{"id":71,"date":"2013-06-11T15:36:48","date_gmt":"2013-06-11T14:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radicalglasgow.me.uk\/wp\/?page_id=71"},"modified":"2013-12-15T10:13:29","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T10:13:29","slug":"poetry-3","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/radicalglasgow.me.uk\/?page_id=71","title":{"rendered":"Poetry 3"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

To A Cautious Poet<\/h2>\n

You can write poems<\/p>\n

On venetian blinds<\/p>\n

Flash them on and<\/p>\n

Off to the world<\/p>\n

Someday<\/p>\n

The men with<\/p>\n

Guns and butter<\/p>\n

Will see you from the street,<\/p>\n

Tramp up the stairs<\/p>\n

To your room,<\/p>\n

Strangle you with the cord of your caution.<\/p>\n

Then they will praise you<\/p>\n

As a tragic genius,<\/p>\n

Your readers will admire<\/p>\n

Your poems<\/p>\n

While your body<\/p>\n

Hangs<\/p>\n

Behind the blinds<\/p>\n

John Carey<\/p>\n

Winter<\/h2>\n

Dark malefic clouds crowd the sky<\/p>\n

winds carry the stench of carrion to every nostril,<\/p>\n

the crazy ape has followed the faculty of hawks.<\/p>\n

All around stand crows, magpies, jackdaws, vultures,<\/p>\n

edacious eyes anticipating their putrid feast.<\/p>\n

A weary Cassandra laments;<\/p>\n

doves, hearts weeping for a better yesterday<\/p>\n

forsake their olive branches.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I\u2019m Proud<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m proud of my people, proud to be one of them,<\/p>\n

that great mass on society\u2019s bottom rung.<\/p>\n

Those who, with coal-dust under their nails<\/p>\n

in their eyes, in their lungs<\/p>\n

claw at the earths entrails.<\/p>\n

Their brothers,<\/p>\n

cement in their hair<\/p>\n

in their mouth, in their ears,<\/p>\n

oil ingrained in their fingers,<\/p>\n

on their face.<\/p>\n

Sisters, glistening with sweat<\/p>\n

midst the ceaseless noise of machines<\/p>\n

that throw out shirts, shoes, toys, carpets<\/p>\n

for other people.<\/p>\n

Those with soil and sweat stuck to their skin<\/p>\n

smelling of the earth, feeding the multitude,<\/p>\n

grinding out their lives in a harsh pitiless system<\/p>\n

weighted down<\/p>\n

with a sack load of half-dead dreams,<\/p>\n

sometimes brought to their knees<\/p>\n

by a tidal wave of despair,<\/p>\n

never defeated,<\/p>\n

groping in the dark to find tomorrow,<\/p>\n

keeping hope alive;<\/p>\n

they amaze me.<\/p>\n

Somehow, from somewhere<\/p>\n

in this cold, cruel<\/p>\n

unforgiving scheme of things<\/p>\n

they find love for their children.<\/p>\n

Not a teaspoonful, not a cupful,<\/p>\n

but buckets full, to bathe them in,<\/p>\n

to pour over them.<\/p>\n

They seem to know<\/p>\n

that one day this world will be ours<\/p>\n

and to take care of it<\/p>\n

we will need those who have been loved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To A Cautious Poet You can write poems On venetian blinds Flash them on and Off to the world Someday The men with Guns and butter Will see you from the street, Tramp up the stairs To your room, Strangle … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":1300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"showcase.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/radicalglasgow.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/radicalglasgow.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/radicalglasgow.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/radicalglasgow.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/radicalglasgow.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/radicalglasgow.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210,"href":"http:\/\/radicalglasgow.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71\/revisions\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/radicalglasgow.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}