Rhythmic and Metric
In Remembrance
Subtle streams of poppy petals settle at my feet,
the fallen frieze of summer’s lease, its transience complete,
discarded leaves like memories of unrepentant grief
cavort upon the autumn breeze decayed by time, the thief.
Remembrance of a bitter season thrown upon the world,
when blood and bone would fertilize as fiefdom’s flags unfurled,
entrenched in mud, the good intentions blown apart by fear,
if only Spring might rear its head and Winter disappear.
A million marches made of feet that fall in hammered doom,
a battlefield of bodies rotting doesn’t leave much room
for poetry and positive contractions of the mind
when ears can’t hear and eyes can’t see as chlorine burns them blind.
A petal picked and pressed inside the pages of a book
impresses prints of past endeavours, how the heavens shook,
forget-me-not’s and poppies placed in regimented ranks
remind me what our honour cost and why I owe my thanks.
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Published by Jim Khan
Jim Khan is a father of five children and a recovering addict; both his finest accomplishments in life. He also feels uncomfortable writing about himself in the third person and has asked me (his conscience) to help out. Jim has a simple philosophy on life, and it involves nurturing both mind and spirit. The institutions of family and friendship mean more to him than his cynically one-sided relationship with God and it is in these fields that you'll find him chipping away like a moral ice-pick, trying to shape the obtuse into sculpted beauty. Literature has been a metaphorical life-preserver for Jim, giving him the mental buoyancy to float through a torrid life of living with both neuro-developmental disability and personality disorders. The gift of language and the tools of expression are something he cherishes dearly, eager to share his distorted creative perspective with others so they might see the glass may be dark yet far from opaque. From gothic tales of nightmarish denouement to Japanese form poetry Jim's appetite for creative expression is bigger than a banker's bonus (almost) and what is regurgitated makes for a deliciously sour second-hand meal of melancholia, metaphor, and the occasional gristly lump of reality-checked romance. When not writing poetry and prose, Jim continues to advocate voluntarily for the disadvantaged in a legal capacity and is working toward formal qualifications in the field of English Law. Jim lives in Nottingham, England with his long-suffering partner, his noisy and loving children and four unusually hyperactive dogs. To him, this is as close to heaven as a man can get without a death certificate.
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