Once Upon A Thought
Once upon a thought I decided to write a poem
Not a long one
And probably not an acclaimed one
Just a gentle journey into my memories
So I started writing
Dabbling away at my keyboard
Hoping something interesting would finally emerge
Somewhere on a future part of the page
As you can see that has not happened yet
Which brings me to a clear dilemma:
Shall I continue with hope springing eternal
Or shall I give up and go and watch television?
As you can see I have not given up
And am writing on regardless
With hope heading towards eternity
As I write on I have suddenly had a thought
Supposing I could decide
Who from my life would read my humble words
My grandfather Sidney Isaac would be one
For he was my storyteller of tales
Of the Burma Railway he built for the Japanese
Then there is Lucy, my blind sister
Who would read my thoughts in Braille
And then tell her own tale
Next Aunt Thelma, who lived to be a hundred and eight
And lies buried now by her husband, a soldier
Who died in war fifty years before her
Another thought is Simon
That indigenous pupil
With the lovely white teeth
And the all encompassing smile
Who left school aged fifteen
Because of his family’s poverty
And there is Ali, the child I taught English to
So long ago
That gentle angel who longed to be free like me
But was imprisoned in Nauru without a trial
As a victim of political agendas
How strange it is, this working of my mind,
That tells me what I must do
Without my conscious constraint
Funny, bizarre, weird, uncanny is the destiny
Of my thoughts
And now there is one important final reader
My whimsical ancient brain has at last chosen for me
The train of my thoughts has arrived at a funny station…
The closing choice of a reader I would make
Is the Minister For Immigration
2 December 2019
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 with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said
“This is my own, my suffering world,
That cries out for help with each flag unfurled”
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 echo as the beat of drums
Someone will find a fault in me
Because of my family’s 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 beat faster than a dog’s in a manger
Malice will be in the air that I breathe
Government lies 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; that is here 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
There is order in my mind and willingness to love
If ever I am welcome neath these new stars above
The Curse Of Ethnocentrism
Listen to them
Polluting the air waves with racism
Fascism would be a better word
Setting up a wall with a moat filled with hate
For foreigners à la Adolph Hitler
Test them they say
Make sure they believe in the Australian way
Keep listening
Politicians seeking votes
Jump aboard the current populism
Invent tales of damage done by aliens
Invent threats of terrorism
And decry as timidity what their opponents do
So all men are not one
Are not brothers
No man is a piece of the continent
Humanity is not an undivided indivisible family
There is no circle of compassion
A thousand fibres do not connect us with our fellows
On this shrunken globe men must live as strangers
We cannot imagine all people sharing all the world
The sole meaning of life is not to serve humanity
There. That is a way of putting it
Periphrastic observations of a sorrowful existence
Something more is needed
A specific view
One clear statement of reality
An observation based on evident truth
So here it is:
The White Australia Policy is alive again
Bored With Peace
On a recent political enterprise
Aha!
Just look at it
A new NGO of sham
With a plutocrat at the lucrative helm
O yes how some lies pay vast dividends!
Not for the needy but for the greedy
And who is the leader of that grovelling bunch?
Why it’s Mephistopheles himself
No, it’s Scrooge McDuck trying his luck
Or Charles Foster Kane, Christian Gray or Midas
With his touch of gold
And you know what happened to him
So there we have it
Preaching global peace but threatening war
As a triumph of disinformation
For the figurehead in charge
So you buy peace with money to make weapons
Fund the reptilian with a billion
And he stays in charge forever
A tin-pot god in cogent disguise
O my, what a disturbance of the mind this is!
What pretence, simulation, imposture, fraud!
A dream of power that is indeed a nightmare
A fiction
In the guise of the United Nations
A proven reality
Well then
What can we do?
How can we respond to this trickery?
It’s quite easy:
Abstain with all the compulsion of a true savant
Family Love
Which of you, having a son or an ox
that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day,
will not immediately pull him out?
Luke 14:1-35
When the world wrongs someone you love
Takes him by the scruff of the neck
And makes his life a wreck
Your way is clear if he is your son
You must find a way to reach him
Often
For there is little worse in life than to be unwanted alone
Isolation is a monstrous punishment
Reserved in the way of things
Mostly for aliens with a cryptic alignment
So you punish them with solitary confinement
And there he is to your dismay
Maligned, confined, defined as flotsam
Amidst his debris alone
Save when you talk to him on the phone
So you keep in touch though you can’t do much
But you gladly share your days
And then you discover
An astonishing mind that so often will amaze
A thinking reed surrounded by a swamp of indifference
Who follows the news
And skilfully detects each ruse
In a world that is geared for gain
Who reads the net as a guru, to make
The complicated plain
Who understands so well the workings of the world
Who can even foretell rain
Loves music of all kinds and ever so gently makes it
Is a lover of history and knows when Krueger* fakes it
And detects the wrongs of society like a Sherlock Holmes
O could I find a magic thread
And with a loom be able
I’d create a tapestry to make his pain a fable
On it I’d weave the wonder
Of the tales he tells
The beauty of his music
I’d expose by ringing bells
I would reveal his loneliness and yet his smiling face
To end his mire of forsakenness as part of our human race
*In 2003, Abrie Krueger of South Africa was named the world’s biggest liar after
saying he was crowned King of the Wasdale Valley.
royciebaby
Royce Levi Australian Teacher and Author 