Still Writing

Unnamed Malefactor

Begone dull fool
And take your pretence with you
You
Who thrust yourself
Into the lives of other fools
Who vote for you
Like ants attracted to sugar
Get thee hence
Out of my life
And the existence of others
For you are an evil spirit
Derived from the dark side of things
Where lies flourish
And truth is hushed up
By entrepreneurs of greed
Yes, I hear you
Telling your fairy tales
By the score
Where deception is the paramour
That you worship
Passionately
As you build fake towers of elegance
With donations from Hades
Be silent now
Give my ears peace
Before more dullards take your advice
And our world breaks up
Into small particles of ignorance
What?
Are you still talking?
Still conniving?
Very well then
The voice of the law now
Is loudly ringing from nirvana
And it’s time for you to fall apart in gaol

Climate Lesions

Wildfire now
Floods
Forty days forty nights in one hour
Landslip
Sculpturing death in hillsides
Heat
Incinerating days
And killing the vulnerable
Drought
Shrivelling existence into dust
How dare you
Smirk and get on with your daily business
Oblivious to the climate lesions
On our highway to Hell!
Heed this now
You and your deadly industries of gain
Your destructive mission statements
Your political infamy of acceptance
Your potent orchestrated lies
Are headed for a fall
Not a gentle descent
Not a faltering moment of inconvenience
Not a takeover by allies
But a deadly plunge into non existence
A chaotic conclusion to your schemes
A shattering of your evil dreams
So be off with you
You must now yield to change
Cease your destruction
Cease refining
End your hold on the market place of doom
Do it now
Before nature casts a spell on you
And turns you
Into a forgotten neoplasm of despair

Refugee Outrage

Shame
It’s a disgrace
A blot on the escutcheon
So pity the refugees
In Australian detention
People smuggling
Evokes a far worse crime
Pitiless, relentless, remorseless, ruthless
Unending imprisonment
implemented by corporate enterprise
For tainted profit
Fie I say!
How else to express my contempt?
So a parliament of fools
Steeped in folly
Harnesses the bias of the bewildered flock
For a successful plebiscite
Passes a law
That promotes injustice
Can you hear the cries of the sufferers?
See the strain on their faces
As despair increases?
Breathes there a sensitive thinker
Who does not
Pity these poor victims?
O hear me please
All you seekers of refuge
Riven by such cruelty
That tears your spirits asunder
And labels you wrongly as guilty
To brand you with the heated irons of injustice
Please forgive me
For not fighting against your torture
Pardon my silence
And punish me as you will
As now I know
The horror of my compliance
The deadly outcome of my acquiescence
The endless guilt of those transgressors I keep in power

A Teacher Remembers

Much have I travelled in the realms of learning
Hours and days and years of striving
Have passed me by
In the struggle to know the difference between right and wrong
As a child I was naive
Wondering about things and constantly puzzled
The youth was bolder
Simplifying solutions with outrageous confidence
The man was sagacious
Confident with answers based on valid evidence
Now
The old man is world-weary
Dwelling with dismay on so many past mistakes
As those earlier days
Still linger furtively in the mind
Those other selves in their own way
Now talk to the old man
That child was lonely
And his father’s reading gave him Jim Hawkins* for company
It’s a memory
That youth was filled with boundless energy
And his school taught him to play cricket
It’s a memory
That man taught in schools
And his pupils sometimes changed their micro world
It’s a memory
The present is always coloured by the past
Crucial former times
Bring memories of each stage of life’s performance
Merging into a final entity that is an ending
A last cloze test
Yes, you are a consequence of everything you have done
Such a vital medley it can be
A lifelong potpourri of outcomes
As the old man of this poem, I can now tell you
The one factor transcending all others
Above every recollection is what he did as a teacher

*The central character in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

Unexpected Voice

I heard a voice the other night
I don’t know where it came from
Perhaps it was a dream
As it echoed through the darkness
I listened
As I am wont to do
Partly because I am unsure of many things
The words I heard were clear
Sonorous
And struck cords of awareness in my mind
They spoke of whiteness
The nature of my skin
And told me souls have no colour
Neither black nor white
The next focus of those words was time
The ultimate source of judgement for mankind it said
And a potent test of our ability to last
Thus it follows
That the only valid test of society’s worth
Is its history
A pox on your annals the voice continued
How dare you see as of consequence
Your mere few thousand years of social growth
Shame on you
When you crush, mutilate and harm indigenous people
Whose mores have been fashioned over aeons
This is a wrong that echoes in the halls of justice…
Then came silence
That quiet was a very potent thing
My mind wandered through diverse fields
Pausing here, stirring there, reflecting on what I had heard
Wondering, wondering, wondering
If I say and do nothing now am I a culprit?
Will passivity betray morality?
Do we need a black armband for a true history?
The yes response to those questions
Is the reason this humble poem exists

Submerged

On a recent maritime deal

Madhouse
Bedlam on wheels
Unmatched stupidity in the annals of folly
Look at you
You dancers at a festival of fools
To the sound of devilish music
Reckless adventurers overboard
Artisans of stupidity
Plunging our world into hock
By false accreditation
Impulsive journeymen of destruction
Swinging from the rafters of a condemned house
Misguided robots advocating nonsense
Selling our tomorrows to vultures of profit
Idiots wearing masks of pretence
Foretelling war by pulling triggers
And preaching of peace with venom
Counterfeit pundits dissembling for the gain of others
You aces dealt from a tainted pack
Condemning your fellows to an endless wrack
You are
Our last hopes fading forever
Of a peaceful and loving world
So get you gone
All of you
To the place where jingoists belong
And take those submarines with you

Corporate Monarchy

So the mouse that roared is gone
Fading away into euphemistic retreat
Leaving our destiny in the hands of the Prince of Wails
The heir presumptive
So it goes hence
That icon derived from fools’ gold
How shall we bid it farewell?
Heads bowed and walking backwards?
Swearing an oath of allegiance?
Saluting its flag of ruthless self interest?
No no!
This time we will spread the word
For that sovereignty now has ended
A time of tyranny is over
Gone like a cancer removed by a surgeon’s knife
And what remains?
The question is relevant
So let me tell you
A power-crazed instrument of control still lingers
With its aftershock of consequence
Yet time, the absolute power,
Has caught up with it and disenchanted it
As a deed to end a corporate monarchy
It is now seen as grist for a mill of infamy
And, as we look carefully at the edifice left behind,
We see still
Deceit masquerading as truth
Duplicity as integrity
Mendacity as veracity
Degradation as privation
Do you see what I mean?
The word is out
The truth is known
So its followers henceforth
Will be swallowers of the curative known as exposure

All Things are Fine

I am the child reviled
I am the foreigner you disdain
I am the old man defiled who sleeps out in the rain
I am the teenage user
I am the homeless waif
I am the wife abuser from whom she will never be safe
I am the alimony shirker
I am the young alcoholic
I am the retrenched worker diagnosed as melancholic
I am the illiterate student
I am the bankrupt receiver
I am the priest who seems prudent but is in fact a deceiver
I am the costly lawyer
I am the persecuted Jain
I am the hostile employer obsessed with personal gain
I am the voice declared sinister
I am the last in the line
I am still the prime minister and yes, all things are fine

royciebaby