This is a magnificent recording of The End of All Things by Howard Shore
Let us never underestimate the Works of our Great Contemporary Composers.
The End of All Things played in the background as I composed Precious Hands in October 2013.
At the end, I have placed a memory that popped up earlier this week.

I do so in defiance. Why? Because this poem is written only because a friend sent me this image of Hands and wondered what I would make of it in poetry. I am no longer in touch with my friend. Why? Because on FB M there are dark and sinister minds lurking in amongst the millions of law-abiding users. Spite stepped into the frame. I dealt with that as any lawyer would. Spite slithered away in the long grass pleading in that grotesque whine that he did not mean to destroy. And then something even worse happened. An unctuous christian decided to contact both my friend and his fiancee via FB. Then started the proselytising, that they both enter into the catholic faith to thereby ensure the success of their marriage. There are times when the activities of people leave me cold. That man destroyed three friendships. But it did not destroy the roots.

We live in the most dangerous period now since the Second World War, the present international activity surpassing even the danger of the Cold War at its height. I know so. I was there.

I see people now, always, with the cold light of day. I peer. I observe. I look both inward and beyond. I know where I stand. I keep my own counsel.

Ian Bradley Marshall

12 December 2025
Liverpool

© 2025 Ian Bradley Marshall

POETRY

Precious Hands ~ Recognising Sexuality (2025 Edition)

2013 - 2026

Today 2026

Written a very long time ago, how odd that all that we had fought for and attained, are now grains through our fingers. And the cause of this diabolical reversal? An arrogant nation that sees no wrong in reopening that dread penal colony, Alcatraz.

Humankind has used sexuality since the dawn of time to bludgeon, beat and kill. The weapon is especially so in the hands of every religion and sect.

When politicians seize hold of the bludgeon, things will be done in the name of the populous caucus that apparently placed them in authority. It always starts quietly. But the speed of momentum is swift.

America has much to answer for. I’m not even thinking of sexuality. I’m recalling the shocking mindset of a nation that inflicted upon itself those terrifying years of Prohibition. The deaths. The double-standards. That stench of the farmyard on a bad day amongst the millions of the curtain-twitchers, so self-righteous that even butter refuses to melt in ther collective mouth but dribbles out of unattractive lips down over the coarse face and hanging pregnant on the chin.

America 1920 - 1933

Nay, not I. But I think you should have a look at them-there neighbours. Don’t go to church either! ‘eathens, all of ‘em! You’ll find that poison down in that, there, barn at the end. An’ they duzzent hang the stars-n-stripes on their porch. They be not us good god-fearing peeple sherriff.

Thank you Mam. Most helpful.

Oh, not me Sherriff. But ya know I says to musself, things aren’t right and the good book says… … and so I thought I’d better do my public duty.

Aye, you have that Mam. God Bless, and God Bless these Oonited Staytes of Umurica.

And in the quiet of the night the curtain twitcher watches with delight the arrival of black motors, the door battered down, people taken away, all ages.

2025 - 2026

Today, it is now not prohibition but immigration. It started on 20 January 2025. Odd. One eye-witness report - chilling - is of an officer quietly saying to another in the property being raided, that they’d best hideaway. Some won’t take notice of your legal status. You could find yourself banged up.

Now we have executive orders by the dozen. And what do we find? That America is cleaning out its armed forces with the sole objective of raising the morale of our troops says ‘the man of all men’ as he likes to see himself. Narcissus.

Tectonic plates are shifting, state lines clash. Unchecked the clsh becomes a rupture.

America is on honeymoon. America has not the vaguest idea of what it has gone and activated. It cannot grasp connections. The German People couldn’t grasp connections in 1933, but by 1945 they’d learned to their eternal regret that in 1933 they had signed their national death warrant and the collective death warrants of millions of innocent people, not only in Germany but worldwide.

LGBTQI+

PRECIOUS HANDS written in October 2013, it is dedicated to a friend one who understood, has been there, has come through, and now shines as an international example to all - this image of the hands, the driving force, the root of the lines beskoen thereby, was sent to me in 2013 when I was in Liverpool with the enigmatic enquiry as to how it might, perhaps, portray sexuality.

I sat down, I did not need to think. I allowed thoughts to flow through the ink on the page.

The poem is set against the background of the soundtrack of The End of All Things by Howard Shore.

The Title deliberately carries the noun 'Precious' because that, in his language, is the meaning of his name, and with the poem an indelible imprint upon that man's life, his current and future work, and contribution to society as a whole, this was the natural thing to do.

