POEM: Not Working

When all of us are working so fucking hard,

and yet nothing ever works,

we must ask ourselves

who this is working for?

POEM: The Choice Was Clear

The choice was clear:

Hope versus fear.

And I’m still shedding tears 

(as the wrong people cheer).

Which maybe sounds too “them and us”,

For those of you feeling conscientious

About desperately finding some silver lining

In the clouds of this apocalyptic end-timing.

But right now I’m feeling nothing but hostile,

And it really will take me a very long while

Not to see undeniable division

Between how different people came to their decision.

Because there are consequences to their crosses,

And the inevitable life losses,

That their quivering hands delivered

As their empathy lay withered.

Pretending somehow they didn’t know

Why the lines for food banks grow

So many families unable to eat,

Many more sleeping out on the street,

Communities lying ravaged

As their services have been savaged,

By a rapacious drive for profit

With no one brave enough to stop it.

Deregulation, welfare cuts

Dead in a ditch, no ifs, ands or buts

Get Brexit done at any cost

It doesn’t matter what we lost.

Immigrants once more scapegoated 

To justify the way we voted 

Wrapped in a flag of sovereignty

And lofty dreams of being free

They sold the future of the many

So the few could make more pennies.

As the discourse loses root

From anything resembling truth

Outright fraud will get rewarded 

Verbal bullying applauded

Rights and protections now eroded

Another dog whistle encoded

I cannot meet my neighbours eyes

Nor can I say I’m that surprised

Only that I’m disappointed

With the liar they’ve appointed

Substance swapped for sloganeering

The clueless crowds continue cheering

I cannot stand a thing I’m hearing

As the ship of state is steering

Towards an iceberg we all see

But dismiss as fantasy 

A fake news conspiracy

Our unsinkable economy

Meanwhile some of us can’t sleep

Because the worry’s gnawing deep

Of when our country lost its way?

And if we’ll ever find our place

And feel again like we belong

When so many are so wrong?

And fat, fingered, base and greedy

The many sacrificed the needy

So the few could keep their money

Like flies to shit-smeared honey

Feet stuck in their mistake

It starts to dawn, but far too late

That they’ve sabotaged their fate

As they slowly suffocate

Beneath the weight of propaganda

Which wove gold from shards of slander

The winning strategy

Was to repeat it frequently

And add some false equivalency

Until anyone can see

Unless, of course, they are insane

That all politicians are the same

Even when they’re clearly not

And it’s a genuine choice we’ve got

Because the choice it was so clear

A vote for hope or one for fear

And we chose poorly in a landslide

As some swam against this harsh tide

Impossible to stop the torrent

Of the selfish and abhorrent 

Drowning as it overcame me

Election night forever stained me

Crying out into the dark

It broke my misanthropic heart

And I picked up my poet’s pen,

Without country yet again,

Wiped my eyes and took a breath;

And came to terms with culture’s death.

POEM: A Pre-existing Condition

As I lay coughing in my bed,

I thought upon a book I’d read.

A fairytale story of a faraway land,

Where healthcare was free and centrally planned.

No one denied coverage, no one turned away.

A fundamental right not dependant on pay.

And I thought of that land with a tear in my eye,

An ache in my head, and a pain in my thigh.

And I thought of that land and I started to cry,

As I lay, without medicine, waiting to die.

POEM: The Week

The week began in darkness

Rolling thunderclouds

A gun inside a nightclub

Terrorising crowds

Fifty humans killed

Because their love was unaccepted

Still the calls for gun control

Will once more be rejected

We are all Orlando

Until the next one comes along

And then we’ll all be that one too

The cycle carries on

Mass shootings in America

Just part of daily life

Just like homophobia

The fear of men without a wife

And women without husbands

Making love with the same parts

Bigots only see disgust

Where they should see loving hearts

And sometimes bigots pick up guns

And take them into crowds

The week began in darkness

Draped in funeral shrouds

The week before was hotter

Glorious sunshine

The sort of week you just assume

The world will turn out fine

But people like to take the wheel

No matter how impaired

And drive around out of control

Because they think – who cares?

Until the thud, the sudden bang

That sobers them right up

They see the blood, the mangled limbs

He isn’t getting up!

Just a kid crossing the road

A kid who looked both ways

The medics did all that they could

The kid could not be saved

Grieving family devastated

The ones now left behind

Trapped inside a horror movie

They cannot rewind

Dead at only 19

A kid I used to teach

The week before was hotter

But no-one thought about the beach

The next day brought the rain

Cars blocked flooded streets

An MP with a surgery

And constituents to greet

A mother and a wife

Making the world a better place

A life in charity

And then her one electoral race

Campaigns to stop child soldiers,

Protect women from rape,

Fighting for the poor

So poverty could be escaped

But somewhere on the internet

Angry fingers clicked

Racist memes were shared and liked

And trigger fingers itched

“Britain First” the slogan screamed

He bought a gun and knife

Outside a public library

He took the woman’s life

And so for our democracy

We once more have to weep

The next day brought the rain

But blood had stained the streets too deep

Next week the outlook’s hazy

With fear of the unknown

Will we keep our union

Or go out on our own?

To leave or to remain?

A question for the ages

Except we’re choosing blindly

Having dumbed down all our sages

Europocalypse now

We’re uncertain for the future

This referendum’s is a wound

For which there is no suture

Never thought I’d see the day

When in a Manifesto

The winning party advocates

That human rights are let go

Alleged fight for sovereignty

From “Brussels Bureaucrats”

Masks losing sovereignty much more

From backroom trading pacts

If we make a Brexit

We may wish we could atone

Next week the outlook’s hazy

But I can hear the storm winds moan

POEM: Visions of Change

Jenny turned twenty

And the clouds stayed as grey as they had been for decades

All the change that she

Thought she’d make had been swallowed and chewed up to nothing

So she packed up her dreams in a suitcase

And tossed them out to the sea

Edward came of age

He put down his rage, picked up a suit and a salary

Got his hair cut short

And his life, as a heart attack killed him at thirty

He drank to ignore how much he had changed

And died because he couldn’t forget

See the animals

Strutting with pseudo-importance

Feathers puffed out

See the flashy cars

See the lives that look so good on paper

But feel so cold

Dave was talented

Everyone knew it; he painted pictures that seemed alive

But they didn’t pay

For his rent, so he forsook the art for an office job

Lonely paintings got covered in dust

And his passion got burdened with rust

Kate tried changing things

Until she realised that nobody was listening

Sold her protest gear

Shed a final tear and settled down into acceptance

Did what she was told to instead

‘Til she put a bullet in her head

We got compromises

But no idea what it is

We compromise for

We’ve got proper ways

Of doing things and we don’t question

What makes them proper

It’s not that we’ve got no future, it’s worse

We can have whatever we want but we want to sacrifice meaningful life

For the comfort of this stultified status-quo

And a semi-existence as slaves to an uninspired blueprint of misery

And a child is born

Slapped about and thrown in amongst sharp-toothed conventions

From cradle to grave

Mentally enslaved

Into this corrupted culture

Another lamb brought to the slaughter

Another cog in the machine

And I lie awake

Full of questions of what hope I see for my species

And I don’t know why

But my questions leave me the hope for which I was seeking

For while many fall down by the wayside

There are more of us all lying awake

With visions of change