By Scott Bailey © 2016
Are we lucky?
A comfortable generation?
Or is it just
That our chains fit us perfectly?
Bespoke
Month: November 2021
Flee
By Scott Bailey © 2016
The cold swallows flee
Riding currents to the south
Rivers take their time
Flight
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Swallows fly freely
Soaring high in summer skies
Earthbound fox watches
Mystical
By Scott Bailey © 2016
The mystical chord is missing
Congregation of the hearts
Cohesion of resistance
The friction that throws up sparks
Dragons stir on dripping hoards
Squeeze the bloody stones
Build their beds on broken bones
Their hunger ever fed
Lore is twisted into chains
Choking all who dream
Mystic songs have drained away
Silence reigns
Abide
By Scott Bailey © 2016
Here I abide
Amidst the craters
Of too much cultural shelling
Here there resides
Residual echoes
Of now silent voices
Stranger music silenced
The pale lord voiceless too
Many last departures
Many miss the few
Clinging to the final notes
As lovers do
In dark and empty craters
Bubbles shadiness and greed
A fecund vile concoction
Upon which the beast will feed
Need is the successor
Here where I abide
Missing
By Scott Bailey © 2016
Never ending beach
The crashing waves repeating
Permanence missing
Holding Hands
By Scott Bailey © 2016
Tiny, warm, fragile
Fingers tightly holding mine
Treasured memories
Swift
By Scott Bailey © 2016
Swifts swoop and dazzle
Aerobatics in the sky
Still, we watch in awe
Still
By Scott Bailey © 2016
Stood before a wall
Dreaming of the road beyond
Still before a wall
Vanish
By Scott Bailey © 2016
You must remember
When waking from reveries
All your dreams vanish
Confined
By Scott Bailey © 2015
Space. It stretched out before him – endless, dark, enticing. The stars were faint and blurry through the thick glass view port, moving in a slow arc across his vision.
He could feel the endless nothing all around, calling to his soul, a siren’s whisper.
Float with us. Float with us forever! Float and forget.
The dark song was as endless as dreams.
He shook his head, fighting off the draining sensation.
He needed to concentrate.
He turned away to look out the only other viewport.
This one was dominated by the dark shadow of the dead ship. It was only visible against the deeper blackness due to the fading embers of molten metal fragments of its destruction.
They too fade from sight to and die.
Like everyone inside.
He shivered.
Looking out that viewport was hurting his neck. He faced forward again. He was too cramped. He could only move his head left and right and his arms enough to use the control by his hands and the keyboards before him.
He was stuck.
Daydreams had led him here – he couldn’t let them end him here.
A beep from the computer brought his senses back to proper alertness.
It had started. The attacks were coming.
He had anticipated it, though not so quickly and not all at once.
Float….
Concentrate!
“Update”, he commanded.
The computer’s calm voice responded.
“Interceptors are on the way they will arrive in precisely 623 seconds.”
“They must be responding to the distress call from the prison,” he muttered.
“That would seem a high probability.”
Dammit! He hadn’t been able to cut that off in time.
The computer went on.
“We should send our own distress call, they will be equipped to rescue you.”
“Do not!” he commanded. “Keep radio silence!”
“Affirmative.”
They were not only equipped for rescue. They were heavily armed. Once they learned the truth – and very soon they would – weapons would their first response.
“And our firewall?” he queried.
“The outer defence has been breached but the systems have not yet been compromised.”
That wouldn’t last much longer. The authorities were suspicious already – the presence of such a strong firewall did not to allay those suspicions – so they were hitting the firewall with the best they had.
“And my program?”
“Approximately 800 seconds to completion.”
Not enough time!
He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. There was too much at stake here to fail.
He needed more time.
“Instigate firewall program 42!”
The computer complied and ran the program for him. That would keep the cyber attacks at bay for a little longer.
He shook his head. He had the nagging feeling that this was all just too fantastic!
Only a year ago the only thing he did on a computer was check social media and chat! Spaceships were a thing of science-fiction! Now here he was a master programmer and a fugitive from the authorities flying in space. It all seemed too unreal.
It was the stress of the situation he told himself and he could not afford to be distracted by it.
Besides he wasn’t actually flying a spaceship right now. He was drifting in what was little more than an escape pod.
But the ship he had escaped from was real. As were those bearing down on him. And these were not the only truths he had discovered lately.
