Comfort Food (10a)

COMFORT FOOD

Eight folk own
Half of the globe’s wealth*
They’re all men
(Mais bien sûr)
As boys loved Monopoly
And never grew up

~~~~~~~~~~~

*A recent report by Oxfam International highlights the dramatic rise in income equality by noting that the combined wealth of the world’s top 8 individual billionaires is more than the lower half of the world’s population, some 3.6 billion people. The intention of the report was to bring awareness to the unfairness and injustice inherent in our global economic system.

Just 8 Men Own Same Wealth As Half The World.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Shadorma November

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Casualty (A Four By Six)

CASUALTY

Casual racism
You see it everywhere
Never casual though
For its recipients

The Daily Grind (Reposted)

THE DAILY GRIND

morning well wicked early still
when alarm bell rings

unglue gummy eyes
peer through foetid gloom
grope around to kill it
sniff up last night’s stale breath
puke worthy – and you expected?

quick shower, squirt and spray
baited hooks set – and dreams
“I swear (s)he fancies me”
a hopeful phone trills – eyes gleam
and stick it in your ear – “hi”

now on your mark, get set
and go, raging or else uncomplaining
by crammed tube or heaving bus
or through poison-pumping gridlock
noxious hell whichever option

a compliant commuter – a clone – a costumed clown
stuck up the back end of a pantomime horse
blindly galloping into thunderous oblivion
holding your snotty nose to the grindstone
scrounging shekels to fuel your shakey schemes

yes, here’s the life you were schooled for
to be laid on the butcher’s chopping block
to hang ripe for the black reaper’s picking
next to our attempts to heal our broken hearts
keeping food on the table is their sharpest weapon

but pity the overseers in their turn
the restless scuttling tinker men
well heeled tepid heartless overlords
with their eternal fear of the rank and vile
whose oversensitivity is such a bore

do they lie in the dark wakeful
awaiting the day their own alarm bells ring?

Standing Rock

STANDING ROCK

I have a struggle
In comprehending those

Who are using rubber bullets and tear gas
On these unarmed and peaceful protesters

How far they have lost their way
Since their birth as innocents

I wonder what lives they have endured
To have them land up in this dismal situation

Still, you do get a kind of identity
And the uniform and weapons come free

DADT (1994 – 2011) – A Villanelle

DADT (1994 – 2011)

Welcome to one Private’s unprivate personal hell
Let’s drink a toast in honour of Benny
Shot through the heart by “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

A spiteful, misbegotten fear cloaked in a pious shell
Let’s drink a toast in honour of Denny
Welcome to one Private’s unprivate personal hell

Discharged to stop them tainting other personnel
Let’s drink a toast in honour of Jenny
Shot through the heart by “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

There’s no marker on the battlefield where they fell
Let’s drink a toast in honour of Kenny
Welcome to one Private’s unprivate personal hell

Just to speak their love’s name was to rebel
Let’s drink a toast in honour of Lenny
Shot through the heart by “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

They understood prejudice only too well
Let’s drink a toast in honour of Penny
Welcome to one Private’s unprivate personal hell
Shot through the heart by “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

——————————————————————

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT)

Obliquity

OBLIQUITY

Strange
how the waitress gets the tip,
when it’s the cook
who produced the meal.

Above The Law Man

ABOVE THE LAW MAN

As electric as a taser in a uniformed hand
Reduced to casual use by habituation

As savage as institutional bigotry
Sworn to protect (but to protect what?)

As passionate as a true believer
Stone-blind in his black and white world

——————————————————————

This is a “Three Word Wednesday” contribution.
(http://www.threewordwednesday.com/2015/01/3ww-week-no-409.html)

Seed words: “Electric”, “Passionate”, “Savage”.

Twin Towers

TWIN TOWERS

They went on and called
The World Trade Centre
The Twin Towers
Despite Tolkien

Despite Tolkien

Despite Tolkien
They went on and called
The World Trade Centre
The Twin Towers

They didn’t do irony

They honoured profit instead
Even in their hometown*
Morgoth and Sauron, Saruman
Shiny windows, shiny cars

Shiny lives

And to them malice only existed
A world away, when somebody
Usually with funny coloured skin
Dared to get in the way

Kiss of death

September the Eleventh, Two Thousand and One
Business as usual, a bright sunny day
Suddenly all that certainty and security gone
A truly impolite awakening, for sure

A quite rude awakening in fact

I worked out from way back
Not to keep saving drowning people
Better to sort out the villains
Who were busy dumping them in

And laughing

So I spent the morning, then the afternoon
Sure it would arrive, claiming responsibility
Just three words – Enough Is Enough
Yours sincerely, Oxfam

Big disappointment

——————————————————————

* “But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.” (Mark 6:4)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“It’s tough to counterpoise hot-button issues with rationality.” – Russ Baker

Please note that this poem is not intended to imply any disrespect to the people who died when the World Trade Organisation buildings were destroyed, nor to the many thousands of people who have been killed or had their lives disrupted or destroyed as a consequence. This poem is not about Al Qaeda. It is not about the high impact of an instant “terrorism” attack but the slow motion obscenity of induced poverty and starvation. So while all that light is being shone today on what we are expected to concentrate on – the events at one particular place on one particular day thirteen years ago, here’s another little spotlight on the same events, but from another perspective on what the World Trade Organisation represents and its impact on the suffering of not thousands but millions of people all over the world every day.

“As we move deeper into an age of misinformation, disinformation, and superfluous information, maintaining our collective memory will more and more depend on honest information brokers; storytellers, journalists, investigative reporters who pursue a story with a passion and hunger for truth.” – Bill Berkowitz

“We use the madness to separate the events so that we don’t have to recognize the politics they have in common. The madness of each individual act enables us to distance ourselves from the politics that burn under the polite society we’ve created” – Bill Berkowitz

“Why, in a world that produces more than enough food to feed everybody, do so many – one in seven of us – go hungry?”
– Growing A Better Future: Food Justice In A Resource-constrained World
(http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/growing-a-better-future-010611-en.pdf)

Equal Or Not?

https://www.change.org/p/paul-pugh-please-change-the-regulations-for-civil-partnership-conversion-to-marriage-so-civil-partners-wanting-to-convert-can-have-a-wedding-a-marriage-certificate?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=123005&alert_id=AoKpmtndis_%2FEaRUCV1zYVvLpYkAZ9szQh5c4P6lc1qB2Nk%2FI8dqx7uXO%2Bb2cvJT1jsG6iDDIEA

The Courtroom

Still hard to believe “At Last” has never been released on CD. At least this track (and “In Time And Space”  are now available on YouTube. But not my favourite, “Picture Of Blue” alas. This was released in 1973. And not too much has changed. Anyway, enjoy. 🙂