Monday, 14 October 2013

IBM

I’ve brought this into the light basically as a result of Meta. I’d not noticed the Memories from October 2013 until two nights ago when I was uploading another piece. The memory appears at the end and I’m grateful beyond measure to my friends of whom I have now lost contact, and also grateful to Meta.

Ian Bradley Marshall

10 December 2025

Bild zur Verfügung gestellt Mit freundlicher Genehmigung eines Freundes in Berlin, Deutschland (2013)

Precious Hands: Recognising Sexuality

I

I have a thousand voices

raging in my head,

telling me I am what they

want me to be.

I do not understand

their contention with me,

their belligerence,

their hostility.

A thousand hands

attempt to pull me this way and that …

No, here

No, there

No, down here

No, up there

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

II

Don’t you DARE attempt

to live the man you really are!

You are deluded!

We forbid it!!

You have spent too much time

with Grandma.

You need to mix with girls!!!

'Come with us'

the voices scream.

III

The Voice of Reason whispers…

The strident rebellion

shouts back from demented beings …

Or is it just the image I've been

fed,

of a nether world,

to frighten me into acquiescence?

A nether world, moreover,

that simply does not exist …

IV

What?

You think we are not real?

We live inside you!

We harbour you!

You are our resting place!

We will give you an easy time

if you will but give up these

masculine notions … …

nay, these feminine notions, others scream

that emasculates your masculinity;

If you will but acknowledge us

we will leave you in peace.

V

The hands clasped ever tighter

Grappling,

Gripping,

Clawing,

Tearing …

A myriad voices …

‘we will not permit this man

his true inner feelings’

We insist on a man being at war

within himself,

That we break him down,

and he becomes ours…

VI

The lofty proclamation from a thousand mouths

of self-righteous indignation:

‘He is an abomination in the eyes of the LO… …

... OBLIVION ... !!

VII

Darkness retreated before the Light,

Sudden ~ Glorious ~ Victorious

flooding every part of my being.

Hands clasped me,

Warmed me,

Comforted me,

Consoled me.

Myriad hands guided me

Each hand both

of cleansing fire,

of the coolness

of a mountain stream.

The softness of flesh

Dry, clean,

Yes, cleansing my body,

Healing the stripes and welts

and the rips in my skin,

Wounds healed over.

A Shimmering Glow before me

An Image

Not seen directly,

Yet, out of the corner of my eye

the form of a Being!

A million colours,

A Constellation of Rainbows

in many dimensions

soothing my soul,

At peace with my spirit

A thousand strings in unison.

A Voice, the sound of many waters:

You are as I made you

And as I intended you to be.

Let no man, no woman tell you otherwise.

It is my desire you love woman and man

in equal measure.

I create each of you in My Image.

And if perchance I see it good

That you should love a man, your own kind

Or that you should love a woman, your own kind

Or that each should love either,

Then so be it …

I think it, and it is done.

I do not give My time to

misinterpretation of My Word.

I ignore the words placed in My Mouth

by people,

I have created,

who decide they know better than Me

their Creator ~ the I AM

These hands upon you now are

All the aspects of your personality

and character that I have given you,

male, female… female, male.

They have come home

I held them back a while,

that you might find your true self.

To be as I intend you to be

Beautiful, charismatic, gentle,

Loving, giving

For I AM WHO I AM ~ Yud Hey Vav Hey ~ אני מי שאני

I Am the Eternal Self-Existing One

Outside time

And beyond comprehension

to most, indeed, all

who prefer I be in their image

Rather than they, Mine …

Learn that distinction

and it will serve you well

You have seen an aspect of My Deity

A type of transfiguration

Note well, My words are deliberate

And, like these hands,

In the course of your long life,

You will see Me in many other forms

And never in the form, you expect.

I go now but I AM with you

I AM in you

I AM Love divine

My love excels in your love-making

And you will touch the hearts of many

VIII

These hands have never left me.

They are with me in the Midnight hour,

At Twilight,

At the break of day,

Throughout every Watch.

They comfort me.

I am at peace with myself,

I am who I am,

I am what I am,

I love a man

A man loves me,

I love a woman

A woman loves me,

I am natural,

I am normal,

We are natural,

We are normal,

Each created in His Image

And He rejoices at our sexuality.

I rejoice too, we rejoice, you do too,

And so should you over there on

the outer fringes wrestling with

screaming voices and clawing hands.

We rejoice in our sexuality and gender.

Originally composed on 15 October 2013

Digital Artwork by KTW excepting the Precious Hands Image
Despite exhaustive searches I cannot ascertain the artist-photographer.
Should anyone know who this might be, please send me a message
and I will promptly add the accreditation.

The image is at least twelve years old.