A State Called Shock by Paul Griffiths

I watched as silence strangled opinion.
Just as madness ran amok.
Fear can grip you tight like a vice.
Lost in a state called shock.

I’ve seen reason fly out the window.
To proud to think it can’t fall.
I’ve witness good men turning evil.
Then lining their friends to the wall.

I listened as truth get all twisted.
Lost in the tangle of lies.
I have seen innocence stolen.
From out of the children’s eyes.

I’ve seen human rights ridden rough shod.
Then trampled beneath a Jackboot.
They say power corrupts absolutely.
When the first sign of dissension takes root.

I have seen one man move a nation
To make the masses rise up and applaud.
I witnessed governments toppled.
As tyrants now fall on the sword

I know I don’t have all the answers.
It’s not in my nature to preach.
So never let your opinion get strangled.
Don’t lose your right of free speech.

Paying Poetry’s Ransom by Paul Griffiths

I’m gonna hold Poetry to ransom.
I will make you bastards pay.
The price for every sentence.
That you wasted today.

I will type in my kidnap letter.
The situation’s getting worse.
I hope you pay this kidnap ransom
So you can rescue verse.

So you poets have a whip round.
What is the price on verse.
Are you the verse salvation.
For the Poetry on Earth.

Don’t try to double cross me, I am hiding in plain sight.
You think to double Cross cross me, I put out your lights
I know it sounds cold hearted, but I just changed one day.
A way I can earn our fortune, and make you bastards pay

So cutout the bullshit, thems the facts.
You pay the price to get Poetry back.
What price can you put on poetry’s head.
Can you imagine a world, if Poetry was Dead.

The clock is ticking, I will not wait.
The decision is yours on Poetry’s Fate.

The Eyes of a Child by Paul Griffiths

Different childhoods from different times.
Holding tightly to my mother’s hand.
Crossing the road to the local sweetshop.
10p mixed bag of half penny sweets.

Blackjacks fruit salads mint mojo”s
White mice and chocolate logs.
Happiness in a little paper bag.
Contentment guaranteed.

Patch of grass in front of our house.
Tattered leather casey football
Broken sticks for goal posts.
This was our Wembley.

New craze painful phase.
Skateboarding without the pads.
Kiss the pavement, broken bones
At least the hospital was close to home.

Another world school disco.
A new thing called girls.
Chat up technique, hit and miss.
Still remember my first kiss.

Nothing but fond memories.
From a different time, a different age.
Seen through the eyes of a happy child.
Oblivious to how big a world is.

Oblivious to the war Cold war.
The looming threat of Nuclear annihilation.
The Vietnam war.
But then like now, I remember the boat people.

How history has come full circle.
Like hands on the clock.
Grasping for help in this desperate time.
The world seems to be in that small boat.

Syrian child has forgotten the taste of anything sweet.
Hold tight to his mother, as she tries to avoid the sniper.
Belly hungry, empty shelves in looted shops.
Begging for scraps, to get through the day.

Used artillery shell for a football.
Bomb craters for goal posts.
This is his war zone.
Yet still children play.

Bombed out tank is his den.
This is his skateboard, imaginary movement.
But a bonafide target.
To the incoming drone.

Peeled open like a can.
Deafened by the blast.
He kisses the pavement.
He sees but cannot hear his mother screaming.

She tries to comfort him.
Shock sets in, as the world turns red.
No ambulance no hospital no help.
Just his mother’s soft hand, on his brow.

His only comfort is her kisses of love.
He smiles to her, as her features fade.
Different childhoods different times.
Seen through the eyes of a Child.

Merry Go Round of Woe by Paul Griffiths

Hate only begets hatred
On this merry go round of woe.
Where everyone gets spun
So fast nausea kicks in.

Gathering in speed, vision impaired,
Head it is spinning, but everything’s blurred.
The organ grinder turns, as his monkey cries,
Cursing man’s evolution.

Blaming others for starting this ride
As it slowly comes to the end.
You see only your own reflection in a mirror
Looking back at you, in a thousand shattered shards.

