Still A Place For Thoughts

Tomorrow Never Comes

I travel every day through a realm of inanity
Where mania walks by, displaying insanity
There people throw stones with a joy that arouses
Complete unawareness of their glass houses
They buy vast numbers of things they don’t need
Obedient to the sirens who cultivate greed
They never read books or appraise the news
Only talk-back radio decides their views
They lead their own bodies into decay
Cajoled into gorging on take-away
They endorse men of folly who win elections
Which leads the land in deadly directions
They greet refugees with a firmly shut door
And spread the lie that this prevents war
Their foolish deeds set their world on fire
As they praise the nonsense of the climate denier
So they dig up and burn
And refuse to learn
As every man stumbles
While the nation crumbles
There is folly too in other things they do
They greet mask requirements with a hullabaloo
And walk arm in arm with no social distance
As a virus kills thousands without their resistance
Yet somewhere in the city you may hear the throb of drums
As a doomsayer says, “For the arrant fool tomorrow never comes.”

Broken Contract

Australia has canceled its order for French submarines
with conventional propulsion, worth 90 billion euros.
tellerreport.com 23/9/21

For some a contract is a request for a killing
To others long ago
It was an agreement to marry
Still others
Who use the word today
Mean to grow small
But above all else
Beyond all other connotations
In a world where the need for domination
Transcends
Even love and certainly loyalty and compassion
A contract is something to be broken
Political power, status or wealth
So often result from such action
Have you noticed recently
The fresh alliance in the air?
A treaty has been signed
Big brothers are hugging a new upstart
As he rises from the mire of insignificance
High sounding euphemisms flow from his lips
About freedom, democracy and security
To deny the ugliness of what he has done…
It is likely – extremely likely
That many people will die of illness
Before the new contract is fulfilled
Education will still have flaws
And poverty will still exist
But one thing is certain:
Because of this new situation
And the moral degeneracy of their action
The contract breakers will not be able to say
Je ne regrette rien

Advice From The Oracle

Aha!
Climate change
Is now having an influence on market prices
So speaks the highest authority on money in our land
That’s it then
Now we must act
Death-dealing wildfires didn’t matter
The withering wilderness of drought stirred no action
We shed no tears for disappearing species
Uncontrollable tempests brought no response
Zombified coral let us bid farewell to tourists
And the ocean devoured our seascapes with our tacit approval
But now, when stock falls below the stop price
Zero tolerance is potently proclaimed
We spring out of our suspended animation
O yes! How things now will change!
Lumps of coal will no longer
Find a place on parliamentary television
Mining billionaires will have to do an honest day’s work
Wind vanes will no more be falsely defamed
Mind dead activists will be placed in solitary confinement
With science books
Talk-back radio hosts will be forced to broadcast sitting in the sun
Farmers who fell trees recklessly
Will be required to feed koalas seven days a week
Solar heating will be both free and tax deductible
Global warming skeptics will personally defray
The cost of their own remedial education
And climate scientists
Will be paid workers’ compensation…
Thus once more a brave new world will be born
While for the first time in human history
The stock market will undeniably have served mankind

The Irony Of Fate

When I was young
I flaunted my joie de vivre
And focused on the only truly important human: me
I took a critical view of old folk too
Gloating over my prowess compared to theirs
Especially regarding those who walked with a limp
Stupid, clumsy old fools
Seemed to surround me
And you had to speak to them
More slowly and more loudly, repeating things often
Their world was pathetically shallow too
Why they didn’t even know
What a login or a password or an interface was
So I surged through life
With nary a thought
For those struggling with it
Yet here I am today dancing to a different tune
Things have changed now
Time has wrought its revenge
These days I am old and I walk with a limp
I mean very old
So old that I can remember
The first mention of global warming
All the instances of American imperialism
And the Cold War
Fuelled so effectively by John Foster Dulles
But just now I am shattered
Filled you might almost say with guilt
Learning a life-changing lesson about my past
Only a simple thing started this
It might seem to you insignificant
But it wasn’t
It was quite powerful…
This morning
A young man rose
And gave me his seat in a crowded train

All The Difference

I am old
Battered somewhat by life
Limbs don’t work the way they used to
In pain a lot when bending over
Somewhat out of favour with the authorities
Who criticize me over my financial position
I am advised
To change my ways
With the help of my psychiatrist
Because of my pecuniary inadequacies
This has left me somewhat desolate
Partly because remedy is currently out of my reach
The what’s the point of going on? syndrome
Was smudging the writing
On my list of future things to do
But only for a while as I still have poems to write…
People treat me differently these days
Owing to my age
Tend to simplify conversation
Behave as if I need their help to think
They enumerate the mores I have to display
To keep the world going
Some of these essential customs and conventions, but not all,
I have helped reinforce for many, many years
As a teacher
My distaste for life’s demands of efficiency and productivity
Has tended recently to fill me
With fear and even self-pitying despair
But then suddenly I found unexpected relief
I recalled my long dead dog
Who understood me just as I am
Out of the past came a recollection of love
That put material things in their right place
And helped me understand what really matters
So I will linger on for the time being despite my distress
That memory has made all the difference

The Canyons Of The Mind

O the mind has canyons
Dark places
Intruding constantly into your persistence with being
Where demons flaunt their tyranny
And hold you in their grasp
Like fiends on orders from Hell
Dressing your humanity in the apparel of Bedlam dwellers
And taking you down
Into merciless lower depths
Where cries for help
Are lost in the pitiless wind
And blown away to reprehensible silence…
That is where I am so often these days
Wandering in an abyss of despair
My psychiatrist has done his best
With his drugs of mood change
And his willingness to hear my tales of trouble
But so much more than a single well-paid mentor
Is needed in a region where hope is an extinct species
And remedy has been nothing but a mirage
Above all this
For you
Wherever you are
Whoever you are
Whatever you are
There is a plaintive cry
Echoing in the real wind beyond the mind
It is there for those listening
Waiting to be noticed
Not merely noticed but acted upon
It says human beings in emotional need
Are more important than atomic submarines

royciebaby