Michael is out editor.

The Passion isn’t about religion; it’s about reaching down inside, much deeper than life’s routine, of taking for granted we’ll wake up in the morning and do what we do until it’s time for sleep again.
Much more than indulging the senses, of grasping the material joys that excite.
Much more than human function from birth to death and all the naughty bits in between.
The Passion is demanding the mind touch new boundaries, to push original thought to unexplored dimensions. The Passion is the "why" and not the "what is".
The Passion is to question everything, even as the barbecue sizzles on the balcony above bay-blue and the crayfish is quite adorable, thank you, with the best wine money can buy.
And don’t we just know that!

Exquisite Dream
Can you see it
when you close your eyes,
The clearest blue of skies?
Can you feel it
when you’re sitting still,
A wonderful, exhilarating thrill?
Can you touch it,
Lying on the ground
in the hush of Nature’s sound?
Can you do it
from the highest peak on Earth,
This exquisite dream at birth?
Yes, you did it,
And didn't question why,
In wildest imagination, you can fly.
© Michael Garrad February 2010
(For Sarah, inspired by the passion of Barbra Streisand)


The Bough
Limp the bough over hallowed ground,
Crying for the dead
on this blood earth,
Where young hearts stopped beating
in violent and mortal combat,
Eyes rolled back,
As a marble without motion,
Mouths agape in silent
screams of unbearable agony,
Proud manhood felled,
As saw and axe would cut trees,
Body upon body in these gentle woods,
Flower-scent too weak
to quell the stench of twisted death,
The fallen ones who
forsook misery in the frantic mist,
They feel nothing in dawn’s pale light,
The others suffer to old age
until anguished eyes stare, blind,
in blessed relief.
© Michael Garrad March 2010