Trees
By A. Dickson

Proud elegant standards
Raising your arms to the skies
A haven of rest to the birds in their nest
Singing your praises on high
A friend of the Earth, since the Lord gave you birth
Bestowing your blossoms and fruit
From you, the two sticks, for a crucifix
Was chosen, to teach us the truth.
Providing man’s needs by innumerable deeds
Adding beauty to home and to land
To comfort, sustain both the strong and the lame
From cradle to grave you’re at hand
Giving limbs for support and shafts for all sports
Adding comfort and warmth and ease
Uniting all nations of both high and low stations
Your timbers have conquered the seas
Spreading the facts on bibles tracts
From you pulp, pressed to sheet and to scrolls
Ferrying the missionaries all over the world
In their quest to enlighten all souls
In church, school and hall, you are present in all
Adding music’s sweet notes with your reeds
From ceiling to floor and from window to door
Your presence is felt there indeed.
No Orchids rare, or rose bud, fair
Outshines your grace or charm
And ill betides the thought-less minds
That bid you, hurt or harm
Fond memories cling, of a garden swing
Or a boyhood’s conkers boast
The clash of the ash, or the forward’s dash
To the roars, as he scores, twixt you posts
While you raise to the sky, the flags, we fly
And cater, for stretcher and bier
With you branches, alight, at the campfire bright
Raising spirits and hope, bringing cheer
And at the end of the day, when it’s time to pray
You proffer prie-dieus to our knees
So all can kneel down, to acknowledge one crown
The king, that created, all trees.

Silent Night
By P. J. W.

Silent Night Holy War
All’s not calm
Dim Candlelight
Fear beams from hollow face
The Night no redeeming grace
Silent Night Holy War
Sniper saw the light
With hand tender and mild
Streams bullet from afar
Virgin blood Mother and Child.
Silent Night Holy War
Sleeps the world, hid from plight
Motherless Infant and no one to care
Landscape barren and bare
His face beloved and fair
Christ the Saviour is Born
Christ the Saviour is Born

To Live or Die
For By P. J. W.

A Winter’s snowfall on moonlit evergreens
Narcotic proprietor, prince of dreams
Crystal waters cascading from mountain streams
Unleashed a dark eclipse of spirit before unseen
Fruitful seeds nurtured in a spring sunrise
Frozen tear beneath anaesthetic eyes
Freedom of waves that dance on a moonlaced shore
Heroin the master, I his whore
A thousand shades in twilight of fall
despairing flesh at his withdrawl
Still surface golden stone bedded lake
Tossing and turning limbs bearing constant ache
The comfort underfoot of leaf layered forest floor
Beads of nightsweat hot and cold in every pore
Ponds ripple in answer to the whispering rain
Surreal fears of a mind running insane
Summer breeze perfuming the air with flowers
Nightshift wards, isolation cells dripticking hours
Silver dewed morning trees, mating birds song
Silent epitaphs, friends long gone
The questioning where did it all go wrong?
The pain I paid for, the serenity is free
Like changing seasons, many reasons be
The beauties in life too blinded to see
To the memories of the dead that set me free
To live or die for, the choice is with me.