Showing posts with label austerity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label austerity. Show all posts

Rant

Fear
steers
our ideals.
I like to pretend
my intentions
are guided by pride
in my liberty
but honestly,
it’s obvious
that them and us
mentality
has still in some way
stuck to me.
Headlines. Lies. Wage discrepancies.
Turmoil. Spilled oil. Unwanted pregnancies.
Terror. Hate. Islamic State.
Ukraine. Fascist Spain. Corrective rape.

We are all in the throes of compassion fatigue.

Our syndrome’s symptoms are nationally glaring;
nonchalance not-so-much as simply not caring.
Heads in phones, wearing headphones.
Drown the sound of the world.
Limit your vision to screens
that only show scenes
 you enjoy.

But ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away.

Borders are force fields that only bureaucrats and Ultra-Nats believe in.
Between here and there
the air is barely blown,
just breathed across the seas
and when it reaches from them to me
it still carries discordant disharmony,
tasting of wasted life,
of sighs and suffering.
 It howls in the night.
Insomniacal  I howl back
attacking the geminid specters of
Worry
and
Guilt
with mindfulness.

Breathe in.  Breathe out.

Leery beasts grow bored of fangs
and inconclusive forms.
As aurora creeps forward
reluctantly they resolve to return
appropriately costumed.
Donning masks of questions asked uncomfortably.
Of bills and will,
sobriety, propriety,
duty, judgments…
I thought once I was free of these.
It turned out I had nurtured alternative anxieties.

If 2014 was the year of mock outrage,
is 2015 the year of sincere apathy?

Disempowered, disenfranchised. disinterested and diseased.
This stiff upper lip is slippery with sweat
and yet, and yet…
we plough on.
Heads bowed.
Backs bent.
Begging bowls deflecting heat.

Al l the better to beat you with, my dear.

From this disadvantage point we focus
on dropped litter
unscooped poop
and the life-changing necessity
of gadgets built with slavery.
When did we lose sight of reality?
We’re the quiet kid in class.
We gave them our lunch money when they asked.
Right now we’re being left alone but we know they’ll be back.
Attacks on disability, on obesity,
on smokers, on pensioners…
all in the pipeline.
And in time
even you.

Spurious statistics trick citizens into soul sickness.
Scared of what strangers might say
they toe the line.
Seeking only to be allowed to survive.
Never even dreaming of the freedom to live.

Times are hard for dreamers.

But is this really the time to be dreaming?

Massacres masquerade as aid resulting in mass graves and raids
and despite all this we still maintain
that we’ve done nothing wrong.
As long as we ignore Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby
We are living and
they are dying
by the bad mistakes we are making.
Simple moral codes forsaken.
Deserted water babies we are,
gasping, gulping in the arid air.
Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid
blows the lid on thoughtless theories.

Preposterous postulations applied to human populations,
pushing politics, suffocating nations.
Freedman economics makes
slaves of man to profits.
It galls me to know that both bullets and blossoms
are patented
with pocket linings in mind.
We click, click, click on little links,
as if it makes a difference.
We: raise awareness.
They: raze cities to the ground
in our name.
As a life-long, tie-dyed, self-sufficient Dove
I’ve always had faith in the power of peace and love
but I’m beginning to see the
necessity of action.

Funding and fueling feuding factions
is certainly not a diplomatic tactic learned at charm school.
Such cruelty only stokes the hate,
chokes the hope,
halts the growth
and seals the fate
of recipients of its offensive.

And it is offensive
to tell you that out of 287 plane crash victims,
8 were British.
As if that’s the only reason it’s a tragedy.
Assume the air of supremacy.
Motherland knows best.
These modern-day quests
to slay behemoths of our own creation
are an exercise in the power of misinformation.
Cnut now I stand ,thigh-deep in blood
and rage at the rising tide.
Sweetness swept away in the flood.
Read the bones that remain.

We are all in the throes of compassion fatigue.
Ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Resolve to return
empowered, enfranchised, interested and enraged.
The life-changing necessity of
attacks on spurious statistics
seek the freedom to live.
The choices are simple moral codes.
Make a difference.
Stoke the hope.
It’s a tragedy to assume the air of supremacy.

This world is our creation.



This (long!) poem was inspired by conversations with a few dear friends. We all feel something in the air at the moment. It feels like change. We hope we're right. 

Not a Popular Opinion


I’m culturally appropriating.
You’re rating my passion
through the eyes of a career gold digger
looking for meaning unwritten,
themes and motifs and meta imagery.

I say what I see.
I’m on catchphrase constantly.
I’m good, but I’m not the one.
I’m frustrated by what I've become.

<sigh> narcissistic ramblings…
This child that went brambling
Now sips prosecco listening
To pseudo-socialist expressions espoused
By folk who don’t want to work.

“The system’s not working”
But you use it to support you.
You don’t earn any wages but bemoan the ways things are
while you profit from the sweat of others who are.
Thing is, I agree, things aren't the way they should be
but I find it hard to take you seriously.

You see, when I drag my bones out of bed
and pay all my bills and work ‘til I’m dead
You’re still sleeping.
You’re reaping your meager existence
from the aches in my muscles.
And honestly, I know there are some who can’t work,
They’re too sick, they’re too hurt by the weight of their age
But when you rage that your cheques not through
That the world’s not fair,
That it owes something to you
I can’t help it.
I’d like to give the help that you’ve received
To someone who knows what it’s like to really need.
A refugee.
Someone who wants to work,
Wants to support their family.

It’s not a popular opinion, I won’t earn any friends with this.
And honestly, there are some who will call me a hypocrite.
I claimed money when I first had my son.
Was made redundant when they noticed my bump.
It’s not legal, but neither was the war in Iraq
And we all know that that situation’s coming back.
Zero hour contracts, 50 hour working weeks
Flush the weak from a system that rewards the wolves.
There’s no paid overtime, we’re on Victorian rules.

Now, here I sit eating quince and cardamom jam
And my old punk friends wonder who I think I am
With my fancy little accent and shoes that have no holes
Now there’s middle class flab on my working class bones.
But my ideals haven’t changed, I still think we should protect
The vulnerable among us, give our elders our respect.
Speak to me statistically, romance me with the cold hard facts.
I don’t want to hear recycled bigotry, especially if it’s Murdoch Media backed.

I believe in the freedom of education.
I believe in the N.H.S
I believe that if you tell one generation
They’re doomed, you’re dooming all the rest.
I believe in the power of discussion.
I believe in empathy.
I believe that the kindness of strangers
Shows truthful humanity.

The amount of tax unpaid is now 30 times the money claimed
And yet the papers tell us that it’s benefits to blame
For why the cupboards empty and the pension pot is bare.
They tell that the CEOs don’t have enough to share.

Now.
I don’t work in finance.
I failed economics.
But I did work in promotions and
I know my demographics.
These pigeon holes we box us in, through judgement and research
And the one you’ve chosen causes my causes to be smirched.
And objectively I know there are so damn few of you
That the cost of it is almost worth forking out
Just so the folk who want to work
Don’t have to deal with you!
So when I’m fighting for the corner of the ones who need the aid
I would appreciate it greatly if out of my way you stayed.
You can pass you life in this way, you’ll find no judgment in me,
But please do consider if this help you really need.
Or if it would be better going to a refugee.
Someone who knows what it’s like to really need.

It’s not a popular opinion.
I won’t earn any friends with this.
But in this situation,

Empathy wouldn’t go amiss.