ILA Magazine
Where Culture Meets Creativity
David Morgan
SORRY MATE Sorry mate, switch on the lights and welcome to Fairy-tale town;
Do you see the caring care home has been closed down?
We breathe the same air as all those gone before,
Their wind-born whispers are so hard to ignore.
See their countless hopes and dreams layered with earth,
Time and gravity's stories to death from birth,
Like a lasagne layered with pasta and cheese,
Once consumed there's nothing left of these.
Sorry mate, will you dance with me and juxtapositions bizarre?
Or do you want a fairy tale or to leave now in a very fast car?
We are one, you and I - isn't that right,
As surely as daytime splinters on the dark, cold floor of night?
The closed down care home has shuttered blind eyes
It's bricks bulging with a million strangely absorbed sighs.
Memories are like marmite you either love them silly,
or keep them in the cupboard right next to the piccalilli.
Sorry mate, like us two minds, a drowned prince somewhere
is stroking an ancient mermaid's silver seaweed hair.
With deep sea divers' sounds she says: "Silly young pup
Don't mess it up dead geezer - don't mess it up."
Sisyphus' stone keeps rolling us higher on the steep, shimmering hill
of strangely perceived reality. Why are we in each other's dreams still?
Conceptions first single LUCA cell evolving deep down in the brain,
Is the one you must look to, to ultimately explain.
Sorry mate, take a look look at us - the fairy tale's missing -
Prince froggy - it's ourselves that we're constantly kissing -
So count backwards from 68 with me in fable or in song
Soon, no longer born, for us nothing can go wrong...
And as a sky of countless possibilities rolls on predictably by
Let's leave this care home calmly with a smile, not a sigh -
As "Once upon' and 'ever after' are buried by "so what's plough,
Come on mate, this tale's over, turn those lights off - NOW. © DAVID R. MORGAN
THROWING THE VOICE
The ventriloquist does not move
grieving for all he has lost: mother, father, wife, child;
vanished in this age of technological miracles,
acquiescing to the insatiable will of a rationalized god.
Still the community of the dead survives suffused within us all,
to be hugged in our minds counting such cost, grief and gratitude.
What's lost is always found; what is found will be lost forever.
The ventriloquist does not move.
Everyone everywhere has an appointment to keep
with the dead, our conscience and our history -
can we ever say goodbye, begin to forget?
And yet, why cemeteries when we have digital replay?
We breathe the same air as all those who have gone before,
waltzing silhouettes splashed on smiling walls,
coughing up ghosts. The ventriloquist does not move;
the dummy drops its jaw.
The countless cherubs of departed children stand
behind the sun and cast a shadow, dreaming meaning,
as the angels of deceased adults swamp the night, eclipsing
the moon. The more we wake, the more we disappear.
Human masks hang from Wi-Fi masts; souls soon sucked
forth, rippling from infinity, to complete Life's sentences.
The ventriloquist does not move;
the dummy drops its jaw, rolls its eyes.
In the cloud, sourced code, forever ever after re-born -
a virtual, curated Dead Space exists where the lifeless
can never get rid of the living. Configured, crowding in,
their future immortality will be ceaseless HD virtuality.
The ventriloquist does not move;
the dummy drops its jaw, rolls its eyes
and bangs the seat with its heals,
waiting for the download to complete.
© DAVID R. MORGAN David R. Morgan is an award-winning author whose 70th book, "Poppy's Path" , has just been published. David has dyslexia and didn't learn to read until about seven years old. But discovering books like 'Alice in Wonderland', 'The Five Children and It', 'Narnia', and 'The Hobbit' opened David Morgan's imagination to worlds he had never dreamed of.
He recalls: "I wanted to write for that child inside of me, to capture the sense of wonder a young person gets when. opening a book into new realms of adventure."
Teacher and prolific writer/author/poet, David Morgan has just penned his 70th book, 'Poppy's Path.'
"I wanted to make sense of everything around me - why pigs aren't green and why the grass doesn't go oink" He adds: "I still view everything with an endless sense of fascination. The knowledge that we are all unique, important and yet bound together by humanity, intelligence and caring. "Reading is a world within the pages of a book, sparking excitement and adventure."
David, 68, was 25 when his first boo - 'The Strange Case of William Whipper-Snapper' was published. He has also written poetry, fueled by his love of Shakespeare, William Blake, Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath. Over the last 6 years, with his son, Toby, he has made 103 videos (David R. Morgan YouTube and Spotify). DAVID R MORGAN YOUTUBE and DAVID R MORGAN | SPOTIFY.
His latest Children's book, 'Poppy's Path', is published by A2Z Press in Florida - It is a graphic account of a daring young girl making difficult decisions about what choices she would like to make to take the correct path in life. He explains: "She is influenced by signs and messages that lead her in interesting directions but not the one she must take. Finally - and to her great surprise - she finds and takes her own path."
"It's about spiritual renewal and finding our way when all we know is lost in distraction."
The father of three was a freelance music journalist before he turned to teaching and has lived in Ampthill, England, UK for 26 years. He's taught at Stratton Upper in Biggleswade, as well as the old John Bunyan in Bedford, Alameda Middle in Ampthill, Cardinal Newman in Luton and Brooklands in Leighton Buzzard, and is currently working as a supply teacher covering RPE and Life Skills at Shenley Brook End, Milton Keynes.
David collected an award at the 1980 Richmond Festival performing his chronicle, Blooming Cats. He also won the Paragon Prize for Children's Stories. Below, other links to some of his more famous YouTube videos:
Where's Melissa? By David & Tobias Morgan
Laugh - By David & Tobias Morgan
In One End [Repitition] - David & Tobias Morgan
The Film Critic - David and Tobias Morgan
Below, photos of Author David R Morgan can be seen in a slide show. To observe in full view, just a click on each image will do.