too much dead wood, here", they say
"It has to go. Make way for the new"
Hooray for uprooting
the tried and the trusted.
Like so many tin cans that have rusted.
Hooray for cannibalisation
eating our young.
Oh all right, just their futures.
Then hooray to the snakes
as they slither away
to better jobs and bigger pay
Not you old man, not you
These are the dumps where you'll stay.
Now when you can't find a job
and live's getting grim
you're boiling your shoes for later
and reading about  their new salaries
on the front page of the paper.

© Hamich Mack

List of vice-chancellor salaries

Hamish is a 51 year old New Zealander. He has been writing poetry for a couple of years.

The Arms of America

Do you remember that kid?
The one at your school,
who had it all. Who was
seriously cool and 
looked good, stood tall.
Had the best clothes,
the best music, 
even the best hair.
And you all wanted
 to be like them.
We all grow up, 
and we all mature 
but they seemed 
Very centred, very secure.
Is that them, now?
Down that alley
with a gun in their hand
Just left a seedy bar,
sore as fuck
mad as hell
looking to kill 
and kill some more.
Then they'll walk
and have a nice day.
It's a killer's theme park
done the American way. 

© Hamish Mack

As well as being one of the editors of Poetry24 Hamish Mack and an all round good guy. (Written by Abi since there was no time in which to get a revised bio.)

Obama calls for calm

Australia Ablaze

Australia Ablaze.
The 100 year fire
is here and labelled,
catastrophic.
Australia was always a tinderbox
and always on
a knife's edge.
Just because
the 100 year fires
now happen
every five years
and last month
the Storm of the Century
hit Brisbane.
I'm sure that
this means nothing.
And we can
maintain our
lifestyles just as
long as we want.
Even if we are wrong
it will not happen today,
we can do nothing,
but make our children pay.


© Hamish Mack

Australia burns: desperate battle to hold off infernos

Hamish is a 51 year old New Zealander. He has been writing poetry for a couple of years.

Two Dead in Bamiyan

You see a mind flash
of the picture,
sand and heat,
blue sky and death.
An instant of
absolute quiet
two lives ended.
Incomprehensible to those
back here, and maybe even
to the people involved.
Who might feel as though
they are actors are pawns
being moved around.
But not now.
Now there is only loss,
a numbness.
Hate is the only thing,
that will grow from this.
Questions such as,
"Should we be there now?"
cannot be asked in
the shock of their dying.
Old Man Death
has swung his scythe
and urges us
to silence.

© Hamish Mack

Two New Zealand soldiers killed in Bamiyan province

Hamish is a 51 year old New Zealander, married with 2 children. He has been writing poems for about 3 years, and has had a some published. He also blogs, at Light of Passage.

The Reveal

In older times
we might have called this
a quick, dark moment.
But this was white, bone hard.
From the boy's club room.
You were asked questions
that you did not like.
So you got some numbers tabled
which you thought labelled
the question asker, as
Weak and greedy, needing help?
No.
What this piss mark
was supposed to say, was
"Don't mess with me,
in my shining tower".
A minister was revealed
who should be reviled
for this abuse of power.

© Hamish Mack

Dalziel-Brownlee red-zone spat
---------------------------------------
Hamish is a 51 year old New Zealander, married with 2 children. He has been writing poems for about 3 years, and has had a some published. He also blogs, at Light of Passage.

Bridging

You think that you see,
someone falling from
the bridge.
Feet first, arms
in cruciform
position.
You are in a car
heading East/West and
you cannot be sure.
There's nowhere to turn around,
go back and check.
So what can you do?
You know,
that image is going to
stay with you.
Someone in free-fall
jumping off the world you live in
and about to be
disconnected forever.
Because the bridge
did not do it's job.

© Hamish Mack

No search planned for bridge jumper
---------------------------------------------
Hamish is a 51 year old New Zealander, married with 2 children. He has been writing poems for about 3 years, and has had a some published. He also blogs, at Light of Passage.

Factoring in the Youth

Step up brave youth,
The government will provide, a chance for self expression.
Proving their conservative compassion.
And you want to be paid for that?

This is a heaven sent chance,
for you to make a start.
Learning about life and working
While we pay for lunch and a bus!

This is not about the government
or any industrial friends.
This is about at-risk-youth
and getting them back to work.

We are in favour of the choices We want people to make.
It's not for factory fodder or dropping coins into a cup
This a brave and arresting,
government mandated hand up!

© Hamish Mack

National to extend youth starting out wage
---------------------------------------------------
Hamish is a 51 year old New Zealander, married with 2 children. He has been writing poems for about 3 years, and has had a some published. He also blogs, at Light of Passage.

Social Contract

All that is asked
is that you not go mad.
Which is not such
a tough request,
surely?
But they will not be coming around
to see how we are doing.
There is important work to be done
to mend the damaged economy
and broken businesses,
who line the streets
piteously
asking for help.
And there are major
circuses to stage
but no bread for you.
Yet they are all
that stand between
us and the devils
who would overwhelm us
and steal our things.
Yes, be scared citizens
but DO NOT ask for help.
Just do not go mad
there's a good chap.

© Hamish Mack

Uncertainty for public servants as job cuts loom
----------------------------------------------------------
Hamish is a 51 year old New Zealander. He has been writing poetry for a couple of years.

Man Trouble

You don't care care too much,
what others think or feel, it's clear.
The channels of your mind
are kept clean and
uncluttered with thought
of how society changes.
So that, to you, what was, is now
and ever thus will be.
Or similar dread
pronouncement.
While the wannabe like you group,
will splutter about
"political correctness' and
"Only saying what everyone thinks".
Which ignores the fact that
anyone, who thinks,
doesn't think like you.
The problem is not the thinking
it's the lack of simple
human decency.

© Hamish Mack

Women less productive - EMA boss
-------------------------------------------
Hamish is a 51 year old New Zealander, married with 2 children. He has been writing poems for about 3 years, and has had a some published. He also blogs, at Light of Passage.