SAFE (A Restraining Order)

 

 

Standing. Still. Somewhere. Dislocated. Being.

On the pavement walking wounded sufferers

reeling. Terminal psyche-ache but still kicking

arses, still raging at those black dog demons

of depression, addiction, ignorance

and abuse. Look! We are drowning in the weight

 

of flat and unfermented, impotent words.

In need of the cutting syllable, the slash,

the slice, the scythe and slit. Wake up!

Feel this stabbing incisive thrust! We are

royally poxed with insipid, descriptive lines.

Mealy mouthed orators pout rhythmically,

 

stealing air with fish eyed refinement. Time

wasting typo terrorism collides

and colludes in curses that whisper from

lisping mouths. A neutral blandness- a grey

script tracing a sepia plot. For fuck sake!

The mystery of life occurs in comedy

 

and tragedy, in melody and silence,

in the pulsing throb of sex and anger, in

prayer, in meditation, in tenderness,

mysticism, intoxication, a

fart, a laugh, a mortal celebration that

still defies each bleak and final exhalation.

 

Have you still time to dream with the dead? Let

the dead get down with the dead. Let them hip

hop with the dead. Body pop with the dead.

Those pasteurised piss pots lilting in stifling

classrooms of like minded drones. Save us from

academics who can speak five languages

 

and proclaim the cure to all society’s

ills but don’t know their clothes colours clash. Save

us from those racist thugs dealing drugs shipped

in from Afghanistan, China, Columbia.

Freedom! Optimism! The New Existentialism!

Cry out for resolution, for exultation

 

and shit free revelation. Have we yet

forgotten the question? Listen! Who will

stand up with that weary silent majority

on the barricades? Who will mount the attack,

muster the vanguard. trample in the dirt

the gloss, cauterize with acid venom

 

the dross and triumphantly raise the

revolution’s ragged flag? Let us revive

the passion, the boiling blood of an older,

deeper insight. The line is almost broken.

Listen! Grasp it! The prefects from every

schoolyard conspire with the playground bullies

 

to intimidate and churn out their tight-

arse-licking control rap, their trite rhetoric.

The broken age of prosodic reportage, the

crafted constipation of observation,

form without content, tone without vibrancy,

words without fervour. Safely safe. No more!

 

 

Mike Mcnamara
Illustration Nick Victor

Mike McNamara (B.A. Hons.) Humanities was born in Ireland but lives in South Wales, UK. He had his Selected Poems ‘Overhearing The Incoherent’ published by Grevatt and Grevatt  in 1997. Mike is a published songwriter.  His poetry  has been published in Acumen, Aji, Dawn Treader, Dream Catcher, Envoi, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Lyric, New Welsh Review, Orbis, Reach, Tears in the Fence, etc. Mike also had a selection of poems published in The Pterodactyl’s Wing (Parthian, 2003).


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One Response to SAFE (A Restraining Order)

    1. Gosh Mike!!

      Comment by pete Ak on 12 January, 2019 at 10:42 am

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