Elegy for Martin Luther King

The Founding Fathers' words were rarely honoured,
Abe Lincoln shone a torch yet never dreamt
The future's undecided
United States divided
Meant blacks would live restricted and exempt.

When Martin Luther King picked up the beacon
America was ready to be stirred,
With toleration churning
And Mississipi burning
The time was ripe for voices to be heard.

The hoods and flaming crosses in the deep South
Showed KKK believers held their ground,
Cloaked rallies for the white shade,
New clumps of deadly nightshade
Grow thicker where the seeds of hate are found.

Here people of a darker race were given
A label that’s incredibly obscene,
It's not so hard to figure,
They said it with a snigger,
I'm sure you know the very name I mean.

Yet MLK thought everyone was equal
And prejudice contained a simple flaw
Which bigots deemed contrary;
Skin colours may well vary
But content of the character meant more.

Spring nineteen sixty-three, in Alabama
The cops smashed up another demo there,
Mad dogs and fire hoses
And battered heads and noses,
The temperature was rising everywhere.

To Washington all races came to listen,
A quarter of a million just to hear
How far one person's reach is,
He gave the speech of speeches,
'I have a dream' the message, pure and clear.

And when he said how unjust Vietnam was
The FBI lost patience, angered at
A bleeding-hearted presence,
No cotton picking peasants
Should ever taint old Uncle Sam like that.

The final speech was almost like an omen,
He talked about his own mortality,
The prophet's final story,
'Mine eyes have seen the glory'
He told the crowd in Memphis, Tennessee.

Upon a motel balcony he lingered,
Oblivious that right across the way
A hidden gun was aiming,
The moment of the maiming,
A bullet shamed America that day.

Like JFK, a sudden threat was silenced,
They killed him but they didn't understand
He'd climbed the mountain yonder
Then stopped a while to ponder,
Yes, Martin he had seen the Promised Land.

The beacon was picked up by many others,
All followers and those who apprehend
He helped to change tomorrow,
Amid the tears and sorrow
It's good to know that Martin's dream won't end.


©
 

That's an epic for the start of a New Year Very good history lesson too.

Happy New Year all and good luck in all your ventures Musty ! xxxxx

Agreed BB. Definitely educational.

You really need a volume aimed at schools Musty.

Thanks BB & Biz and a Happy New Year again

The MLK poem's an oldie that needed some changes. I cut out three whole verses that weren't essential. The limited edit time here means this still isn't the finished version, but it's near enough.

Gravendean

Gravendean waits like a patient black crow,
Some baron’s mansion designed long ago,
Rumours abound of the presence still here;
Left over forms with a ghostly veneer.

Vacant, abandoned to untended lands,
Dark and alone in the parish it stands,
Windows observe, while forever aloof
Crouched gargoyles line the stone edge of the roof.

Their eyes inspect the unwelcome ones who
Find the house, curious visitors do;
Yet every gateway and door remains barred
Locking the world out from secrets they guard.

Overgrown gardens let trailers that climb
Mingle with dark tendrils nurtured by time,
Spreading up bricks of defeated front walls
Smothering ivy invincibly crawls.

Gravendean, like a lone raven will wait
Silent and proud of its desolate state,
Shadows the vast haunted rooms have unfurled
Are all that live now in Gravendean’s world.


©

The Treasure in Silbury Hill

Have you witnessed Silbury, immense against the skies?
Yes, I’ve gazed up at the hill
And seen its mighty size.

Did it help you the glimpse the past and cause your heart to sing?
Yes and then I wondered how
Man ever built the thing.

Do you know fools drilled inside for treasure ‘neath the lid?
Yes, and nothing could they find
Save what the ancients hid.

The pyramid of Silbury was not a chest of gold;
It represented Mother Earth,
Whose riches can’t be sold.

And still today those Wiltshire slopes of pregnancy persist,
A hill of chalk enclosed in green
That floats within a mist.


©

^ I love the spooky atmosphere of Gravendean. Thrilling.
The Treasure in Silbury Hill was enjoyable too.


