IN DREAMS

Wouldn’t you wonder where you wander

In that dreamlike state,
For sleep ; the perfect traveller,
No luggage, no boarding gate.

All that’s needed is a vacant space

In the carriage of the mind.
Reality, if that exists!
Jettisoned behind.

When the prevailing wind is from the East
You can steer it to the South
And hold your breath forever
And spit the foul one out.

If you don’t enjoy sham Christmas
And the Wise Men come too soon,
You can tell the trio to sling their hooks
And call again in June.

Your hair can be tossed in a nightmare
And set straight again in dreams,
Reality’s a long dead foe
And everything is what it seems.

CHILDREN

All children are experiments,
The more they offer, the more father takes,

And righteous mother lays down her own law
To try to use child to correct own mistakes.

The child has a right, by right
To dislike its own father or mother
Or uncle or aunt, parson or priest,
Cousin or granddad, or any other.

Parents presume to own their offspring,
To decree and dictate style and behaviour,
How to comb their hair, sit on a chair,
And tell them the name of their saviour.

A lonely child is the only child,
What chance to think or maybe grow?
Target of lasers, same parents once lovers,
Strangled of sight and the right to know.

If children can’t do what they like
Why should parents and adults and others?
The tragedy was and is the long curse
That children grow big to be fathers and mothers.