The Loan Of Bread Now Stale

 

 

     Back there last year as the chill began,

I swear I snatched the cordite in a jar

To sense a longing hope,

     For there as stars were only a second away

A wish for heartfelt government stands yet

To this day,

 

     Stillness,

Is then our Winter reflection as the flame

Seeks to top the stove while the malt lingers

On the lip,

     And as if time persists

A gentle cliché, bread with hardened edge

Presents itself upon the fork for -

     Adornment of the hearth.

 

     But,

The bread now facing fireside and turning brown -

     Presents a somewhat faded hunger,

A lacking in taste to accompany the last vestiges

Of an amber whiskey,

     For the larder has only a softer substitute

To yield than butter and there, our penance

Is never known for our lack of pennies,

     Our lack of………

 

……… an idea as ideas go hastens a quick

Glint of life within the eye for,

     Perhaps the neighbour ‘well to do’

Has a richer stock of cream, perhaps a side

Of Angus Beef to boast - salted in good measure

And just a little smoked,

     And Butter churned from

Highland Cattle grazing freely upon

     These lands,

 

     But aye,

‘Our Neighbour’s not for want of Scottish banter,

     For as neighbours go – if no high return then

No loan of bread nor butter for my toast.’

 

     These islands once had a peoples -

Beyond borders, peoples beyond flags and anthems,

     Peoples beyond religions, kings, queens

Squires and lairds and all that is money,

     And there was never a loan of bread now stale,

Only a value that is now within the crosshairs

Of a primitive understanding where power

Ensures that; ‘money, kills everything and everyone, of value.’

 

     Now these thoughts have made this loan of

Bread  – charred,

     The last of the amber fluid just a

Wisp away from nothing more than vapour,

 

     The burnt offerings I let drop

To the stone like the life that once never

Needed to beckon courage to wake the day,

     And it is hard for me not to imagine

Fawkes himself saddened by a forsake

That presents the water to his eyes,

     While sat upon a keg that never made it

To the bonfire, and there he sits atop,

     The glow of cigarette’d ember

Gently rising the light a little before

His vision of finding paradise takes him

Above the stars that one can only dream,

 

     And if placed within a mill,

Perhaps then a rain of freshest bread

To feed a people who have starved –

     And hungered for all fairness but then,

Why bother with such fantasy for all

Are now drawn to battle-dom and no matter

     All his charm;

A loan of bread now stale

     Be not of Scots Concern.

 

Michael J Waite 7^th March 2020.