Justification

A world of bellicose tribulations

Spawns advocates prepared to justify

Why it’s right and proper others must die

In order to preserve the nation.

Barbarians just beyond the borders

Are prepared to kill our sons and daughters.

And so, a self-defensive slaughter

Of their children is perfectly in order.

It’s with heavy hearts and heavy bombing

That the moral high ground is defended

And violence might finally be ended

Once the violent can be sure what’s coming.

Any who protest or call for a halt

Are in the enemy’s camp, by default.

D. A.

Tongue Tied

Self-appointed people’s tribunes shout

And chant that righteous death be visited

On those proclaimed other, who, it’s said,

Challenge righteous certainties with doubt.

Ernest professed defenders of free speech

Then demand banning of hate words they see

As inimical to democracy:

Language isn’t allowed beyond the law’s reach.

All too readily from good intentions

Voices may be silenced, tongues shackled,

Stopping difficult issues being tackled

Through a malignant state’s intervention.

 But then, advocates for better times to come

Can be confounded, arrested; struck dumb!

D. A.

By Any Means

Atrocity can be excusable,

Once it’s justified by necessity

It seems. The bombardment of a city,

Or a hospital being hospitable

To wounded, injured and maimed refugees.

Shooting the young at a pop festival,

Cutting power and water to instil

Panic and despair, unleashing disease.

The blame lies squarely with the others side,

Always. All-out assault is an advance,

Not an attack, an act of resistance,

To defend property and national pride.

And there are benefits to martial harms,

Great profits from manufacturing arms.

D. A.

Cutting Earth

Take a spade and cut a sod one spit square,

Lift that clod of earth, then identify

Precisely where the roots of the nation lie,

Has a border line been drawn clearly there,

Showing where one soil ends and the rest starts?

Judge just how heavy it is and appraise

Yourself as to how many lives it weighs,

Estimate the number of broken hearts

Required to thoroughly saturate it

With the blood of martyrs, or supposed foe,

Or simple patriots who think they know

Their national story. When they relate it

Though, they find the fiction reveals that earth’s

Everyone’s, everywhere, of equal worth.

D. A.

Empty Vessels

Parliament’s suspended, it’s conference time

For the law givers, the makers of rules,

Sailors all in the sinking ship of fools

Foundering on the rocks of Capital’s crimes.

However they go about bailing out,

It makes no difference as to which crew

Is at the helm, nor, it seems, does the hue

Of the flag they serve under. Without doubt,

Whichever course they navigate, it’ll prove

To be in the wrong direction. No choice,

For those press ganged aboard don’t have a voice

Unless they mutiny, seek to remove

Those they’re expected to understand

Are possessors of both the sea and land.

D. A.

Look Forwards

History as yet unmade shall be the judge

Of present intentions, whither they pave

A destination either good or grave,

It is not enough to hold an image

Of what might be, but then not realise

It in reality. This world won’t change

Unless people decide to rearrange

Their situation from that which denies

Free access for all to what is needed

For lives to be lived well as possible,

A worldwide commonwealth to enable

Human potential to have succeeded.

This present is merely the passing sum

Of what’s been: look forwards to what’s to come.

D. A,  

Football Belongs To…

“Football belongs to everyone”, or so

The TV trailer dribbles, with moving

Images of goals scored, shots saved, proving,

With men and women, girls and boys, there’s no

Inequality in the people’s game.

Except, of course, clubs are the property

Of potentates, those with the equity

And leveraged deals, their motives the same,

Premier profits. Players simply assets

To be bought and sold, fans are consumers

With no control over what occurs;

Promotion, relegation, crippling debts.

Football belongs to everyone et al?

No! The whole game belongs to capital.

D. A.

Wages

From slaves in chains to serfs tied to the soil,

Such was the arrangement down the ages,

Until folk were freed to work for wages,

But their lives still remained bound up with toil.

The world has become a market place, where

Nine out of ten only have labour power

To trade for life, selling it by the hour

For much less than what they produce, with spare

Value above and beyond what is paid

In salaries. Those one of ten who control

The wealth of this world would take it all

If they could as profits have to be made.

And so, by legal sleights of hand and stealth,

The wealthy extract from workers their wealth.

D. A.

 Value

A nail or a nuclear reactor.

Each is a product of human labour,

Raw materials transformed by neighbour

And neighbour into something rather more

Useful than ore and unharnessed energy.

Both are products of all the work required

In their making. Workers only being hired

For rather less than whatever may be

The value they create, the difference,

When the total value is divided,

Is taken by those who have provided

The means whereby work works its immense

Power to create. Though those means come through

Workers previously creating their value.

D. A.

School Failings

September dons its academic gown,

School bags are being packed, pencil cases filled,

Parents, if not all students, largely thrilled;

But don’t be hasty, schools are falling down.

Look out! Look out! The concrete is cracking,

Classrooms crumble and the roof could fall in,

Lock the gates before the term can begin,

It appears integrity is lacking

From the whole structure. Keeping down the cost

Was, remains and will be the situation

Whoever forms the administration.

Labour, LibDEm, Conservative – they all

Prioritise profit and capital.

D. A.