X Marks the Spot

Prices are rising, real wages falling,

The climate’s becoming overheated,

Public protests gradually deleted,

While the death toll of warfare’s appalling.

Politicians maintain the status quo

If possible, at least that’s their intent,

No matter which party they represent,

Just so long as capital’s profits flow.

‘Spurn the ballot box!’ some radicals say,

‘It only lets the government get in.’

But power is there for people to win

Through choosing real change come election day.

On the map to the future everyone’s got

Look carefully for where X marks the spot.

D. A.

Vision

Not twenty-twenty, hindsight’s myopic,

Vision clouded by misapprehension,

Seeing things, whatever the intention,

That are similar to a conjurer’s trick.

Political sleight of hand deceives the eye,

Bouquets of promises plucked from thin air,

Only for each of them to disappear

In a moment. And today the same sly

Misdirection is still there to be seen;

How it fascinates, bamboozling all who

Suspend their disbelief and continue

Mesmerised by blue, red, yellow or green,

Dressing up blatant legerdemain

To dazzle the spectators once again.

D. A.

Hands That Make the Arms

Benighted hands employed through industry

To manufacture such grim munitions

That make possible bellicose missions,

Whereby martialled workers deliberately

Seek to slaughter martialled workers they see

As holding enemy positions.

Such tragic results of these attritions

Doing naught to increase their liberty.

Most surely those hands are able to grasp

That the ever mounting loses of war

Mean mounting profits continue to soar

For those few with industry in their clasp.

Rather than following, fulfilling orders,

Hands can chose to reach out across borders.

D. A.

Socialist Stanza No. 10

Three Good Friends

Three good friends met amongst the stalls

Gathered round the market cross,

Where commerce and competition

Determine profit and loss.

The first said, ‘Here people can choose

From this copious display.

Whatever they want they can have,

Just so long as they can pay.’

‘While it’s not so,’ the second replied,

‘For those too poor, that glitch

Could be cured by taxes that don’t

Impinge too much on the rich.’

The third friend had a better thought,

A simpler way to proceed,

‘Get rid of cash, prices and stalls,

Then let folk take what they need.’

D. A.

The Landlord

 Inflation seems inexorable,

No prospect it might relent.

Where’s the cash for heat and food bills,

School uniforms and the rent?

The landlord’s not unreasonable,

His property well maintained,

But it’s not his fault or concern

If tenants’ incomes are drained.

It’s just a matter of business,

Not moral dereliction;

He is not unsympathetic,

But still pursues eviction.

For him, the house is not a home,

But an asset that must earn.

Yet, if rent’s unpaid, then it’s just

Capital without return.

D. A.

Socialist Stanza No. 4

The Socialist Way

Meandering and uneven

Appears the onward road,

And few the hopeful travellers

Who have set out abroad

Towards the shared destination,

Beyond those distant hills

That can seem too steep for climbing,

Which commonly instils

Reluctance to take the first steps,

Although most would advance

If they could be persuaded it’s

Not too great a distance.

Maybe tomorrow the journey

Might finally make sense,

Or will the road be untraveled

For generations hence?

D. A.

Mars Attack

Mars looks down from the heavens on

Yet another war set in train,

Fought face to face and by proxy

Across and for the Ukraine.

While presidents and their minions

Make claim against counter claim.

Though broadcasting their differences,

They are all really the same.

Not one of them prepares accounts

Of ordinary lives lost,

As long as their stock is rising,

It’s an acceptable cost.

The present main protagonist

Is, of course, evil or mad.

Such is the accusation made

By the bombers of Baghdad.

D. A.

Statue of Limitation

Set high upon a lofty plinth

From flawless marble fashioned,

A great libertarian stands,

An advocate impassioned

By the ideal of tongues being free

To speak at will, unrestrained,

Brooking no dark despotic moves

Towards having words detained.

This patrician rhetorician

Raised in the free market place,

For all his lofty appearance,

He’s a second, hidden face

That looks in favour of free speech

And open democracy,

“Unless,” his cold eyes seem to say,

“You dare to contradict me!”

D. A.

The Conscript

He nearly always switched channels

When it was time for the news,

Decidedly unaffected

By the war they must not lose.

After all there’s beer and fashion

For a lad not yet a man,

Girls, and video games to play,

A future without a plan,

A course for him to be chosen;

It’s enough to be alive,

Not thinking of tomorrow; then

The call up papers arrive.

A few weeks initial training,

Swapping fashion for fatigues,

While men in braid and business suits

Pursue self-serving intrigues.

The front line must push on forwards,

So the lad is quickly led

To the heroic offensive

And yet still a lad, is dead.

D. A.

Drawing a Line

Draw a line all along the Irish Sea:

On one side the waves are Irish, of course,

Or maybe European, where the source

Of trade remains nominally free.

The other side is where Britannia rules

The waves that lap on her sovereign shore,

Even though sausages in Belfast cost more

Than Westminster’s, where the parliament of fools

Exercises its independence

By braying at each other like asses,

While another act of nonsense passes

In stark contradiction to common sense,

That might well dispense with such disorders,

By choosing to abolish all borders.

D. A.