He looked at the countdown on the program he was running.
“OK,” he told the computer, “prepare a distress call. But inject the virus I prepared.”
“That is against regulations,” the computer informed him. He barked an override code at it and it proceeded to prepare the distress call.
It was amazing what you could learn in prison. Hacking, override codes. The truth about the universe out there.
Putting him in prison had been their mistake.
Daydreams and curiosity had led him to that prison. he asked too many questions and that had got him into trouble at work and with the Government. That alone would probably not have condemned him but he had also an inventive streak. And a paranoid one.
When they hauled him for questioning he had snuck in a crude listening device.
It had not worked very well but he had caught snippets of conversation.
“He seems immune..”
“Is he any harm though?”
“ … control … inherited or just a ….. “
“He is a dreamer, not a revolutionary.”
“There we go then. We make him a believer…”
Unfortunately, the listening device was discovered – and that sealed his fate. He was shipped off to a deep space prison ship.
A deep space prison ship! One day he was in a world where the space shuttle was the most sophisticated space vehicle man had created and smartphones where the best man seemed to be able to achieve – the next he was in a world of spaceships – and space police!
It was a culture shock, to say the least.
He was dumped into prison and forgotten.
And that was the strangest thing of all. In prison, he flourished.
On earth – in his old life he had been Mr Average Joe to a T. Prison should have broken him. Yet he found that he had more freedom stuck on this ship than ever before.
He learned the truth for one thing.
There existed on earth (and space) a super élite far above anything anyone even suspected existed. They had science and wealth beyond the imagination of most people.
The rests of the population were kept in drug-induced ignorance. Cattle whose sole purpose was to provide this élite with their lifestyle.
Knowledge seemed to flow freely in prison and he absorbed it all. He learnt to program and how to hack computers.
He had vowed to expose the truth and free the world.
So he had concocted his escape. It had cost him the lives of everyone on that ship – and probably his own life too but he didn’t care.
He was filled with fury. He wanted to free the enslaved population of the human race for sure. What he wanted more though was to see the smug bastards who ruled them get their just deserts.
“Distress call is ready to send.”
He nodded, he was about to tell the computer to send it when it preempted him.
“New contacts.”
“What?”
“There are two more ships, coming in from the direction of Saturn.”
“More interceptors?”
“No. They bear all the signs of space pirates?”
Space pirates? Pirates? How could pirates exist? That would imply ….
He shook his head. There were too many questions threatening to distract him. He had to concentrate.
“Program completion has been suspended.” the computer announced.
What!?
He flung his fingers at the keyboard and dove into code. They had not yet got full control but they managed to stop his program.
Which implied they knew or guessed what he was doing.
He glanced at the other screen. The pirates would get here quicker than the interceptors! And they would shoot first!
He didn’t hesitate now. He called up his virus and made a few changes, then he told the computer to prepare it again and send it.
Then he dove back in and started a counterattack against the hackers. He managed to regain control and get his program running again. He then spent the next few minutes both fighting the hackers off and keeping his exit channels open.
While he did this he also watched as his virus took hold of the interceptors and turned them towards the pirates. They would be forced to fight each other for a bit.
The program was also done. The hackers came on in full force. He struggled to hold them back.
A fireball briefly bloomed in space. All the pirate ships and interceptors signals went dead. They had destroyed each other.
Almost there.
Now the hackers could see the program running even if they couldn’t stop it yet.
A signal flickered back to life on the screen
One interceptor had survived.
It was closing in, weapons charged.
Almost.
“Program completed!” the computer announced.
“Run it!” he shouted.
He watched the screen as the truth – all the truth – was sent out to every single person on earth.
The lies were exposed.
Come now, float with us…
No!
The interceptor would be in range soon.
He breathed easier.
He had done as much as he could for the world. Now he had to look to his own survival.
He was stranded in space, with limited resources and little time. Air and supplies running out and no hope of rescue.
After the years and years of confinement, he welcomed the challenge – relished it.
“Now this,” he said, with an almost feral grin, “is living!”
