An Iron Mask
Courtoisie d'image de Dragi Ražnatović Photographie à qui tous les droits sont réservés Image Image Courtesy of Ražnatović Photographie to whom all rights are reserved
Si mon esprit n'était pas si corrompu et si mon corps était pas utilisé, je voudrais savoir
comment aimer...................................
If my mind was not so corrupt and if my body was not used, I would like to know
how to love ...................................
My mind is corrupt
only because that's what you tell me
My body is used
Only because you tell me it’s used
That is your way of sidestepping my question
Which quite simply is
I would like to know how to love
It is you who have placed me in this iron mask
It is you who have welded and fashioned it
It is you who has the distorted view
Not me at all!
Why do you place upon a man’s shoulders
Burdens that are impossible to bear?
Why do you charge us with corruption and use?
It is you who are corrupt in all your ways
It is you who uses!
Your Body makes use of us all!
You know something my friend?
I don’t subscribe to all this devil notion
But I do like that saying a friend wrote
When I first came to England in 2001
The stench of religiosity
Dogma and prejudice;
The cause of wars and holocaust,
Bigotry and venom;
When satan dons the robes of a priest
And plays the role he loves the most
- a priest!
He said more too that let’s you off the hook
my dog-collared friend!
But ponder those words well
and you might then help
in the quest for salvation
You might well help
in removing this mask of iron
Away with you!
KTW (IBM) DR
Liverpool and Paris
© Kenneth Thomas Webb © Dragan Ražnatović
Composed on 10 January 2014
All Rights Reserved
Tous Droits Réservés
11 July 2021
All Rights Reserved
© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