He who casts the first stone
Is bereft of all conscience.
Self belief swallowed by self delusion,
Justified by the hypocrisy of self.

Force is used to force your view.
Blind hatred cannot see,
Yet it talks in tongues,
The language of deceit.

Where every act of horror
Comes gift wrapped in conspiracy
For apologists to condone, not condemn.
As the next ride now begins.

Tickets Please !

The Shell Remains by Paul Griffiths

It is said pain only hurts, in the first layers of skin.
Once you cut to the meat, the then shock sets in.
Nerve endings bypassed thus fooling the brain.
To fill with endorphins to help ease the pain.

Shrapnel embedded cuts right to the bomb.
Surrounded by victims but all lying alone.
Screaming in agony, asking God why.
What was the reason, he chose them to die.

Who picks the time, who picks the place.
The once beautiful teen, has a hole for a face.
Grasping lost features like some horrible dream.
Silence it screams, where her mouth once had been.

Her  piercing brown eyes now pierced with glass.
The face she used to see in her mirror, will never look back.
She is now just a shadow, her true self has gone.
Stolen for ever by a suicide bomb.

She still has a heartbeat, classed as alive.
But that bombed killed her, but her shell still survives.
The boyfriend that she kissed only minutes before.
His body parts scattered all over the floor.

Her ears are ringing, with deaths deafening chime.
The music of terror it plays one more time.
Now she sees the darkness, she can’t see the light.
She feels strange hands on her shoulders pulling her tight

Dragging her to safety, but just dragging her shell.
She will never be released from her personal hell.
Alive but not living, survived but yet lost.
She payed the full price, to what real terror costs.

Friday 13th by Paul Griffiths

This was not a movie with Jason Vorhees.
But hostages begging for their lives down on their knees.
Just out to chill on the town to watch a rock band.
To be met by a terrorist with a rifle in hand.

Cruel and cold hearted, mercy bereft.
Just kept on shooting till no one was left.
As the terror hit the cafes where innocents dine.
They were tasting life for the very last time.

Enjoying a nice meal, everything it seemed fine.
As blood now flows free like a bottle of red wine.
This can’t be right, this isn’t God’s will.
Who pays the price now to cover this bill.

The football is playing, the Stadium cheers.
Two bomb blasts later, soon brings home the fear,
Do you trust the man sitting next to you, the answer is no.
Where can you run too, when there’s no place to go.

Do you move forward do you go back.
When the whole of the city is under attack.
It could be you last ever decision, what do you do.
When you fate lies in the hands of a murderous few.

You can just toss a coin and hope that luck lands with it.
As the hand of terror now tightens it’s grip.
Grabbing your throat in a deadly stranglehold.
But we will not bend, and never will fold.

We will stand up for freedom and liberty.
For what we believe in and the right to be free.
You come here to live, but our countries you hate.
Wanting to live now in a shambolic state.

I don’t understand what you want in an Islamic state.
Why do you leave there to come live in our place.
You are the grown up school bully, who picks on the weak
Even Jesus will tire of turning his cheek.

Now you have pushed it too hard the decision is made.
You asked for this war a modern crusade.
But not Christian against Muslim, or Muslim and Jew.
The War is against terror and now the hunt is for you.

You really believe you can act, and we won’t react.
But if you kick a hornets nest, it will always swarm back.
We know where you are and your power base.
The drones will to coming to bomb the fuck out your place.

As the hawk in the sky, has now killed the dove.
You will live in terror from death from above.
You taught us a lesson in violence and pain.
The gloves are now off, there’s no rules to the game.

Terror begets terror is a terrible cost.
But when you fight against religion, all reason is lost.
If there is a God please then show your hand.
As people are killing and it’s at your command.

You made us in your likeness and gave us free will.
But you gave the commandment Thou shalt not kill.

Sister Morphine Tears by Paul Griffiths

In those fields of battle.
So many fell.
Cut down in their prime.
In that living hell.

This was called the War.
To end all wars.
But it didn’t end a thing.
Just followed by more death and suffering.

