Along with reams of short stories, and longer attempts at fiction, I’ve written countless poems over the decades. The bulk were written in my teens and twenties and I literally have folders full of handwritten and typewritten compositions.

I’d been threatening to put a selection into print since the mid-90’s. I remember discussing it with an old girlfriend in ’95 but a number of things always seemed to stop me. Part of that was not really being sure if I wanted to share them with the world, part was never having the time to go through what was amounting to thousands of bits of paper – ranging from typed and formatted finished compositions to hand written stanzas on the back of paper bags, or anything I had at hand when inspiration hit.

A few years ago I finally got round to sorting out a collection and published them under the title “Wild Card Symphonies”. Consisting of three smaller volumes of my work, “Wild Card Symphonies”, “Cry To Me”, and “This Graveyard Heart”, the book totaled just over 120 poems. You can buy a copy (plug plug) through Lulu on one of the links at the bottom of the page if you like what you read and want to have more.

Toys & Guns

Give me a God

Whom I can impress

I need something I can put my belief into

Instead of the plastic images you pray to

Instead of Gods only interested in new ways

To save your soul

And love their neighbours

With their latest toys and guns.

Show me a God

Who really cares.

Who shows freedom of thought

And bears no ill will to others

Of other beliefs and ideas,

And doesn’t stand over you

Watching your every action

With the fear inside that you may learn his lies.

Make me a God,

If they don’t exist,

Who will treat this planet with care

And banish all that’s unneeded,

Like these toys and these guns

That so-called wise-men march before us

Telling us that they’ll save our souls.

What use is a soul if we’ve killed our world ?

(TOYS & GUNS By A R J Abranson, 02-02-96/17:38 & 08-02-96/21:50)

My poetry anthology, Wild Card Symphonies, is available to buy now on Lulu in both Softcover and Dust Jacket Hardcover.

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Wild Card Symphonies, Cry To Me & This Graveyard Heart are Copyright ©2015, Angus Abranson. All rights reserved.
Cover design by George C. Cotronis (Ravenkult Studios, www.ravenkult.com) Copyright © 2015 Angus Abranson
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
No reproduction in part or in whole without prior written permission from the author of the copyright owner.