Train Journey

At last, the train has arrived
Greeted by a cavernous yawn
It shows me my reflection
And I think I look forlorn

Wheels in motion turning
I hope we'll not be adjourning
For I am one disheveled cat
Who is tired, and hungry at that

An aroma of coffee entices
But no, not at these prices
Soon I'll be home
Mmm, hot chocolate and marshmallow foam

Body and senses sinking
Into a subconscious lair
Eyes half open
Passing hobbit hills in my chair

The soothing steady rumble
The worn out parents grumble
But now, here is my stop
On the sofa, soon I'll flop

Hi Howmany and thanks for the feedback Train Journey - what a perfect illustration of this condition, I often get tired on trains and doze off! I love the hobbit hills reference too

Gravendean's an imaginary place. Originally it was titled Gravenhurst, till I realized there was a rock band with the same name

Thanks mr. mustard - glad you like it ... minor change - I'm going to swap flop for drop.

I like Gravendean, it sets just the right tone.

I'm always making minor changes I'm relieved you like Gravendean, as my Martin Luther King poem has just prompted a negative comment in America

Please call me Musty by the way

Lawrence of Arabia

TE Lawrence fitted in
With the Arab Bedouin,
This effendi sighed
Not for peeling Oxford bells,
More for lands of nomad wells
That Turks occupied.

Sent from Cairo to support
Prince Faisal our rich cohort,
Lawrence somehow took
Tribes out of polarity,
Channelled their barbarity
Till the desert shook.

Granted Godspeed from Allah
On the road to Aqaba,
His men charged and beat
Turkish troops, a victory
By the glittering Red Sea
In the searing heat.

Any soldier may be a
Captive in Arabia,
Punished by the foe,
Loving every sting and crack
Of the whip across his back,
Pain delighted so.

Lawrence, blonde and beautiful,
Insolent yet dutiful
Kept his heart oblique,
Often hard to understand
Like lost footprints in the sand,
Lawrence was unique.


©

Wonderful tribute poem Musty.

Thanks Troy and welcome back Unfortunately my Martin Luther King poem has upset a KKK supporter in America

Great stuff.

Anything that has an impact on such degenerates is worth doing.

I guess any reaction's better than none Troy - but it's quite odd coming across someone who doesn't find a bunch of cruel bullies abhorrent.

It's a sobering thought that KKK are still there - and reading poetry.

Indeed Biz Your last post number was very demonic

I didn't know that!!! I rather liked you 3333 - that's not sinister is it?

I rather enjoyed your tête-à-tête with Troy. He should pop in more often. Are you listening Troy?

I bet he is Biz

The KKK fan said I left out negative and criminal apects of MLK's life. But as Dark Star pointed out, that would equal a poem on Hitler recalling how kind he was to his dog. For better or worse, the lives of historical figures have to be filtered, otherwise poetry about them can get bogged down. Detailed analysis belongs in the realm biography in my opinion.

My Love, it was a Secret Thing

The first time I laid eyes on her
I fell completely smitten,
My love, it was a secret thing,
A happy tale unwritten.

Contentment seemed a distant hill
With beauty on the summit;
I tried in vain to reach the top
But couldn’t overcome it.

My unfulfilled heart always paid
The price of being thwarted,
For every time she passed me by
It stumbled then it halted.

I saw her as a princess fair
Yet only met her highness
In fantasies composed within
The prison of my shyness.

My love remained a secret thing
And no one ever learned more
Because I kept it hidden from
The very one I yearned for.


©

Once read, never forgotten.

Yeh, I'm here Biz.

As I said to Musty in a PM recently I don't frequent the forum as often as before as there are far too many up their own backside types, who, I feel confident in saying, can start a fight in an empty room. judging by their posts.



I agree with you about the content of the poem and the KKK guy sounds, not surprisingly not very bright as the clue is in the title. An elegy is a lament based on positive feelings for a figure not part of a character assassination work or a biographical analysis of every aspect of their life.

Thanks Biz

Indeed Troy - to support them maybe that's essential

very lovely Mr Mustard

Oh yes Troy. I've met them - they gang-up too wearing their haloes.