Pets
By Scott Bailey © 2016
Let’s play with our pets
Keep them happy and content
While we milk them dry
Straight Path
By Scott Bailey © 2015
The Romans had it right
With their roads
Our roads wander
And wind
Avoiding stuff
Drawing closer to other stuff
But it’s all just stuff
We get lost
Never arrive
Or if we do
Too late
Too late
Chains
By Scott Bailey © 2015
Chains are other people
Cages social mores
Throw them to the floor
Bend bars
Soar
Dark Path
By Scott Bailey © 2015
(Musette Poem)
Sadness
Never ending
Madness
Will we
Learn to tread light
Greed free
Burning
Dreams leaving us
Yearning
Seafarer
By Scott Bailey © 2015
Seafarer wandering over the waves
Fine hair glistening with rime
Roaming and riding forgetful tides
Living away from life
But living
True
A man
Wandering
Along forgotten paths
Following the ancient ways
Expanding his mind in ancient ways
Speaking to the earth and the animal guides
Silent ghosts that leave his heart silent and unanswered
Leather like tanned skin, wrinkled with experience of a life lived hard and loved harder, dedicated
waning in strength
and
yet filled with
fire and
sand
Seafarer
Where are you now
Blues Bars
By Scott Bailey 2015
It sits right down
Sits all the way down
Then flies above the clouds
Soars high above the clouds
And I
I can’t get there
Can’t weave that
Magic weave
The harmony of the heart
The harmony of dreams and thought
With the making in the world
The making of the day
I crave
Crave that path
Sweet blue path
Of blues bars
The Lord of the Trees
By Scott Bailey © 2006
I am Herne the Hunter, Lord of the Trees,
and you are a leaf blown on the breeze.
Echoes and whispers inside your head,
set you on the path you were destined to tread.
Head of a wolf, eye of a hawk,
in the forest, the hooded man shall walk.
A man of balance not of gold,
Is it demon or god to whom you are sold ?
So string the bow and take up the sword,
Do my bidding and carry my word.
For you are my son Robin in the Hood.
You are the king of all Sherwood.
Cold Morning
By Scott Bailey © 2016
Golden sunlight fills
The air where the songbirds spill
Their song while frost kills
Debt
By Scott Bailey © 1998
Do not lightly discard them
with tales of the foolish bold.
They sat for weeks, for months, for years
in trenches freezing cold.
Sometimes feet simply mouldered
in the sucking mud.
And now and then they’d rise and run
and spill their loyal blood.
Do not belittle the suffering
of soldiers now long dead.
With nothing but talk and songs and bombs
bursting in their head.
Bound together with chains of love
shattered by leaden death.
They ended as they had begun
with cries upon their breath.
Do not lightly remember them
with only paper flowers.
they faced the fear, the pain, the cold,
for hours and hours and hours.
They ran together and fell alone
upon those foreign fields.
Protecting those they loved
those frightened human shields.
Do not read these words and think
that these things are passed.
Do not think you will not hear
that deep and dreadful blast.
Do not sit in decadence
and take for granted peace.
You owe a debt to those who died
and that debt will never cease.
Over the Top
By Scott Bailey © 2006
The general’s orders are loud
Over the shattering shells
Through the mustard gas cloud
The general’s orders are loud
For privates timid and proud
We hear the tolling of bells
The general’s orders are loud
Over the shattering shells
And over the top once again
We face the thundering guns
We climb from our miry den
And over the top once again
A million war weary men
All scared but nobody runs
And over the top once again
We face the thundering guns
They stand at the station and wait
For their heroes and lovers’ return
While praying they will not be late
They stand at the station and wait
With their hearts in a fluttering state
For news they are longing to learn
They stand at the station and wait
For their heroes and lovers’ return
Scrabble Limerick
By Scott Bailey © 2006
A Zen Buddhist Byzantium Queen
Played saxophone sexy and mean
She just blew jolly jazz,
with buzz and pizzazz
In a jacuzzi with Lizzy and Jean
The Lonely Tree
By Scott Bailey © 2016
The lonely tree
Stood atop the blasted hill
Stark
Barren branches snatching
Rays from a mist-shrouded sun
Every now and then
Upon an errant breeze
Flits a weary bird
Resting one more time
On its final flight
Then falls
All around the roots
Dead birds and ash
Giving meager succour
To the lonely tree
One day
From that blood-soaked soil
This tree’s seed will rise
Green will conquer grey
Once more
But too late
For this final witness
Of our fall
#ClimateStrike
The Night
By Scott Bailey © 2015
The music of the night!
