Poem: To Simba with love

To Simba with love.

So many years it’s been since you stole my heart,

Picked us, your chosen, your set apart,

The ones in whom you placed your hope,

For a brighter brand-new start.

Poem: A trip on the tube

When you hop on to the tube, what plays upon your mind?

Is there something to be glad about, or only ills to find?

Can we take the gloomy view and leave it all behind,

And train our thoughts on things unseen, and a world that seems more kind?

Poem: The cannon was fired! The dogs barked!

Boom! The cannon was fired! The dogs barked!
The men and women stood around,
Stilled and pledged to make no sound,
A sombre silence there to tell,
Today they remembered the men who fell.

Poem: A bird in a graveyard

High up above I watch them,
Knelt on the ground below,
Some in calm and peacefulness,
Some with faces filled with woe.

Death: the great taboo

When I read the news on 4 June, I had a strange sense of déjà vu.

Now I know these things happen sometimes, but this sense wasn’t a mere figment of the imagination with all its irrational peculiarities and vagaries. “Will you die in the next 5 years?” The headlines challenged.