Poems By Simon Beechinor

This poem is dedicated to unwilling butterflies, wherever you are. The season's first typhoon brought violent winds And drenching torrents of storm-driven rain. Most people had gone home and left the streets, The shops and traders’ stalls, the bars and clubs, Deserted, save for butterflies like me. While Mama-san cursed at the angry storm, I sang romantic ballads to my friends, And brushed aside their gentle-hearted teasing, The saddest songs soothed our wasted lives, And bound our bonds of friendship tight. I sang about a broken-hearted girl, Who took a sharpened blade to end her life, Yet, as the dagger pierced her naked breast, And she lay cold near death, her love returns To save her life and take her home at last. A young man appeared at our door alone, As Mama-san worried at her meagre profit, She'd gladly see the honest seaman skinned, She fussed and grumbled at the pouring rain, And led him, childlike, by the hand to me. Before I left the stage to please her guest, And

This portrait is of a ship’s captain who became a friend. We sailed on several ships together and I came to know him well, I was his chief officer. Alas, he’s dead now and was, in his own words, ‘as rough as guts’. He’d take no exception to anything I’ve written here. There’s a strong breeze blowing from the west, Bringing salt air laden with the smells of fuel oil, Pollution and cooking across Victoria Harbour. I can see the barges rolling heavily beside the anchored ships, Their loads swinging wildly beneath the slewing derricks. I’ve dragged him from the bar in the seamen’s mission, And we're waiting for a launch back to the ship, He’s greeting evening strollers like long-lost friends, And banging on about me being a 'bloody farmer', I like him, he's a good seaman, but he's hard work. Now he’s sobering up, I can stand and watch him. He runs a hand over his shaven, close-cropped head, His bleary-eyes and face mottled by years of alcohol, Make his squat features l

This poem is about a medevac operation by two pilots on an oil field west of Mumbai (Bombay). Flying conditions were appalling. The American pilots remained true to their word when they declared many weeks earlier that if we needed them, they would come. The pilots were ex-Vietnam veterans and had flown gunship and medevac operations there. The pilot’s voice crackles, ‘Papa Charlie, this is Kilo Lima,’ The ship’s hove to, plunging and heaving in the writhing swell, ‘ETA your helo-deck, zero three minutes. Are we clear? Over.’ I glance at the lacerated diver. The bastard’s going through hell, At last, the chopper beats towards us in the hot and humid air. ‘Roger, Kilo Lima, deck’s clear. We’ve got a damned heavy sea.’ Now I can hear the percussive drumming of the huey's rotors. ‘Copy that, Papa Charlie. It’s like goin’ into a hot LZ!’ My crew stand ready by the deck as the bird approaches, And the chopper beats above us in the hot and humid air. The wind, salt and rust from the deck

For a careless moment, suspend your disbelief; Put aside the grim cares of Gaza, Ukraine, Syria and Iran. Perhaps imagine changing the colour of your skin! Have courage; bend your mind to the feeble politics of man. However hard it is, imagine yourself upon a human tide, Of refugees who may yet be distant in their plight. Be not arrogant and say, ‘It wouldn’t happen here’, Suspend your disbelief and, for now, assume it might. Imagine poor Britain amid monstrous tumult and aflame, And a cold-hearted Wales has, at last, built its Trumpish wall. You learn from the BBC you’re among an English ‘swarm’, Oh, how the corrupted politicians wring their hands appalled. When you fled your home to land upon our golden shore, How hard you fell among the dreary lexicon of refugees. Criminals! Boat people! Immigrants! Send them back! Fly them to Rwanda, where none may hear your pleas! What innocence brought you to your dreadful impasse? Did you fail to love the Party, or are you merely poor, Perhaps y