Tag: by Andrew Smith

Read Poem: Unseen Enemy, by Andrew Smith

They say it came from Wuhan,
This microscopic disease,
Like a raging fire it covered the globe,
Bringing countries to their knees,
I wonder if this is a warning,
To the stupidity of man,
As we play God with nature,
And things we don’t understand.

A microscopic enemy,
Unseen to the human eye,
Is this Nature’s cull of the human race,
As people begin to die?
We cannot kill it with guns and bombs,
This is nature’s terror campaign,
And it’s sending a message to the human race,
Think your actions through again!

So we’re bunkered down,
In houses and flats,
Afraid to leave our homes,
Isolated and terrified,
Our contact is through the telephone,
The streets are like a ghost town,
Empty highways, empty roads,
The tiniest thing on the planet,
Is striking fear wherever it goes.

But the human race is fighting back,
In its war with this unseen foe,
People are pulling together,
And the death toll begins to slow,
But it’ll be a long hard struggle,
Though we’ll get there I am sure,
And we’ll beat this invisible enemy,
Together we’ll win this war.

So hang on in there my valiant friends,
Let’s all do what we can,
Let’s raise the flag of the human race,
Each woman, child and man,
For we shall emerge victorious,
The fight back has just begun,
And we’ll not rest or falter,
Until this battle has been won!

©️Alan Faraway Poetry March 2020

Read Poem: Living Hell, by Andrew Smith

My head is full of fantasies,
They’re my escape from reality,
In my world there’s so much I can do,
Like run and laugh and skip and play,
Converse with people day by day,
But sadly all these things will not come true,
For my body doesn’t work so well,
My existence is like a living hell,
I cannot turn my head to see the time,
My legs don’t work, my arms don’t raise,
Medication keeps the pain at bay,
And I cannot talk but my hearing is just fine.

I’m not looking for your sympathy,
No, there’s nothing you can do for me,
Except feed and wash and care for me each day,
I never used to be like this,
My life was once so full of bliss,
Then a reckless fool took my world away,
Now I lay here in this little bed,
With thoughts of life flowing through my head.
And the constant bleep of monitors and machines,
As human voices come to me,
From far away in time and space,
Or maybe they’re just the echos from my dreams.

One day I know that I’ll be free,
Released from all this agony,
And the only thing that I can do is wait,
So I’ll watch the ceiling, see the shapes,
As the day moves on in its own slow pace,
And the nighttime seems to move even slower still,
But where there’s life I guess there’s hope,
And where there’s fire there must be smoke,
So the flames within my mind I’ll need to keep,
I’ll lay in hope of a miracle,
A forlorn wish?
Perhaps,
Who knows,
But I’ll fight until I drift into endless sleep.

Andrew Smith

Read Poem: OUR LEGACY?, by Andrew Smith

I think about the future,
I think about the past,
I think about the little ones,
That seem to grow up fast,
I think about their years to come,
And the world in which they’ll live,
And I think about the legacy,
Our generation hopes to give.

But what will be that legacy,
That gift we’ll leave behind,
These things we deem important,
For the furtherance of mankind,
As we rush headlong in denial,
See things through blinkered eyes,
And in our wake we’ll leave dead seas,
And toxic polluted skies.

We’ll kill off the pollinators,
Raise the forests to the ground,
We’ll build our concrete jungles,
And say that they’re New Towns,
An opportunity for all to live,
How can we be so blind,
To destroy the things that we all need,
For the future of mankind.

So I think about the future,
And I think about the past,
I think of all the little ones,
That may not grow so fast,
For their future is looking bleaker,
Unless we open our eyes to see,
That a sad and dying planet,

Will be the legacy that we’ll leave

POETRY Reading: The Old Man and the Tree, by Andrew Smith

Peformed by Kat Smiley

—

Producer/Director: Matthew Toffolo http://www.matthewtoffolo.com

Festival Moderators: Matthew Toffolo, Rachel Elder

Casting Director: Sean Ballantyne

Editors: Kimberly Villarruel, Ryan Haines, John Johnson

Festival Directors: Rachel Elder, Natasha Levy

Camera Operators: Ryan Haines, Temitope Akinterinwa, Efren Zapata, Zack Arch

Read Poem: The old man and the tree, by Andrew Smith

He sat in the shade of an old oak tree,
Rembering day’s gone by,
Those adolescent, vibrant years,
When he had felt alive,
But the sands of time have fallen,
The winds of age have left their mark,
Now his skin is brown and wrinkled,
Like the trunk of this old oaks bark.

Across the field are families,
Children running here and there,
Shrieks of laughter as they play,
Games of Tag or maybe dare,
Images of his childhood,
Suddenly spring to mind,
His mum and dad and siblings,
Who now dwell in the annals of time.

The world has changed around him,
Piece by tiny piece,
And no one saw it coming,
So softly does progress creep,
And as he gazes upon the young ones,
A question invades his head,
What sort of world will they live in,
When he, himself, is dead.

He grew up in the days of innocence,
A generation lost in the race,
Of inventing, building, destroying,
To advance the human race,
His generation had achieved so much,
But they never did understand,
That the consequences of what they did,
Could see the end of the reign of man.

Now he sits beneath this old oak tree,
That’s stood for eight hundred years,
And wonders just how long it’ll be there,
Before that too, disappears,
Cut down to make a table,
Or into toys with which children will play,
Or more than likely just destroyed,
Because it’s simply in the way.

His gaze returns to the families,
How happy they all seem,
Enjoying each others company,
With a picnic on the green,
He smiles but can’t help feeling sorry,
For these children may not grow old,
Because their world is rapidly changing,
And the winds of change blow cold.

The families now are packing up,
For It’s time they headed home,
The park, deserted and silent,
Except for one old man on his own,
As the sun deserts the heavens,
He sees the mess the families leave,
And he sighs for nothing changes,
For the parents are too blind to see.

There’s plastic cups and drink cans,
Scattered across the grass,
There’s paper and bread from sandwiches,
There’s even a broken glass,
The children learn from their parents,
So what hope is for mankind,
And the children will grow in their shadow,
Not giving a damn in their mind.

The moonbeams filter through the leaves,
For darkness now has come,
And the lonely old man by the old oak tree,
Walks off but he wants to run,
Run away so fast from the human race,
Which he will when it’s his time,
And the old oak tree that sheltered him,
Could be the last of its kind.

What am I trying to tell you,
In the words that you’ve just read,
Is I guess that change is coming,
And we need to get our heads,
Out of the sand that we’ve put them in,
Try and halt this sad decline,
Because like the old man and the old oak tree,
We’re running out of time.

Andrew Smith