Yet More Poems

Cracked Pot

You are a fool
A simpleton a moron a dullard
I stand by my definitions
Look at you
Masquerading as a genius
Au fait
With all the solutions the world needs
Giving patriotic speeches written by someone else
Gesturing grandly
And leading people astray
With the skill pf a misbegotten card sharp
Mouthing platitudes reflecting attitudes
That belong in the past
Medieval witch-hunts to be precise
Stirring emotions to win support
Creating fears
Of dangers that don’t exist
As you pander
To all the racists in your domain
That’s it then
All this
Explains your success
In a world you strive to create
Where
So many people need the help
You do not give
As the whirlwind of poverty
Sweeps so many innocents away…
And now comes the final straw
Your last post
To defend itself
Our beloved nation
Must greatly strengthen and expand
Its nuclear capability
Quod erat demonstrandum

Voice Of Justice

Silence is a dagger of guilt
Stabbing the innocent
A honed blade of injustice
Cutting the speechless into chunks of insignificance
O First Nation
How I long to end that silence
To hear your voice
How you suffer from your imposed taciturnity
You
The oldest race known to mankind
Have been smitten asunder
By demons in civilised disguise
Riven by greed
Decimated by forces of contempt
Pilloried by racial abuse
And driven away from the Zion that once was yours
So here I am
A supplicant for you
A rebel on your side despite my whiteness
Solitary, but one of growing numbers
Pleading your cause
The land you once protected is now crying out
Echoing my pleas
It is today such a troubled place
So different from the one you knew
Now is its time
Yes a moment at last for change
For integrity
And evenhandedness for all
So speak up now
May the voice
Of the first guardians of our land
Be heard with appropriate respect
To become forever
Part of the second nation’s social code


The Last Roundup

I’m headed for the last roundup
Words of a song sung by Gene Autry
Long ago
A sentimental euphemism for dying
As he saddled old Paint for the last time and rode away
So there you have it
There’s a degree of truth in it
Eventually
Like Everyman
Gene and you and I
Have to face our past
At the far away ranch of the Boss in the sky
Even though he may exist
As a mere fantasy of the cowboy’s dreamtime
Nevertheless
When that time comes,
The approach of your last breath,
Beware
If you have approved of mass killings
In Iraq or Vietnam
Have sanctioned persecution of refugees
Have profited from global warming
Or supported shady bank deals,
Things might be more than rough for you
What you are
Will thunder guiltily above you
The cattle at that final muster
Will stampede away from you
Raising dust to fill your lungs
And stifle your last breath
In a way that sees you banished amidst public shame
Revealed
Cursed
Condemned
And then forgotten by all except your victims

The Jungle

Have you read Upton Sinclair?
You know
That honest man denigrated as a muckraker?
My point here is
There’s still a lot of muck around
So
I’ll rake over some of it here for you
The first pile of it is corporate care of the aged
Look at them
Cashing in on the ancients’ life savings for admission
And then
Profit based on pathetic low wages for staff
A second heap of slime is the tyranny of markets
Where shareholders are gods
Never to be offended
While all other citizens are an irrelevant nuisance
Thirdly
I would expose the accumulated profit of war mongers
The military industrial complex
That makes weapons a false requisite
While the gods of war are away on business
My next mound of grime
Is the indefinite detention without trial
Of innocents
Whose only wrong
Is to travel by boat to a foreign strand
And seek asylum
An infamy this treatment, now known as the Australian way
Enough! Enough!
Perhaps I should seek out children at play
To placate me
And redirect my mind from acts of evil
Better still if I were a monkey or more suitably an ape
More fittingly I might know how to behave appropriately
In the jungle that surrounds me


Here Is The News

Here is the news they say
But what they don’t say
Is here is the news we’ve decided to let you hear
And thus we carry on passively listening
Our enemies chosen for us
With all their virtues ignored
And their sins emphasised or invented
Favoured political leaders too are featured
You know
The ones who support the approved corporate money folk
And say things emphasising their fake morality
While the idealists
Those who care about the needy and climate change
Are commonly ignored or misrepresented expertly
Other reasoning replacements will also feature
Murder, rape, robbery and fraud
They are sure of a mention
Yes
Such iniquity is so easy to report
Grim facts only are needed
Not the erudite analyses
Of thought by reporter and listener
Needed for events of educational significance
Every so often too
Conspiracy theories will be reported
Not obviously supported
Just dog whistled
So there you have it
The revolution will not be televised
Nor will it be mentioned
If the newsmen have their way
All we have instead
Is the sanitised version
Of a history written by the winners
And then we are left
With a government chosen by others

