Speak now or forever

I wish the dead would speak

more quietly, no louder

than other whisperers at weddings

but from closing-in walls they growl.

Do they imagine we can't hear

them, only sense their displeasure

at each unweighed vow?

From the east they look down

upon our inconstant avowals of love,

and from beneath our feet

where their names lie heelworn

reproach me for the tainted gift of mine.

How this breathless moment is filled

with the revelations of ghosts.

I wish the dead would lie still.

(c) 2013 Slush Poet

The church of emancipation

French girl dies in Easter church floor collapse

France 24, Easter Sunday, 8 April 2012

In our church we dance the passion,

not from Aramaic, but from the Haitian.

We do lent like the Arab do Ramadan

and when we relent we do celebration.

In our church we raise the rafter

that we closer to God through our rapture.

If Saint John could see we ascension

he say what this new verse and chapter?

On our church there a cross on the gable

that mark where our brothers have struggled

us freed of the boss man in Haiti

and the overseers of him religion.

Here lie in peace sons and daughters

buried in cotton picked by others.

(c) 2012 Andy Hickmott

First published in Interpreter's House vol 52
'Dedicated to the best in poetry'