Voices In A Tempest

The Poli-Diddle Fiddle

The poli-diddle is your job, is your job
The poli-diddle is your job, yes your moneyed job
MP you’re a flop yet you’ll rise to the top
As long as you are a liar

So lie or fib or fabricate, taradiddle mislead or prevaricate
You dearly need to win some votes no matter what the cost
You must tell tall tales, and think thoughts that are so sinister
Then in the end, my ambitious friend, you’ll end up as Prime Minister

The poli-diddle is your job, is your job
The poli-diddle is your job, yes your moneyed job
MP you’re a failure yet voters regale yer
If you start a genocide war

So lie or fib or fabricate, taradiddle mislead or prevaricate
You dearly need to win some votes no matter what the cost
You must tell tall tales, and think thoughts that are so sinister
Then in the end, my ambitious friend, you’ll end up as Prime Minister

The poli-diddle is your job, is your job
The poli-diddle is your job, yes your moneyed job
MP there is pay-dirt in nuclear fission
It’s there if you feed an atomic ambition

So lie or fib or fabricate, taradiddle mislead or prevaricate
You dearly need to win some votes no matter what the cost
You must tell tall tales, and think thoughts that are so sinister
Then in the end, my ambitious friend, you’ll end up as Prime Minister

The poli-diddle is your job, is your job
The poli-diddle is your job, yes your moneyed job
MP treat climate change as a joke
Then label researchers demonstrably woke

So lie or fib or fabricate, taradiddle mislead or prevaricate
You dearly need to win some votes no matter what the cost
You must tell tall tales, and think thoughts that are so sinister
Then in the end, my ambitious friend, you’ll end up as Prime Minister

The poli-diddle is your job, is your job
The poli-diddle is your job, yes your moneyed job
MP privatise; give your friends a bonus
So that Woolworths in the end will bloody-well own us

So lie or fib or fabricate, taradiddle mislead or prevaricate
You dearly need to win some votes no matter what the cost
You must tell tall tales, and think thoughts that are so sinister
Then in the end, my ambitious friend, you’ll end up as Prime Minister

The poli-diddle is your job, is your job
The poli-diddle is your job, yes your moneyed job
MP don’t be a shy one, simply pull a fast one
So each black-hat that you use will not be the last one

Yes lie or fib or fabricate, taradiddle mislead or prevaricate
You dearly need to win some votes no matter what the cost
You must tell tall tales, and think thoughts that are so sinister
Then in the end, my ambitious friend, you’ll end up as Prime Minister

Ode To Aged Care

Here I am
Old fruit on a withered vine
Active life is no longer mine
My body aches
As I make mistakes
I can’t leave my home
I am too frail to roam
I thirst for visions afar
Yet no longer have a car
I recall the life that I led
But now most of my friends are dead
Once I was free as a bird
Now an active life’s absurd
Steps once I leapt three at a time
Now are a hazard I cannot climb
Money is scarce and gets a mention
You can’t live like a king on a pension
Life, it is with pain encumbered
When your last days are numbered
Yet suddenly there are sunbeams
And disaster’s displaced by dreams
Kindness invades your despair
Because somebody else is there
A stranger who cares about you
To ease the pains that flout you
To mollify the sadness
And dispel the sick world’s madness
So willing to beguile
With the wonders of her smile
And chatter at my table
O yes, she’s the angel in my fable

Vive l’école
 

A school is not an inanimate thing.
 
I found this out today
When I visited a place
Where in my yesterdays
I used to teach.
 
‘Hello Sir’ came their voices,
Once again,
And their looks of recognition
Seemed to tap me
On the shoulder
As I walked across that playground
At recess time
Into the hollow hallways
Where I heard again the footsteps
Of the past
And in those briefly empty classrooms
I met the echoes of my words
And the reflected sounds of yesterday’s pupils
With their sighs of learning struggle
Their misdemeanours
And their Ahas! of the once in a while
When insight set in.
 
It was a weird experience this:
A haunted house without ghosts
Not spooks
But thoughts and words
And struggles and despair and hope
And growth and disobedience
And little triumphs over learning curves
And breakthroughs to understanding
And punishment and distraction
And anger and hatred and inspiration
And penalty and injustice and impossible tasks
And, when the last bell rings,
Memories of transformations that never end.
 
A school is not an inanimate thing.                                      

Published in Awen, an English literary magazine, Issue 64, June 2010

The Climate Skeptic’s Septic Antiseptic

A plague has invaded this Land of Mine
Denied by Fatuous Amos
His discourse was rent by a terrible dent
In his futile attempt to be famous

So he danced a jig with a curse and a cuss
“What’s the future done for us?”

He proclaimed as one in the blazing sun
That the oomph of science is declining
Then he chanted and ranted like a frog in its bog
“We will carry on with the mining!”

So he danced a jig with a curse and a cuss
“What’s the future done for us?”

The overt reactions to this mine blown action
Were rumours of climate woes
No problem said the Diggers on the wildfire season
It’s something to warm up the toes

So he danced a jig with a curse and a cuss
“What’s the future done for us?”

Further reactions to this mineral faction
Repeatedly spoke of drought fears
No problem said the Diggers and here is the reason
We’ve had many a flood down the years

So he danced a jig with a curse and a cuss
“What’s the future done for us?”

Music rang forth in rising pitch
As cyclones fought the renditioning
No problem said the Diggers it is good for the treasury
Saves the cost of air conditioning

So he danced a jig with a curse and a cuss
“What’s the future done for us?”

Another consequence of the miner’s lie-sense
Was the chatter on global warming
No problem said the Diggers it is good for Titanics
It stops the icebergs from forming

So he danced a jig with a curse and a cuss
“What’s the future done for us?””

And now in the present the duck is a pheasant
And the money rolls into the bins
No problem say the Diggers, all’s right with the world
There’s jobs for the boys in our sins

So he danced a jig with a curse and a cuss
“What’s the future done for us?”

So he danced a jig with a curse and a cuss
“What’s the future done for us?”

So he danced a jig with a curse and a cuss
“I can’t understand all the fuss!”

---

Racism Undermined

Through many dangers, toils and snares
We have already come.
’Twas grace that brought us safe thus far
And grace will lead us home

From Amazing Grace

Breathes there a man so torn with dread
Who never to himself has said
“This is my hope in this foreign land
With peace and love they will understand.’
To every listener I say in fright
My soul is neither black nor white
Yet I am afraid ere the next night comes
Rancour will rise like the beat of drums
Someone will find a fault in me
Because of my tribal history
The cause may be skin or the shape of my eyes
The place of my birth would be no surprise
Or the clothes that I wear, the jobs that I went to
The church where I worship, the school I was sent to
Something will cause the disdain
In this foreign, forbidding domain
I will shrink at first, fearing the danger
My heart will tell me I’m a dog in the manger
Malice will be in the air that I breathe
Government laws will leap forth to deceive
Glimpses of hate will be a constant strife
Gestures of ire will stain my life
I shall feel despair in this troubled place
You would think that my life is a sheer disgrace
I am an alien; here that’s a crime
Though the story of my life is at times sublime
How can I end this anguish?
All the pain I long to vanquish?
I search my mind and defiantly probe
As I turn to face each xenophobe
In my prison without bars
O how I long for shelter under these unfamiliar stars

r

royciebaby