G. W. Down leads a dangerous double life - business executive by day and at other times, a strider on the edges of the after-hours, striking with metaphors at the essence of existance - his true identity known to only to a select circle: the readers of his words and verses.

2000   96 pages

$14.95

MELTED DREAMS

The melted dreams of yesterday
Are fuel for the fire
That burns with flame so strong to form
The next day's proud desire;
Thus, deep within the crucible
Of time, life, age and youth,
The old wants with the new will fuse,
Still searching for the truth.

TWO

Guilty as charged was the jury's call
For the man with the murderous past;
My body's my own was the mother's cry,
Give me leave to go to the clinic.

Impassioned pleas to show compassion
Prevailed on the government's conscience;
The convicted man was pardoned at ten,
The innocent died at midnight.

AT A CORNER

Behind the brick-faced bushes
Near the wilderness of choice
Lurked the self-named defender
Of the sanctity of life.
Crouched righteous for the advent
Of the birthright foe, he spied
His prey of clinic-keepers,
Sprang civilized to the crowd,
Patted his automatic
Soothing messenger of truth,
Pulled it from its pocket womb
And opened fire.

IN THE WAKE OF REMEMBRANCE DAY

They fought the obvious enemy
Which swept across chromatic freedom,
Obliterating level borders
In a jealous open tide of fear,
Propelled by overbearing guile and
Zealous creed of genetic destiny.

We must contend with a subtler foe
That worms its way into coded laws,
That would erode everything they won,
Hacking into presumed innocence
To programme seizure without arrest,
Trial without court, penalty without proof.

It denigrates opposed opinion,
Sponges away the qualms of conscience -
An enemy without and within;
Let there be balance in our vision,
Let there be reasoning in our thoughts,
Lest we sleep dreamless through the next attack.