Dumping Ground for Derek's Poetry

There's no escaping the maze without a lamp

Before the fall there was a cliff edge
looming huge in my eyes; I could see that
I was not born to swim but to fly --
there was a sun above and wings on my back
and I, I was a fragile feathered thing
beautiful as gold, made to burn and die;
Now in stately calm contorted waters
my broken barely-singed body has to lie -
I was not built to outrun fate
so please, father, tell me why
The cliff edge recedes and leaves me deep
where nothing but weeping sustains me
I was not born to swim
I was born to fly
And it was you who launched me
full-fledged into the cloudless sky
Now storms have stolen my birthright
and here am I
an albatross who cannot wander,
a sunworshipper six fathoms under
A broken-hearted boy with no reason to cry;
I cannot steer by stars alone
and night's about to slip straight by -
Let me rise once more with the sun
Let me find one more worth looking on
I was not born to drown
I am steam and I will rise
I was not born to stay down
I tell you I was made to fly.

a song for the city who is not yet done

cities are not eternal;
capitals without count lie buried
beneath ash, or mud, or sand, or ice,
not to mention the other alantises
our tongues have forgotten how to pronounce;
a city is a ruin without its people
and people die.

i cannot tell you how many more times
i will see the sun rise on the thames;

but i know this
is not the last time
we will burn.

i cannot tell you how long this lung-cementing
dirty paradise of poverty and of pain
will hold its ground
and remain

but i know this
unbroken history will speak
of all the challenges
overcome:

our bridge fell down so often
we made a song of it
our city burned like kindling
a hundred times a year
rains of screaming ordinance
ripped the earth to buggery
and we are not yet done.

it is true have seen tyranny
in times present and in past
but tyrants too are mortal
and tyranny does not last;

complacency is cancer
there are no guarantees
but we have seen darkness and frozen rivers
burning quarters and pestilent halves
stared destruction in the face
and sold it mouldy apples
my heart;
there are worse times than these.