Ah, Palmyra

We care more for ancient ruins
And destruction wrought on tombs
By whatever means they may
Than for lives that end today

While the blood and flesh and bone
Leaving everything they own
To escape the latest purge
Travel desert, sea and gorge

Those who voyage only land
On their uppers, close at hand
To the help they sorely need
Yet the politicians plead

Not to have to break their word
To the xenophobic horde
Those whose votes they barely won
From the hardened right, anon

Thus with bottle-necks and fence
We corral and harry hence
Workers that we sure could use
Grateful, welcome, unabused

Skilled and keen to integrate
To prop up our ageing State
In permissive company
Knowing just who let them be

As the fight takes to the skies
And the waves fill up with lies
We would throw away resource
Inconvenient and coarse

With no tally of the cost
Nor of what support is lost
Though our leaders might feel tall
While our borders stand, we fall

A slip of the tongue

Marry me! Cried at a vuln’rable time
Between couples provokes many things.
Though these words of themselves can be hardly a crime
Repercussions wreak havoc or rings.

For if spoken too soon, these two powerful mots:
Burly men tend to swoon, then to cut loose the ropes
And escape from the one they have just kissed goodnight
Before they feel the noose round their neck grows too tight.

But when this proposal comes all in good speed
And the other’s agreeable, vows it can breed.
Then the lovers cement with the promise they make
What in likelihood started as a small mistake.