Poems Continue Further

Minister Of War

You pompous bellicose clown
Ogre of deceit
Constant source of calculated fear
Proclaiming that you keep our nation safe
Safe from what?
Your belligerence?
The enemy you conveniently concoct?
Danger is your mission in life
You see it everywhere
And where it doesn’t exist
You invent it
To justify your vast expenditure on weapons
There’s a lot of profit in them isn’t there?
Money for your friends?
Your chatter is like static on the radio
An endless interruption
A constant flow of deceptive noise
Instead of the gentle logical discourse
Needed to save our world
From the mismanagement of fools
I hear you prattling on
You
With your discourse of fallacy
A malignant tumour of words
Your voice echoes
In the streets of the night
Like the siren of an ambulance
People run for cover when they hear you
For panic is the source of your success
And deception is the footpath on which you tread
Yours is the fame of infamy
And so you will
Of necessity fade away soon
Like intrusive mist in the morning sun

Empty Vessel In Charge

For too many deaths we toll a bell
Yet you say the state is travelling well
COVID kills and gets no mention
While you scheme to divert attention
We are so distraught with bereavement
But all you claim is achievement
You’re a hypocrite and a liar
But you never come under fire
All the things you say
Lead our poor world astray
It’s all a tragedy that denotes
Your need to get the people’s votes
Investment is your dizziness
All for the sake of business
So you seek like a sage to inspire us
And have us us ignore the virus
Then it’s back to work
Which none may shirk
And thus you display your banality
As you foster a quest for normality
Thus people will die
From your pie in the sky
While you bend the rules
And pollute the schools
Declaring our triumph is thrilling
While you mindlessly make your killing
When bringing death to all of us
You’d do better with a blunderbuss
So rave on with your misbegotten tales of glory
The historians of tomorrow will tell a different story

COVID-19

Death is on the march in your country
People are dying while you get on with business
Sadness is everywhere
But you don’t seem to notice it
Indeed you say everything is fine
That grandfather
A mere number in your scheme of things
Will tell no more stories to those children
Who seem to be looking for him everywhere
That young man was a doctor
Who saved many lives but his own
That woman in white
Was the widow of a soldier killed in battle
She died a victim of your war with words
That child is dead
Her parents curse their own survival
That jockey has gone
But the horses he rode survive him
That mother dead
No longer shapes her children’s lives
Why O why are you so inanely cheerful?
You a politician
More concerned with your image
And keeping the wheels of industry turning
Than with empathy
Pause a moment please
But a brief time
And tell the truth about the carnage
Just a whimsey of love for the bereaved
A quiet moment of understanding
This will do so much good
And might even get you re-elected

Politician

Look at you
Are you real or just a media image?
You’re a virtual Iago* with your trickery
A mirage in a desert of iniquity
We find you here, we find you there
A devious depiction everywhere
Always that smiling pretence of yours
Greeting the cameras in a prearranged shot
Chatting with children
Sharing a selfie with two respectful maidens
Washing that woman’s hair in a hairdresser’s basin
Sipping a beer with a fan as the organised cameras click
Riding in a military vehicle like a hero
Using a sewing machine in a clothing factory
Pummelling wool in a shearing shed conveying false awareness
Hammering a nail at a building site
Posing in a hard hat again and again and again
Or as a serviceman on an aircraft carrier
And behind the wheel of everything from a tank to a truck
All this is the way you spend your working hours
To hide the reasons for your inefficiency
What are you, a statesman or a statement?
A messenger or a message?
A reality or a concoction?
As the days of your power pass by
These questions
Are answered not by what you do but by what you are
For you are nothing but an advertisement of a fantasy
A controlled hallucination fashioned in Hell
So beware
More people than you can imagine now know you well

*Iago is a devious, sinister character in Shakespeare’s Othello.

Laughter

Bring on the clowns
The precious souls who make us laugh
In spite of everything
Teach us the humorous side of things
Who often mock the fools who rule us
To build a bridge between despair and hope
They are the important ones: the jesters
Theirs is the gift of laughter
To lessen the scathing power of the wolves around us
So they flounder through impossible situations
Tell us ridiculous tales
Surprise us with a gift of unexpected glee
And while the villains of life abuse us
They mercifully amuse us
Beloved characters stay with us long after they die
Dear friends who lessened the pain
And turned the drought of our existence into rain
Or changed the follies of our superiors into a joke
Our thanks are due to the fools who make us laugh
Don’t be deceived
They may be the wisest of us all
No pretence of virtue
Just an understanding of the obvious truth
Yes comedy is very serious business
It doesn’t work if it’s irrelevant to life
Or persecutes the innocent for fun
But if you are guilty, watch out!
Your schemes will be revealed for what they are: a stunt
Your greed will bring you penury
Pomposity pie in the face
Tyranny servitude in a funny farm
And lies a disastrous sting
There is always a comfort in the droll side of life
As long as your conscience is clear
It’s a funny thing that

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