O, Camelot, Where Art Thou?

Everything is awful
And yet, we persevere
Leaving hope to poetry
To trundle on in fear

That one toe too far over
The party’s bread-crumb line
Makes weeding out dissenters
A mere matter of time

While power speaks for no man
And landed gentry frown
To battle one another
For the puppet-master’s crown

We’re plotting for a future
Most hope never to see
Still bargaining, unseated
And without a winner’s fee

But how to hold our assets
From the treasured hoarding trust
While shoring up economies
Still reeling from the bust
 
Can you perceive horizons
That might signal Finnish line?
I’m getting more myopic
Through these passages of time

And ravaged, lost and sleepless
With no comfort to be had
I’m all but feeling helpless
To prevent what drives us mad

External shadowed forces
May be mustering to lead
The ignorant through tripery
To see how Red we bleed

For driving all before us
While historic, still untrue
No plaudits for the chorus
Of Titanic bally-hoo

I’m not to know the answer
Though I wish, it is in vain
My child must be my Reason
For I voted to Remain

Humanitarian Crisis

I worked late today
In the usual way
Then stood long for a bus
While ignoring the fuss
All the placards and song
Of a protesting throng

When the first one came full
Joined the back of the queue
‘Til I hopped on the second
No wiser, I reckoned
To pressure or purpose
That brought out the workforce

I sat in my headphones
Absorbing through eardrums
The tunes of a playlist
Unchanged through two ages
And stared through graffiti
At people beneath me

Not knowing, nor caring
What fate we were sharing
Familiar landscape blurred
Into the sounds I heard
Hopped off three stops early
Finished one journey

I trudged ‘cross the common
To see if I’d find one
More bus driver’s hubs
Standing still by the pubs
Sure enough, there I saw
Not just one, but some four

When one finally, late
Put his pedal to plate
He pulled up to the tavern
Waved me past his cabin
For NFC, broken
Would not zap my token

I settled inside
Chose a tune for my ride
But two stops, no further
We stopped in a lather
Five kids, come from school
With no change to fare-pool

Tried to board, barter, beg
But compassion was neg.
As commuters grew restless
One woman, well-dressed, stressed
Their selfishness loudly
“Eff off!” she yelled, proudly

Some gentleman, small
Added footage to gall
Thus the youths took offense
At this lack of good sense
And a row quickly rose
As his phone met his toes

While we waited, suspended
To see what might end it
Some ran for the next bus
Some added their voices
And called for policemen
To make them see reason

It took three more stops
And a call to the cops
But not one among us
Could hit on the obvious
Tempers grew heated
As workers felt cheated

Ashamed, I forgot
Or I simply did not
Check I had enough money
Available, on me
To throw them a bone
So we’d all make it home.

Freebies

Why is it acceptable
To offer unpaid work
Expect someone to carry out
The duties others shirk

Without the basic dignity
Of taking home a wage
To compensate them for the time
They’ve bottled up their rage

To cover bills and buy their food
And clothing, pay the rent
Do people somehow think
That volunteering’s time well spent

When everything around us
Has associated fees
(We buy natural resources, water,
Light, heat, air and trees)

Save workers from stupidity
And keep us free from debt
You can’t afford to go without
The things we do, and yet

You’d rather keep the cash
Than spend it on a junior role
So tell us why your profit costs
Another man his soul?

It’s a hard knock life

Caught between insolvency
And fast dwindling sanity
My mind slowly numbed
By the daily inanity:
To pay our rent and bills
That roll in despite my thrift
I prostitute my skills
And in limbo I must drift.
To utilise my brain
Or my imagination
At work would be insane
An idea far above my station:
The humble secretary
Must lighten others’ loads
Polite, always on time
And in nicely fitting clothes.
We mustn’t get too comfy
Or feel we are unique
As, impertinent, we’re fired
If we don’t turn the other cheek.
I hope my childrens’ children
Will not have to do the same
As what they term ‘profession’
Is truly a mug’s game.

A dystopian vision

A country left to go hang, its policies blowing in the wind like so many dead leaves, rolling across the bloated corpses of those yet clutching the reins of power in their vice-like grip of death.  The fetid air issuing from their purple cheeks only serving to stir up a small cyclone, spewing banknotes in a circle to help scatter the blame far and wide, sowing discord and discontent unevenly across the land, oozing mistrust and perverting the course of the rivers of truth to ensure every citizen has their rightful opportunity to know the bitter taste of fear.

Is this my land of plenty?  My Jerusalem?  This green and pleasant land has become a granite-grey terrain, a place of howling apes in media zoos.  Where once the sun shone down, reflected in the shimmering seas and rivers, upon the citizens at work, now we see, but dark skies and troubled waters, from the defeated couch-potato throne of the unemployed.  We gaze with disinterest at the hopeless perspectives issuing forth from the hi-tech plastic box in the corner.  We mark the passing of time, not by the seasons, or the light of the stars, but by counting the unnatural, tallying the vanishing wrinkles on each ‘celebrity’ face, and we wonder… What is to become of us now?

To those society forgot, an apology

To those without an education, those who yet remain our hope for a future we daily pray will never come, please know we are truly sorry – sorry that your future will be our present and that you, in your untrained ignorance, may not know enough to help us when it comes our turn, or that you, remembering past slights, may snub our pleas for aid in our dotage.

To those without a job, those who yet remain our hope for the future of the welfare state, please know that we are truly sorry – sorry that we shall never enjoy the fruits of your labours and that you will never know the peace of retirement, of rest after a good day’s work.

To those without their health, those who would be well, but for the want of a penny to pay the person to sweep the floor of the operating theatre, a penny that was pinched for a politician’s pocket-lining, please know that we are truly sorry – sorry that you will not live to see tomorrow and pay the new taxes that it brings to fund the paper improvements we will make to a service no one may use for it’s rightful purpose, but those who pay for the privilege of avoiding the laws and lists of the land.

To those without a pension, those who fought for their future, our present, who elected us and believed in our pompous, empty promises, please know we are truly sorry – sorry that those days will never come again, that more of you did not lay down your lives in glorious sacrifice for us to cry crocodile tears of hypocrisy and lay cheap paper flowers upon a slab of rock to honour the memory of the young, the foolish.

To all those society forgot, please know we are truly sorry.  Now please go about your business and stop bothering us.  After all, you have no one to blame, but yourselves.