And More New Poems

Integrity

Is that image really you?
You
Who have considerable influence on the lives of others
Including me
It’s amazing how many places you visit
In a single day
Even more amazing
Is the presence of cameras there to film you
Are you really a convivial, caring, wise paragon of goodwill?
Or are you nothing
But an icon with manufactured identity?
I hear what you say
Responses flow from you like saliva at a victory feast
You are never wrong
Or at least you never admit to be
When disaster eventuates
As a consequence of what you do or don’t do
The cause is always something beyond your control
Or a folly of someone else
You add abuse to this fallacy
With vituperative curses maligning the alleged miscreant
And utopian daydreams about what you intended to do
Thus you ply your trade, or is it tirade?
And your public identity is far from reality
Your influence lingers like an irksome odour
In spite of what you are
As your schemes attract attention
And catch the ear of the grateful opulent and powerful
Yet everything passes
The triumph you have known
Is tremulous like a dying mirage
Things are changing
Slowly I admit
But time is the enemy of pretence
And favours eventually one precious human virtue
It is integrity

Victims

In a strange land strange thou art;
To her will incline thy heart;
Honour whatso’er the State
Honours, all she frowns on hate.
Sophocles –Oedipus At Colonus

I have done no wrong
My only crime
Was to travel by boat to a foreign land
I am
The last remaining child
Of a family crushed by war
Nine years a prisoner without a voice
Now, in this hostile land
To comply with the harsh laws of a heartless State
I am imprisoned without a trial…
How that time dragged slowly by
Each day a branding iron burning into my soul!
Now
Suddenly I am set free
I know not precisely why
But it seems a sudden political expedient
The sun and the sky are mine again
I am one of a chosen few
Liberated
But still there are others confined, defined as villains
For furtive unclear reasons
Banned from freedom to deter others
Defined I was, as unwanted
Condemned in a land where justice is on suspended animation
Where compassion is a dirty word
And habeas corpus another unwanted intrusion
O how I pity my fellows still confined
For them my heart is broken still
And I will plead for their freedom
As long as this mangled soul of mine is able

The Solitary Wanderer

Alone I am
Doomed to loneliness and isolation
Shunned by a world preoccupied with itself
Like a piece of flotsam in a sea of anguish
No others dare to share my ignominy
As I am contaminated by the sordid deals of life
Cast aside still
Because of follies in my naive youth
By the shallow minds of ruthless people
But I am a thinking spirit in that hostile universe
I understand because I have the gift of reason
The follies of venerated fools are obvious to me
As I am free of the usual distractions
I see, I think, and I discover
The waywardness of those who rule us
The deception is obvious to me
The lies are coloured red on my page of thought
The greed and prestige of the rich
Disturb my every waking hour
But my spirit evinces the joy of being not like them
I see around me everywhere
The approved wreckage of normalised disaster
The slavery of the poor as servants of the moneyed
The burning of the air in defiance of science
The ghastly schemes of the military industrial complex
The madness plunders on and on in defiance of wisdom
Into a chaos of endlessness
The world outside me is under constant threat of disaster
And the strength of the powerful increases every day
Like the rising of a deadly sun
You might suspect despair from me in this lethal situation
Anticipate frustrated pleas for pity
From the lonely soul that I am
But fear not
Though solitary I roam
I still have the power to write a poem

Guilt

So on you go with your life
Coldly indifferent to obvious villainy
With a pious, righteous smile
That is too frequently the way of things
In today’s egocentric world
Yes
If someone is planning an evil deed
Whoever it may be
And you know about it before it happens
Yet do nothing
Guilt is your pseudonym
More important and more sad
Indeed
More worthy of condemnation
Is your indifference to observed suffering
By someone known to you
We all have the courage
To endure other people’s misfortunes
Yes
If someone is crying out in despair
Whoever it may be
And you know about it as it happens
Yet do nothing
Guilt is your pseudonym
Vast is the significance of conscience
There comes a time so often
When you have to make a choice
Awareness is the prosecution
And what you do is the verdict
You must plan wisely dear struggling human
Think long and hard before you decide
To act or do nothing
That person you know
Steeped in villainy or woe
Calls out to you for positive action
What you do or fail to do will determine what you are

Raising A Storm With A Skeptic

Don’t know why
There’s no sun up in the sky
Stormy weather
Since my man and I ain’t together
Keeps raining all of the time

“Stormy Weather” is a 1933 torch song written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler.

Look at it
Rain falling incessantly
There is no sky
It is hidden by the pummelling drops
Rivers have no banks
Water is everywhere
Rising, rising
Until it grasps everything in aqueous fingers
Houses are submerged
Some float away
Hurtling off downstream
Like flagships of the fleet
Water invades your home sweet home
There’s mud it
It will remain when the water goes
Safety is scarce
Sometimes only a roof will save your life
Some do not find that refuge
The toll grows
Fatalities are mentioned in the news
Sheep and cattle find a watery grave as well
That Prevent Bushfires sign is under water
Cars and horses are marooned on a part of a bridge
Little boats
Search and rescue you if you are lucky
Wrecked cars and a bus or two
Conglomerate haphazardly where the torrent puts them
And an abject skeptic believes suddenly in global warming

royciebaby