The night of the wolves calling
The calling of the blood
The bloody business of mine
My feasting time
Following a Hearse
By Scott Bailey © 2015
The traffic slowed
We were all following a hearse
Today
In respectful frustration
I took the time
To look around
At the rivers and fields
That normally
Speed by
We are all following a hearse
Ages
By Scott Bailey © 1999
In a crumbling house, we gathered,
sat around the ancient fire.
Logs burnt slow in the hearth,
warmed our expectant hearts.
Firelight flickered in the darkening eve,
We gathered around the elders.
sat in large and comfy chairs.
Red light upon our faces.
We heard of times gone by,
and smelt the burning wood.
The shadows held safe the past,
we gathered them in our hearts.
We looked back upon times gone,
held hands and were content.
Drinking from the cup of seers,
our fears eased, to sleep we went.
Upon the train, I sat,
late for work again.
Another day another dollar,
Tomorrow the same again.
But that’s the base on which I build,
The foundation for my fun.
Work hard, get paid.
Play fast, get laid.
Tomorrow is another day.
So head down, concentrate.
Don’t stop, can’t be late.
Avoid, the crunch.
Let’s do brunch.
Work hard, make a dime!
Night time, spend a dime.
Money opens up the door.
More, more, more, more!
Future goals.
Way ahead.
Sights set far.
Future goals.
Sacrifice.
For future goals.
Save.
Energy.
Spend nothing now.
For future goals.
Look ahead.
Way ahead.
Suffer now.
For future goals.
Work.
Don’t play.
Rest later.
Not today.
Save it all.
For future goals.
For future goals.
Sell your souls.
Don’t look back.
Only ahead.
Don’t think today.
Think ahead.
See the prize.
Of future goals.
Don’t listen to,
the bell that tolls.
For future goals.
Dimming Lights
By Scott Bailey © 2015
Lights in grey matter
Never reaching the day
Plans uncommitted
As the chance ebbs away
A refugee wanderer
In dream worlds and clouds
Where sparks can be realised
And escape from the crowds
Soul
By Scott Bailey © 2015
A soul full
Of tear-stained dreams
As substantial
As vapour
At the mercy
Of whispering winds
A storm approaches
The Tip of the Flame
By Scott Bailey © 2015
The glint in the dark
From the deep of the cave
The thirst that draws
The primitive out
Out from the dark
Out from the safe
Into the harsh
Changes of life
Leaping from age to age
The fire that burns inside
Connecting us over time
To the fires that have passed
Every ancestor who held it
Was a winner in their life
Success upon success
And you are the tip of that peak
Homecoming (Tyburn)
By Scott Bailey © 2015
Flying
Soaring
Roasting
Roaring
Majestic wings spread like thunder clouds
The dragon has come home to his realm
Feather Crown
By Scott Bailey © 2006
Shake!
Awake!
Shake!
Awake!
The sun.
Is up!
Rise up!
Rise up!
Open eyes!
Beneath
Blue skies.
Cast off
Sleep’s reins.
See!
The plains.
No sleep!
Breath deep!
Sun warms.
No storms.
Stretch arms.
Take arms.
Run!
In the sun!
Take bow!
Go!
Take spear!
Disappear!
When
Wind blows.
Lift nose.
And scent
why they sent
for you.
They come!
They run!
See!
The birds.
Speak.
No words.
Watch
them lead.
They
will feed.
Feel
the land.
Trust
your hand.
See
grass sway.
They come
this way.
Feel
the ground.
Hear
the sound.
Thunderous sound.
All around.
A mound
of meat.
Trust
your feet.
Spear
and bow.
Blood
will flow.
With
one voice.
We
rejoice!
And the buffalo pass,
to greener grass.
Goodbye
By Scott Bailey © 2006
It’s not fair. He started it, I didn't. He called me names. I had to do it to stop him. How come I get told off? It’s not fair. It’s a shameful waste. What they do to our world today. The forests they cut down, the whales they kill. The fields they destroy, the new roads they build. The way they leave their scars on the world. It’s a shameful waste. It’s a bloody liberty. I will not stand for it! I earned my money fairly. I will spend it pleasantly. I will not stand being ripped off! It’s a bloody liberty. It’s a downright disgrace. The way these youngsters behave. They will not heed my words. They will not do as they are told. I will leave my mark on the world. It’s a downright disgrace. He needs no name on his grave. He was a model man. He stood for what we all stand for. He spoke the words we all speak. He was me and you and all those to come. He needs no name on his grave.
Scott Andrew Bailey - Author 