Den wrote his 'Dad Rap' for Dads Matter Too over two years ago and has continued to write material, currently for his Silver Arts Award. Steven has been writing poetry for an even longer period of time, and even had one of them published. He has just written a new poem, which he has entered in the Calne Music & Arts Festival Poetry Competition.
A Thousand Soldiers
A thousand soldiers died today,
A thousand soldiers cried today, A thousand promises broke away,
A thousand bodies laid to waste.
The blood-drenched fields go on for miles,
And in their camps there will be no smiles.
Just tears of sadness, mourning lost lives,
Making toasts and drinking wine.
But deep in their hearts madness awakes,
Patiently waiting for the next day.
This war is no longer about wrong or right.
It's about revenge, and avenging those who died.
Another U-Too dad has recently written some very personal poems so would prefer to stay anonymous, However he has also entered two of them in the CMAF competition and would like to share them with readers of this blog.
Dad
Many years on, not a lot has changed,
The time I don't see you still remains the same,
In a lot of ways I feel slightly deranged,
And in a lot of ways, I feel that you're to blame.
My memories are vague, few and far between,
Yet the fact remains the same, how absent you have been,
You escaped your responsibility, I find it obscene,
How you've kept the lack of contact, you washed your hands clean.
But was it me to blame? Is it me at fault?
I was just a child, and you were an adult,
How many times at night, I've woken with a jolt,
With fear, remorse and sadness, wishing my thoughts would halt.
I barely even know you, I'm not sure that I want to,
The pain that you've inflicted hurts more than it should do,
After all this time, I hardly care about you,
And all the time I'm wondering, is this the way you feel too?
Mother
The one person I've known my whole life through,
Who knows me better than any could do,
And yet how I realise I barely know you,
We don't talk often enough.
I find it so hard, I'm not quite sure why,
To talk to you more, as hard as I try,
But you don't complain, so neither do I,
Although this is how I feel.
I know for a fact that I'll look back one day,
And wish that we'd talked loads more, day to day,
As I beg for the anguish to just fade away,
That's not what I want for myself.
You've done all you can, when raising me,
To help me become all I can be,
I'll make you proud, just wait and see,
For everything you've done, I thank you.
Then
Evening sets upon us, as we argue the toss, I don't know what it's all for, we're both at a loss,
I'm not quite sure what I've done, to make you so cross.
I loved everything about you once, but now we just despise,
We square up to each other, the anger in your eyes,
You spit at me, I hit you, and then I want to cry,
I've over stepped the mark, and I don't understand why.
The jealousy of things that the other gets to do,
The thought of you enjoying time makes me angry at you,
I look at how I'm thinking and I think "I don't mean to".
But there's nothing I can do and nothing I can say,
I try to apologise, but you're walking away,
We argue just a little more, then sleep 'til break of day.
We wake up nice and early, both of us in a mood,
We talk about it quietly, as we both have some food,
We both decide to let it slide, 'til it happens again,
The hassle we could have avoided, if we'd ended it then...
It’s been a while since my last post, mainly because I wanted the news about our course to be seen as soon as visitors opened our link. But stuff HAS been happening. A couple of agencies have already acquired the licence to use the course and others are interested. And at the beginning of November Carolyn and I went to the first Men and Boys Conference in Brighton. We put some U-Too news on display boards, gave a talk about the course and met old friends, including Melvyn Davies, who John will remember, and Rob Williams from the Fatherhood Institute, who Den has met.
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