Roger G McDonald: ‘Beaten by the bastards, but …’ and ‘Out through the in door’

Beaten by the bastards, but …

You think you’re beaten by the bastards, but
The war to win your future’s just begun.
A family’s love keeps open what seems shut.

You sense the cord to your tomorrow’s cut,
and dawns hold no more promise of the sun.
You think you’re beaten by the bastards, but

A family’s love’s the kernel to your nut.
And though it feels the bastards might have won,
A family’s love keeps open what seems shut.

Your hopes and disappointments now abut.
A decade’s worth of dreams have come undone.
You think you’re beaten by the bastards, but

The world is just a joke. And who’s the butt?
You’ll meld three to two, or two to one.
A family’s love keeps open what seems shut.

Who cares if life’s a palace or a hut?
In time, you’ll love a daughter or a son.
You think you’re beaten by the bastards, but
A family’s love reopens what’s been shut.

Roger G McDonald

Out through the in door

I try to keep the laundry door pulled to.
Forgetful children often thwart my plans.
It’s not their fault. The tortured frame expands
In heat, contracts in cold. Of course the two
Can’t reach a handshake, so the luckless door
Flaps like an independent on the floor
Of our ramshackle parliament, and votes
According to the wind. I keep a score
Like a party whip, though loosely. It denotes
Something I suppose I ought to stand for.

The door ajar’s a magnet to the birds
That colonise our garden and its trees.
What laundry scents adrift on backyard breeze,
Or washing music, or blank avian words
Persuade them into anti-aerospace?
Is our glassed-in lean-to their Crystal Palace?
Once in, their avionics seems unwired.
This fenestrated air cannot retrace
A way out. Uber-nature has conspired
A prison to thrash in alien space.

I know the drill. First, quarantine the cat.
Select our softest towel. Induce a calm.
The mantra is to minimise all harm.
(I wonder if I’d do this for a rat?)
Now coax it to a corner, smooth and slow.
Towel spread, slide in to capture it although
You ponder something else in the escape.
Be patient. Allow time for trust to grow.
Be pure. This is a rescue, not a rape.
Be sacred. Terror cannot be a show.

Wrapped lightly in my gentlest cloth embrace
Resistance folds. Shock or resignation?
Have I spoiled freedom’s divine equation?
Released, it pelts off through the trees, the race
Renewed, a second life in raucous flight.
I quiz its absence if that freed shriek might
Define an anger, gratitude, relief?
I have to ask, ahead of my delight,
Have I become a saviour, or a thief?
I opt for joy, and pull the door to, tight.

Roger G McDonald