Stirred and Shaken

'There was a stirring in the air, as if spirits moved unseen'

                  (Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol)

The world stirs and scratches fretfully in disbelief

As it watches the sneering erosion of our fragile order

By those spewing scorn over unfinished prayers

As they trample with contempt through our quiet church

Down empty alleyways a name is shouted at half open gates

A name that soils the lips as it flees gaping mouth 

And is wefted and warped by skilfully crooked weavers

Into the golden tapestries of deceit that adorn their walls

He struts like a cockerel, but his eyes grow dim

As threatening words fall from failing thought

And bruise themselves against strengthening resolve

Until they become empty, exhausted and ridiculed

Chafing reactions suddenly flare like struck matches 

And begin to glow from the highest windows

Lighthouses of hope growing in intensity

Yet still struggling against the sinister gloom

The name, with his spiteful crowing and fat with fraud

Will have his short time and then be finished

Withered by the growing light and left, as tyrants are

Remembered by history as that part of us malformed