And Still More Poems

Iniquity

Prattle on honourable member
You servant of your own self interest
You missionary of greed
Gloss over the numbers
As if they were a necessary part of normal life
Praise the modelling
As if it were commandments from the mountain
Spread your fallacious optimism
As if it were based on fact
But people are dying
Now
Not mere data, but people
Fellow humans who deserved to live longer
Lives that could have been saved
If honesty and thoughtful planning
Had garnished your deeds from the beginning
But no
What have you done?
Obsessively guided by your business acumen
You have opened the deadly gates of normality
Recklessly
Inhumanely
With a twinkle in the eye of your banker
Got things moving in the marketplace
Children to return to their super-spreaders
And what of their teachers?
No problem
They are in loco parentis
And that will save the economy
But why are you so proud of things?
Why does your face glow with artificial virtue?
Ah yes
You appear to be the commander at the infallible helm
But beware
More COVID questions are coming
And your answers will confirm your iniquity

Teacher

Dear teacher
Thank you for teaching me
For bravely coming to my classroom
Thank you for sharing the air I breathe
For tying up my shoelace
For singing with us
For walking around the room to see
The pictures that we draw
Thank you too
For sitting with us on the mat
And reading stories
And playing with those clever puppets
To show us how to cross the road
Safely
And thank you
For walking with me under your umbrella
To Mummy’s car when it rained
And for teaching us to dance
While you played your guitar
And tapped the time with your feet
It has been such fun being with you
I will always remember these happy days
And the joy
When I found I could read from the Green book
And write a real sentence
With a capital and a full stop
You have made me very happy
Even though you are much older than Mummy and Daddy
Because you seem to love us all
I will never forget you
And Daddy says
I must not be sad that you died of COVID
As everyone dies some day

Signer

O how wondrously
You weave meaning with your hands
You break the silence with enchanted gesture
And your so expressive face
What a caring person you are!
Patiently
Sharing a torrent of ideas
With such energy and diligent skill
Enabling the deaf to listen
With a kindness that conquers disability
I have seen you often
In these days of COVID
For words of information and advice
Are needed constantly
At the eternal press conferences of our rulers
And there you are
Always ready to labour lovingly
So that those needy deaf ones
Are links in the chain of awareness
My hearing has faded because I am old
Perhaps this is why I am aware of you
You
Unnoticed often as part of the furniture
Of everyday life
But you are to me an angel of goodwill
Diligent and dedicated
So that I am not afraid of the endless silence
That may be my lot
As my hearing fades
In the uncertain years that lie ahead

Political Jargon

Our strong border protection policies
Have kept Australians safe.
Aha! So we are safe
Safe from what?
Invasions by boat people on sinkable boats?
Now that’s a good point you make
Certainly we are safe from them
There hasn’t been an invasion from them for years
And our potent weapon,
Indefinite detention, is working so well
Splendid!
Further boat invasion
Brilliantly kept in check by imprisonment for ever
Much cheaper than submarines too
Especially the atomic ones
Now I have other thoughts
Another kind of invasion to be safe from
When I was a little boy
Anthony Arrowroot was a hero of mine
He was a good friend
We bought him often and I ate him often
This didn’t worry me
Because when you did this, so the story said,
He went to a beautiful island
Like the one King Arthur went to when he died
But now I am rather sad
Because Anthony lives far far away in America
So my grandchildren won’t get to know him
Still they’ll have nuclear submarines
To keep them safe
And who cares about corporate invasion?

Adman Badman

Look at you
Debasing human existence to make a sale
Concocting moral tales without morality
Filling our minds
With orchestrated triviality
That seeks
To wash our brains with a concoction of lies
That make us spend
Dignity
Is so remote from your strategies
That they preclude thought
And shock us into mindless obeisance
Repetition is the agony you impose
Again and again
So that thought processes atrophy
And turn into conditioned responses
Above all your villainies is the fictitious superlative
Perfection without evidence
So poor lost souls
Will spend spend spend
Without end end end
Because of you, communication by the media
Is tainted with distraction
Devised above all
To bind our souls to your balance sheet
Or your political agenda
So begone
Archenemy of lucidity
Take your wares to another marketplace
Where the currency is obols
To buy tickets on the ferry across the Styx*

*A river in the Greek underworld where, for two obols, you were ferried across by Charon into Hades.

royciebaby