‘Tarnished Treasures, Guilty Pleasures’

“And the Lord said to me; What do you see, Amos? And I said, "A plumbline." And the Lord said: Behold I place a plumbline in the midst of My people Israel; I will no longer pardon them”. (Book of Amos 7:8)

First they came for Jimmy,

but he’d already slipped away downstairs.                               

 

Then they went for Stuart,

whose time on It’s a Slop-Out will thrill us all for years.

 

Bill  came next with a bravura show well beyond our ken.

 

But we understood at once why Max’s mini organ would never play again.

Then they came for several odd-balls – a couple still bounce loose.

Last – for the nonce - they came for  Rolf who once drew the Queen - and large, delighted crowds.

But now, he  too  resides behind thick walls placed by a plumbline. And it’s there that no-one’s left who’ll speak for him. Ever.

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Natalie Wood

(© Natalie Irene Wood – 20 July 2014)

‘Gaza Beach, July 2014’

The sea’s not calm today.

Rough waters have sent the surfers home, leaving the coast clear for marauding zealots who craft their murder  round the clock.

Ah, love, who could have dreamed up such a plan?

 

Just as an Israeli gunboat nears the shore, to have four sweet-faced fisher boys playing footie in the sand, hard by a band of po-faced hacks with cameras – phones -  notebooks – even sticking-plasters in their their hands?

 

The nights are long and hot; the moon is ripe with woe, oozing stale absolution on those meddling in  the muddy, foreign waters of human misery.

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Natalie Wood

(© Natalie Irene Wood – 18 July 2014)