Fear: A poem

Prof Paul Weller shares another his poems, this time on the topic of ‘fear’.

Speaking of his poem, Paul Weller comments:

“I hope this doesn’t risk becoming too presumptuous or tedious, but I attach something else dredged out of my past. This time it is from almost a decade after I was an undergraduate, but again it has a Regent’s connection, in that it was written when I was at the College for a term’s sabbatical in 1986. It is not so explicitly “religious” as the last one. It was originally a song, but although I have the tune in my head, I can’t any longer remember how to accompany it on the guitar – so you are at least spared a recording of that! Like the contribution I made to Newsletter 2, it was also not written for COVID-19 times. But in a different way it may also have some resonance with something that many are experiencing in these times.”

Fear

Fear is the beast
That stalks in the night,
That lurks in the shadows
That hides from the light.
Fear is a mood
In contours of grey,
In echoes and whisper
At twilight of day.

Fear is a vampire
That sucks out our blood,
That feeds on the living
And dries up our love.
Fear is the killer
Moving in very slow,
Who hangs round the victim
Delaying his blow.

Fear is the devil
As angel of light,
The shriveller of spirit
The distorter of sight.
Fear is the death
Of the living in life,
Its shape is a ‘semi’
For husband and wife.

Fear is a robot
That’s programmed to act,
That lives automatic
Masquerading as fact.
But rip out its circuits
And cut out its wires,
Destroy this illusion
In purgatory fires.

Fear is the shadow
Of selves we don’t know
Of phantoms within us,
Of reluctance to grow.
To embrace it and to kiss it
Is to strike a blow,
Those who lose it don’t miss it
Those who miss it don’t know.

Paul Weller (1986)