The Price of Asylum

          The Price of Asylum

They leave those godforsaken places.
Where the spores of heartache unfurl
Relentlessly; relentlessly unfurling.
While they trudge wearily away

To find solace inside a vast cloud
Of discontent.
Hopelessness colours
Each waking hour while the mushroom

Of doom grows, always more ominously.
Ages of family lie hidden beneath
The love of their clay, and on they
Move seeking a fresh sod on which to

Rest, their blood pulsing with new plans.
Somewhere, they know, out there, beyond
Their harassed endeavours waits a boat, and
Cunning helpers beckon them aboard

As the sea’s heartless embrace awaits
Their urgent paddling.
Throughout Their nights, sleepless dreams pile up
Upon the sunken souls of those they

Follow, whose hopes too, have drowned
While dark-minded people in the land of
Milk and honey debate the end to which
The wearied travellers will finally acquire,

As they are herded onto the grey hulks
And brought to the culmination of their
New existence.
They can rue, inside the

Tight enclosure, the pains and sorrows
The decision, which made them depart
Those godforsaken places, and learn to
Enjoy the spores of heartache unfurling

In the new lands of the unloving. This is
The price their asylum will demand.

 Adrian Kavanagh June 30, 2012

Reunion Poetry gave each of us worthwhile reasons To create a stanza on nature’s seasons, Or when we came together To have written something on the weather, We penned some lines it seems On such a variety of themes, Not all were grand it’s true Though some were hot but none were blue! The results of inspiration we had mined Came to the fore when we had dined, For around the table one and all Were preparing for a stanza’s ball. Throughout the years we marched along And poetry was our marching song, So here we are today once more And are we ready to tally up the score? There must be a thousand verses And some were made under vicious curses But friends it’s true I have to say This poetry lark has had its way, And now a reunion we all agree Is the one and only way to see Tears of gladness and friendship true So this reunion doggerel I dedicate to all of you. Adrian