royciebaby

Poetry Returns

Death Of A Queen

Time passes doesn’t it?
All the power and the glory
That once were yours
Now lie on and in a wooden box
Such a long time
For you to reign as the saying goes
You, with your face on our coins
A voice from the past
Preaching traditional values
As few others can
Managing parliament as you do
And yet forbidden entry
Giving your name to chosen institutions
To imply virtue and status
In a so-called manner royal, or as an icon
Leading people in world-wide religious activity
But what does all this tell us?
Where are the lessons
That endorse your validity?
Perhaps they are written down somewhere
In the archives of your sacred family
Unfurled in the flags flying today at half mast
Or possibly reflected
In the medals shining all around your corpse
Whatever the answers to these questions
One thing stands as stone
You were bound by a duty thrust upon you
To breathe justice on the world
If you did
And only if you did will I say
The Queen is dead; long live the King


11 November 1975

Dismissal
How dare you dismiss our leader
What do you think you are?
An omnipotent monarch’s serf?
Well of course in effect you are, aren’t you?
And the representative of the Queen
Who did the damage
Praised by the Prince of Wales
As a courageous act
Yes our Prime Minister was sacked
So democracy died
The Speaker of the House became an impotent icon
As the people’s voice sanctified by history
Is nothing but an impotent whisper
And what of the reports in the Press
Those chariots of ire
The PR tools of the Devil
The primrose press: primula vulgaris
Polluting the air with those calculated lies?
All’s well that bends well they say
As they apply obsequious approval
Of a deed that echoes in the halls of infamy
But hear me now:
We must analyse this crime for future generations
And curse it down the ages
I dishonour my God
I rebuke my Queen
I reject my flag
All hail
To whoever throws light on this villainy
Here endeth the lesson

Biomass

Away with carbonised plant matter
The profitable igneous mined stuff
Burn trees instead
Even the ancient Joshua Tree
Found thriving in desert terrain
Can be killed in this cause
Biomass instead of coal
But hear the liars
Green energy pretenders
Describing what is not there
Machines are being made by industrial civilisation
To save us
From industrial civilisation
Solar arrays
Need coal
And steel
And graphite
And sulphur
And copper
And silicon
And cobalt
And nickel
And CO2 in vast quantities
Total sun and wind power today
Without supplement does not exist
But the cunning fraudsters
Create the illusion that it does
So the planet writhes
Into an ugly, tumultuous death

Comes A Time

It happens to us all
There comes a time when life
Loses its authenticity
Its value
In a sick and sorry world
And an earth emerges
Where love is eventually discarded
Or replaced by self interest
Where people suffer
Alone
And are ignored
By those whom they hold dear
So it is
It happens eventually
To everyone
The end to your own pathetic era
Then you lose heart
And give up the struggle
And fade away
Like laughter at a wake
Hey there!
Now it’s happening to me
I’m sick of everything
Demoralised
By dreams that never come true
Not mollified but horrified
By the narcissism that surrounds me
The grandiose enterprises
That belittle human emotions
They
Leave me faltering on chasms of regret
So what shall I do?
Give up and end it all
Or keep looking for someone who loves me
Enough to steer me away from utter despair
Ah! There she is…

Cowboys And Indians

The ground on which we stand is sacred ground.
It is the blood of our ancestors.
– Chief Plenty Coups (Crow)

When I was a whining schoolboy
I was very brave
I killed lots of Indians with my six-shooter cap gun
Just the way they did in all those movies
Especially the Apaches
But also the Cherokees, Cheyennes and Sioux
For they were fearsome creatures
Always in the wrong
Dangerous to us noble whites
They fired blazing arrows into wagon trains
And scalped innocent travellers…
In the Wild West that my mind created
I killed Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo and Cochise
As well as
Countless other figments of my imagination
Until age
Taught me the folly of my ways
As the years passed
I learnt the army and not cowboys
Killed those Indians
To clear the way for white settlement
I learnt more indeed
For cowboys
Such as Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy and Jesse James
Preoccupied with crime
Were in fact a danger to themselves not Indians
So I have mended my ways
Guns are no longer my toys
I have learnt of the depth of Indian despair
And the ruthless replacement of their homelands
With alien reservations
How wrong I was
So involved in the fables at the bottom of my garden