From out that ground.
Of man’s misdeeds.
A flower took to seed with magic milk.
So soothe the woes of mankind’s ilk.

For Mother Nature gift.
The Poppy was its name.
To combat War,
To ease man’s pain.

She had witnessed man’s folly
So she gave the nurses the Poppy milk.
It could ease man’s pain, let them dream.
In the warm embrace of Sister Morphine.

From all the death and sorrow.
That soaked into that mud.
The Poppy embellished the power for doing good.
It spread far her magic strain.

Travelled the world, in easing pain.
She would let you sleep, banishes fears.
As she sobs for us.
Sister Morphine tears.

But she feels betrayed .
They way she is used.
It’s mankind’s nature to abuse.
From heroine to heroin.

Poppy milk now does mankind in.
Your gift is not wanted anymore.
Now the Poppy Crop has started.
Man off, in a new drug War.

What was given to heal.
Has now driven us to kill.
But that’s not the Poppies fault.
She tried to help our needs.

It just mankind’s way.
We thrive of Greed.

Poppy by Paul Griffiths

From those muddy trenches at the Somme.
Under hail of bullet and falling bomb.
Brave men laughed, whilst brave men cried.
In senseless slaughter, so many died.

Whistle blows, men over top.
Machine gun fire, mows down the the lot.
Falling face down in that mud.
Dying for the greater good.

The Grim Reaper wields his trusty scythe.
As tears roll from his hollowed eyes.
Death on this scale is such a task.
He cannot see past the Mustard gas.

Across the fields of Flanders he stumbles round.
As bodies bleed into the blood soaked group.
He is appalled at man’s misdeeds.
From his pocket he scatters sorrows seeds.

In an instant, from that mud.
A flower grows as red as blood.
For every man who died that day.
A remembrance of War and the price they pay.

A hundred years have past, since that day.
We wear that flower, in our respect we pay.
But we have not learnt, I don’t think we can.
War seems to be ingrained in man.

Just obeying orders, young Soldier man
Is dying in a poppy field in Afghanistan.
I want to believe that it is true.
These Soldiers are willing to die for me and you.

But of late I am not so sure.
They seem to dying in someone else’s war.
But I wear the Poppy in respect with pride.
For the Fallen soldiers who have died.    R.I.P

I am War by Paul Griffiths

I am the blackest of pits.
The darkest of holes.
Destroyer of worlds.
Eater of Souls.

That  micro second before you’re gone.
They call me sweet Oblivion.
I am that instant you feel the pain.
The rules are mine, I own the game.

The path is mine into the void.
All semblance now will be destroyed.
My chalice over runs with pure sorrow.
I steal your joy and leave you hollow.

Hope forlorn without a care.
My touch the coldness of despair.
Made by man, never born.
My game is Chess, mankind my pawns.

Strategy useless the games in spin.
I am the Victor, always win.
Thank the Lord for man’s free will.
Offered Love but goes for the Kill.

Bodies falling can’t count the score.
Fools don’t know what they’re dying for.
For I am War, war is me I can never set you free.
Don’t you mortals, learn from History.

You never learn that’s such a shame.
More Cannon fodder for my Game.
You follow the path, as the ones gone before.
As I paint in your blood, the Art of War.

Building Sandcastles in the Sky by Paul Griffiths

Like a piece of flotsam and jetsam cast from the sea.
Lies the tiny dead body of a baby refugee.
He should be building sandcastles on that shore.
But this little fella won’t be playing any more.

Face down on the beach like discarded debris.
I hope that image haunts you as it haunts me.
From a terrorised country his family tried to flee.
To fall into the terror of a cold cruel sea.

We have become immune to the refugees’ plight.
All fuck you jack, so long as I’m alright.
If the tables were turned, with you in their place.
Wouldn’t you try to find your children a safer place

His loving mother trying to keep him safe from harm.
Only to have him snatched out from her arms.
In that vast ocean, his tiny cries not heard.
But one picture speaks a thousand words.

Our nation woken up as millions cry.
To the little boy, building sandcastles in the Sky.