The Writers' Circle

ABOUT POETRY 
                                       by
                                       Scott Ballantyne.

If a poem's not simple
Then it's hard to read.
And if it's hard to read
Then it's hard to please.
And if it's hard to please
It's a waste of bloody time.

If a poem is a waste of time
Is it a waste of effort?
Or has the poet gained?
If the poet hasn't gained
Then his readers won't gain.
Or will they?
If they don't gain,
And the poet doesn't gain
It's a waste of bloody effort.

But is any effort wasted?
Or is there a gain in the waste?
There can't be a waste in the gain.

What if knowledge is achieved?
All's well and good.
And if knowledge isn't achieved?
We've wasted time and effort on doubted gain.
Who invented poetry anyway?


  HAPPINESS                                        
				by
                                       Scott Ballantyne.

Is it in the depths of depression
that happiness is so shallow?
Or is it the mellow thinker
who knows of its short life?
Or is it the living day
where happiness is a feeling higher
with its limits just below?

Is it only true romantics
who find its lasting joy?
Or do even they, through time,
taste its souring, tainted cloy?

If to be content is happy
only there can the constant be.
But to have constant content
what an uneventful life
we would see.
Cattle are content.

In love there is happiness
but it must be shared
with fear, pride and pain
and the heart be bared
to cruel Fate's domain.

There is a happiness in living
but no depth to its young time.
Is it in the depths of depression
that it is so shallow,
or is it the mellow thinker who will know
of its short way?
Or is it the living day
where happiness is a feeling higher, say,
with its limits just below?

On these short spells of happiness
we base our life's dreams.
The high pitch of those moments
balance all else, it seems.
Yet to bypass one man
and favour his brother,
we are forced to accept
for there is no other.


RIVER (FOR THE USK) 
                                       by
                                       Scott Ballantyne

Stay, ebbing river,
and hold your full height
that your black banks
may keep their muddy faces
               from romantics.

And when the veins of an industrial age
pump silt to your blood,
try flowing them away to the sea,
for you are older than men
and their age will pass.

Permit frail boats
to ride your back,
and harm only enough
to cause respect.
And remember that when you
were strong and clean
they were not born(e).

And let them catch your fish
as they have done
for a small passing
of your day.
Now they fish for fun.
Let them fish with enough line
and they will catch themselves.


  SHEBA 
                                       by
                                       Scott Ballantyne.

Sheba, what human crime permitted me
the sacrilege of your life?
What justification is there
in your injected sleep?
Forgive me, young dog,
My ignorance of your value.
And now you're gone
indulgence in your memory
is the self inflicted masochism
that will be your only immortalization
for as long as my passion lives,
and so my soul.

Sheba, what days we shared,
when I marveled at your speed
and the beauty of movement bared
to my mortal, petty need.
And how you would run
with the freedom of the loosed chain,
and bask, panting, in the sun
but with limbs all attentive,
to be off again.

And quiet you walked by the river's edge,
content by my side, never being taught,
meandering for many a mile, never making a sound
that you might disturb my deep thought
and inhalation of the country around.

Remember how we sheltered under the tree
from the thunderous storm?
How, under my jacket, safe with me,
we both sensed a form
of love between man and dog.

How I stroked your neck
and caressed your nose.
How you licked my hand
and rested on my lap.
Nobody knows what we had.

But, Sheba, your love for me
was less than that of your freedom,
and in time you'd run free,
and I'd find you gone.
But on other's land
Liberty
is not respected in lesser creatures
than God   and the Law.

So, Sheba, your continued abandon led to your capture;
and your capture to your imprisonment;
and your imprisonment to my cruelty;
and my cruelty to my conscience'
and my conscience
to your death.

Frail Sheba, who fell foul of Man's Laws
that allow a mortal to licence death to animals,
forgive me the years you did not live.
And after your painless death
rest well in your sleep.
May you find your freedom
in God's Land.


 WELLBELOVED 
                                       by
                                       Scott Ballantyne.

I do not ask your forgiveness
That I love you,
For that is how I feel.
For were it that your innocence
Caused this love,
Then so much more do I love you.
And were it your design
Then I submit to your desire.

How is it that I know I love you?
Ask the dawn that wakes me
With full thoughts of you
For each heartbeat,
Even against my logic.
And full waking, you fill me still
That each intake of breath is not air,
But you.

When I do not wish to dream of you,
I do.
When I do not wish to love you,
I pain.
When I do not wish to be with you,
I lie,
For you are with me
Because it is so.

I do not understand this love,
But which God, in any myth,
Promised understanding of Love?
For such, that such as you,
Should make so small as me  
Yet so great in Love 
Demand that such Gods
As heartless Fate and cruel Time
Bend to your service
And for our pleasure,
To so much a depth of feeling
That I may have had death
Before such a thing.
Then your power
Gives me faith
To know that mere I
Can feel such depth.

If I could make
Circumstance my slave,
Then you would be my Wellbeloved,
And we would look down
Upon all simpler loves
As students of ours.

Whatever may come
Cannot take away
What has been.
You have been
And shall ever be.
For my Thought and my Love
Are greater Gods
Than Fate and Time.


 I'D PRESS ON                                       by
                                       Scott Ballantyne

Dark, silent and uncertain,
It moves, creeps, then is.
Without meaning or reason
It can be there.

Violent in years,
Peaceful in war,
Ageless in tears,
Unwritten in Law.

Causing death
For peace.
To happiness
In selfishness.
Lost love
And God.

Makes cowards brave
And heroes fear
And the sane rave
Because it's here.

The unhappy's excuse,
The stubborn's confession,
And the madman's loose
So beware of ..............
              DEPRESSION.