royciebaby

And You…

Veracity

Truth it is an elusive thing
Dangerous for some
As Julian Assange was pilloried for telling it
But when masked
It shapes the destiny of rogues
Are you listening?
You hypocrites who make a living
Or gain power from falsehoods
The reality of your scheming is more and more evident
To an ever increasing number of thinking observers
So take care when you go to war
To sell the weapons you make
Cease your lies that get you elected
And destroy the careers of your political rivals
Hey
You corporate dealers
Who rule our lives from backrooms
And lobby lucratively
We are onto you
So your days are numbered
By the real observers who describe reality
This above all
A new day is dawning as the doors of education open
Wisdom is beckoning us
From the stage of learning in schools and universities
Performance there will number your days
Reveal your chicanery
Students of every age
Inevitably are becoming aware of things
A real world is blooming
No
It is aflame
A beacon at the end of a tunnel of infinite darkness

Deep Affection

Don’t be afraid of love
It won’t hurt you
It may even save you from disaster
Stand by you in times of stress
Give you hope when things have turned against you
Be a reason for living
When life has turned sour
Trust me
When age has crept up on you
And time ruthlessly makes you decrepit
If you have loved someone sometime
That memory will ease your pain
Become a beautiful rose in your garden of despair
So take the chance
Dare to give all that you are in tribute to someone else
Share yourself
Be unafraid
Willing to risk the ignominy of unrequitedness
And become a lover
A true friend
A companion amidst hostile forces of darkness
Yes, give yourself to that cause
And notice what changes
Devotion has many forms
It may be a friendly ear to share another’s sadness
A forgiveness at a time of guilt and regret
Or parental understanding when things go wrong
And the greatest joy
That brings you peace
Amidst the chaos of life’s morbidity
When other dreams have fallen apart
Will be love returned

The Road Taken

Once long ago
I came to a junction of two roads
Equally attractive they were to me
But with directions unspecified
As signposts were missing
Time was not my friend
It was rapidly passing and I had to choose
So I chose this one
And on it I have stayed for all my days
Sometimes it has led me into trouble
Antipathy and questioned virtue
While my progress was hindered by self doubt
Yet I kept on with my journey
For that is the way I tend to deal with things
Other times have been different
Quite often in fact
I have encountered new vistas of awareness
Learnt by observation as I passed by
With a touch of new self-respect
Further still along this path
The road taken
On which I have stayed resolutely despite the scenic change
I have come upon one final encompassing joy
It is a body of listeners
Who share many moments with me responsively
Who question me when understanding lapses
Remarkably at the same time
Helping me gain a better understanding of my own world
And, dare I say it, of myself
That is where I am at this stage of my journey
My voyage of discovery still
To my chosen destination, for I am a teacher

Pills To Cure My Ills

Here I am, old and infirm
Weak and frail and disabled
But I have the ultimate cure
They’re the pills I have recently tabled
There’s one for my moods
When pain intrudes
And one for my aching knees
Blood pressure too is well catered for
Plus a nose spray when I sneeze
My eye sight is weak which makes me seek
A capsule to fix my vision
It costs so much it makes me pay
My chemist with some derision
My feet are sore with pain galore
But I have a costly pastille
It works so well if you fired a gun
I would almost storm the Bastille
My stomach is wild and I tend to belch
Whenever I take a meal
The tablet for this is a hit or miss
It’s just a placebo I feel
There’s one more grief I have to endure
And that is a runny nose
The tablet for this has little effect
Yet that’s where the money goes
Each day for me, as you can see,
Is nothing but a ritual
I’ve learnt to take each caplet I buy
In a manner purely habitual
But there is a pain I must endure
For which all hope is lost
It’s an endless incurable ailment
For my pills the bloody cost

Education

To our first nation

When you educate
Do you lead out along an approved, predetermined pathway
Or do you nourish and let the learner decide
On the destination?
For that first pathway, the derivation is educere
For the second, educare
An important decision this for teachers
Are events to be selected in a prescribed pattern
Or is the learning experience aimed solely at discovery
An enrichment uncontaminated by censorship?
Do you wash the brains for a chosen goal
Or do you nourish unrestrainedly
And wait for a crucial something to happen
In the minds of each fledgling?
Is learning open or selectively controlled?

