Reformation

Maintaining ‘Socialism’ as watchword

Can seem unlikely, when realpolitik

Is succumbing to the three card trick

Of the slight of hand dealer in absurd

Demagogy, when the popular vote

Is placed on populist blandishments,

Falsified promises; reason relents

Its influence. Without considered thought

Reform, however tempting it appears,

Remains a mistaken gamble to make,

Especially with the future as the stake:

Gamblers regret can last for years and years.

There’s none as asleep as the mistaken,

Being so, so difficult to awaken.

D. A.

Patriotic States of Mind

Problem is not simply Zionism:

Nation states however constituted

Are, by definition, ill-reputed,

The foundation of discord and schism.

Meanwhile, picking on one to vilify

And then promoting another to toast

Is to risk taking route to holocaust,

In which not only the selected die.

Power may grow from the barrel of the gun,

But justice doesn’t, nor finds solutions,

As conflict grows from national illusions:

Poll the too many dead as to who’s won.

Patriotism might motivate crowds,

While patriotic flags turn into shrouds.

D. A.

Building for the Future

A venerable institution for sure,

Built on firm foundations, innovative

In its day, being a brand new way to live;

But, how much longer can it endure?

Those once firm foundations are subsiding,

The façade begins cracking and crumbling,

Its tenants and residents are grumbling.

Urgent maintenance takes some deciding,

With responsible parties contending:

A paint job might cover over the cracks,

Is repointing what this old building lacks?

Fresh render maybe? One not yet trending,

Demolition! That truth it’s time to face,

Then raise a whole new structure in its place.

D. A.

Barmpotocracies

Splendid possibilities there could be

For social progress of humanity,

If only folk didn’t tacitly agree

To preserving their barmpotocracy.

A state with a petite-Fuhrer posing

In a suit, fatigues or clerical garb,

Whose every perfidious word’s a barb,

Hooking those who have the formal choosing,

Making legitimate what’re really crimes,

Seemingly immunised against remorse,

Sole navigator of the nation’s course

Through dark and poisonous political climes.

It can be otherwise, everyone’s got

A choice; ourselves or follow the barmpot.

D. A.

A View from the Royal Observatory

From this venerable vantage, perched between

Greenwich and observed heavens, looking down

The sward, passed naval columns to the brown

Rippled Thames, to those going, those who’ve been,

Both tourists and commuters sailing by

Isle of Dogs and Canine Wharf, where blank glazed

Pillars of commerce rise, futures appraised,

While few, too few ever ask, why

Capital of the capital still stands

Unmoved below the ever changing stars.

How persistent the illusion that bars

Plotting the transit which could free all lands

From faceless malign economic powers,

Immanent within those glacial towers.

D. A.

Malevolence

By what malevolent mechanism

Does someone become so self-promoting

As to seduce voters into voting

In favour of division and schism?

For all such Herodians, innocence

Of those being killed and buried in their homes

Is easily dismissed. Victory forms

Its own rationale, though it makes nonsense

Of any claims to civilisation,

Which surely should be a society

Of the commonweal, where people are free

From obligation to any nation

And its capital. Power’s the sly drug

That so intoxicates the demagogue.

D. A.

Whither the Commonweal

Beyond flame, smoke and rhetoric of war,

Muffling hearing and dimming the vision

Of spectators lost to indecision,

Is there some greater purpose anymore?

Nothing’s resolved by strike and counter strike,

Disputation of sovereignty and borders,

The commonplace of following orders,

Whether with bow and axe, musket and pike,

Missile and drone, always the casualty

Is humanity. Victory or defeat

Figure in columns on the balance sheet

While profit’s the deciding reality.

There can be no leaders without the led

If they but choose the commonweal instead.

D. A.

Conflicted

Infallible leader! The Commander

In Chief, fashioning and refashioning

The earth moment by moment to bring

It into line with his propaganda.

Bothered neither by doubt or modesty,

He’s a political Janus who says

What he sees myopically looking both ways

At once: the world as he wants it to be.

He will make America great again

Through the power of his personality:

A few thousand deaths, mere banality.

First tariffs followed by missiles; but then

A new policy when the old won’t abide,

When share prices fall and markets decide.

D. A.

Telling Lies

Listen! ‘Tell me lies about Vietnam’*

And Suez, Korea, Afghanistan,

Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran…

War’s the very worst deliberate scam,

Always a gross act of misdirection,

By which the misdirected lend consent

To their leaders’ malevolent intent:

All, of course, for the good of the nation.

What does victory look like? Much the same

As defeat! Inspired by cupidity,

Or even hubristic stupidity.

To the Lords of Misrule it’s still the Great Game.

The news will be encouraging no doubt;

Appear bare-faced, ‘tell me lies about…’*

D.A.

*From: ‘To Whom It May Concern’

             Adrian Mitchell (1968)