We must portray a cheerful history
Said a powerful, influential guru
No black armbands belong in our schools
Reality begone
But the facts came inevitably to haunt him
An indigenous voice
Sang a song of sadness that echoed in the hallways
And down the ages as an inevitable consequence
So that the reality of life was discovered
Amidst a learning garden free of dioxin
The tragedy of a treatment was revealed
And another guru said he was sorry

royciebaby

For You Too

So You’ve Lost

So you’ve lost
You
With your political inanity
After years of your inhumanity
When you blossomed on a tree of deception
Now you’re an item in a trash can
A piece of life lying in a gutter of forgetfulness
Your voice is drowned
By a gathering wind of irrelevance
To be overcome at last
By prayers of reason
What you did is the stuff of your obituary
A cold example of the suffering
You and your in-crowd extolled
While countless victims
Endured the anguish of your schemes
To promote your power
All gone now
Look at you unelected
Cringing in a corner unnoticed
While a new order rises out of the mire you created
Get thee hence then whoever you have become
There is no place left for you here
Your era of rule
Is already a fading memory
That hangs in the air of change
Like dust
Dimming the beauty of the setting sun
Time is our friend and your foe
For it will take away your presence in our minds
Where once you dominated
Now all that is left of you there
Lingers
Like the Cheshire Cat’s* endless smile

*The Cheshire Cat was a figure in Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland


A Broad Church

You may disapprove
Of some of the things we do
Find fault
With our policy statements
But political life is complex
And we are a broad church
We believe in help for the destitute
As long as the economy stays strong
We strive overtly for peace
Although we sell weapons of war
We seek the greatest good for the greatest number
But channel profits to a selected few
Freedom is our trumpeted dream
Yet we jail refugees without trial
We declare all men are brothers
Even though we invade the vulnerable
We vow to end climate change
But still we export coal
Free speech is a part of the life we acclaim
Though one man owns all our media
Democracy is what we claim to hold dear
Yet we pork barrel without fear
All gender bias we deplore
But women rarely get equal pay
All power rests with the people
But we privatise everything
We proclaim belief in the brotherhood of man
Yet condone hate speak on the airwaves

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
What a noble world surrounds us!

Take Me To Your Leader

Ah
There you are
A few words with you if you don’t mind
So you want to be a leader
All right then, let’s see
How good at lying are you?
Not the barefaced type, the obvious ones
It’s the subtle kind I mean
You know, the ones non thinkers can’t detect
What’s that?
You always try to tell the truth
That’s a worry
Even when money is involved?
Oh dear!
A major problem
Let us try oil and gas
Where do you stand on climate change?
You’ve got to be joking
That attitude would bankrupt the nation
And the river systems?
Don’t tell me you would put water for the environment
Ahead of farming industries
The more we speak the more concerned I become
One last hope
What about foreign policy?
Are you behind the latest arms deal?
No?
That’s it then, my friend
Leadership for you is out of the question
Your position is tremulous
In fact another career seems advisable
Politics is for wolves not sheep
I suggest you return to your former profession
Money flows to you in corporate commerce
More fluently
And there are far fewer people to deceive

Treasures Of The Mind

O I am old now
And my body constantly disobeys my wishes
Life is hard
Even when you do nothing
And the official verdict on your usefulness is zero
Yet I have some gems
Of experience
That for others are rare now
Largely unknown to today’s fresh-faced revellers
Once I could see the moon in clear air
Meandering across an uncontaminated sky
Benevolent, gentle
Like a shepherd tending sheep
I drank from streamlets many times
As I walked mountain pathways
Little rivulets of happiness they were, glad to quench my thirst
As they danced gaily by me
The noise of their passing like laughter
I picked wildflowers once, where concrete now stands
Radiances of colour, amazing timeless beauty
Samples of love to give my mother
I went fishing often, in a boat at night
So still, so quiet
You could hear a whisper from the other side of the bay
See the lights of houses reflected in the water
And the stars so bright they seemed just out of reach
I walked where once a forest was
Colourful birds kept me company there
It was fun to eavesdrop their conversations
Shafts of sunlight filtered through the shadows
And the occasional butterfly danced on the air
Breathtaking glimpses of colour
And all was quiet in the world
So here I am, confined to a room
Lonely you might assume and fading away
But how can that be when your mind has such riches?

Values

Everything has a money value these days
Time is a commodity
Kindness depends on price
Happiness can be bought from the right shopping list
But check the flyers carefully
Weigh up the spiel most guardedly
Read the evidence like Sherlock Holmes
Forego free bargains
Beware of buy now pay later
Disregard false medical allusions
Turn your back on animated illusions
Condemn fraudulent promotional portrayals
And watch the business world explode in a puff of verity

royciebaby