Capo di Tutto Capis

Two mobsters holed up, each in his own fastness,

Like Moran on the North Side and Capone

In the South. There’s the Bear who claims to own

The East, while the one who’s tame hoods address

As the Eagle, keeps the West Side firmly

In his grip through the protection racket

He runs. Each of them knows what to expect

Straying on the other’s territory,

But both harbour an insistent desire

To encroach, snatching at their rival’s patch,

Utterly careless, in the plans they hatch,

Of bloody casualties caught in their crossfire.

Each feels exalted on his lofty perch,

Loved by his people and blessed by his Church.

D. A.

Fault Lines

The real fault is not subterranean.

Speculators and their compliant state

Caring more for profit than people’s fate,

Or inconvenient regulation

Simply circumscribed by backhanded gifts.

Body after body after body,

Battered, broken, lifted from the shoddy

Where apartments dropped like free falling lifts.

Charity appeals are quickly begun.

Survivors become miracles when dragged

From rubble, as the rest are body bagged

While the media poses, “What can be done?”

Through all societies fault lines are found,

With capital standing on shaky ground.

D. A.   

Striking

The vote’s been taken, pickets are posted,

Placards hoisted, slogans given full voice;

Their situation leaves strikers no choice

As wages fall, while profits are boosted

At the workers’ expense. This feels arranged

As was the broad discontent forty years

Ago which surely must provoke fears

That forty years on nothing much has changed.

Inflation is still whittling away pay,

Governments of various stripes all show

It matters little how they come and go,

While the interests of capital hold sway.

Class solidarity may win, but then,

Gains secured will be taken back again.

D. A.

Emergency Call Out

Accident and Emergency is crammed

While ambulances queue in the car park,

A triage nurse frets, trying to make work

This seized up system, regularly damned

By comfortable commentators who

Cite bed blocking elderly for lying

In hospital beds rather than dying.

Others claim they’d have more funds flowing through

To pay for enhanced social care, and yet

Every penny paid towards such cost

Is a unit of capital’s profit lost.

So stringent limits will always be set

Whichever party does the fashioning:

Whatever the need there’ll be rationing.

D. A.

Going Spare

The illusion is that news is the news,

When it’s the media, by its selection,

Practicing the art of misdirection

Through deciding what the spectator views

In serious tones designed to convince,

Workers, who’re struggling for half decent pay

While services fail and inflation holds sway,

What a bonus is a disgruntled prince.

Extended interviews entertaining

The notion his life alone is unique.

Then, via book deals and his chance to speak,

Capitalise on his sad complaining.

Certain confirmation this world’s not fair

Being presented with a prince going spare.

D. A.

Facing the New Year

Janus standing on the threshold, his rear

View taking in the past fifty two weeks,

When prices rose again to higher peaks

As wages fell. It begins to appear

Food banks are for many possessed by fear

Of impoverishment. Meanwhile, war still seeks

Pyrrhic victories for psychotic freaks

Posing as helmsmen, claiming they can steer

Their ships of state to port in some promised land,

That capital’s already colonised,

Drained and reduced to destitution.

The climate’s taken more than it can stand,

While socialism remains unrealised.

Janus looks for New Year resolution.

D. A.

Merry Christmas?

It is Christmas days at the food bank,

Where patient queues wait in orderly lines,

While prices rise as the temperature declines.

Unheated homes become cheerless and dank

For those who’re working at two or three jobs

Yet still can’t earn enough for a whole week.

But if they demand more they’re damned for their cheek

Or branded as greedy, unruly mobs.

Remember how nurses were applauded

For the way they bore the pandemic brunt;

Heroes then, villains now because they shouldn’t

Ask for what capital says can’t be afforded.

There’s credit, which means debt and New Year bills,

All from the ringing of the Christmas tills.

D. A.  

Capital Gains?

The great dictator, being dictated to

By his own inner voice and ambition,

Declares his is a patriotic mission,

Insists what’s obviously a lie is true;

Dismisses any humane intrusions.

All those who stand hand on heart and salute

The flag, and do nothing to refute,

At least to themselves, such dire delusions,

Are as prisoners locking their own cell doors.

Such a loss leader, who cannot be wrong

Will slaughter others and his own young

By conducting his self-justified wars.

From his seat of power, rules without pity,

Isolated in his capital city.

D. A.

Inflation

By common consent, inflation’s a curse.

Man may not live by bread alone, it’s said,

But a few slices less if the price of bread

Keeps rising pence on pence, or even worse.

Why should the cost of things keep on soaring?

The wisdom of economic sages

Blames workers demanding higher wages,

A diagnosis it’s worth ignoring.

Because as every worker understands

This would mean the effect precedes the cause,

Like sowing the seed after the plant grows:

It’s high prices that trigger wage demands.

Far better that inflation be ended

Once money and prices are transcended.

D. A.

COP Out

Conference Of the Parties being fossil fuelled

Might be better known, to meet its function,

As COP, that’s Continue Oil Production.

Significant change will be overruled

To favour those whose intent is to foil

Advocates who would convince the meeting

Of perils of global over-heating

From continued use of coal, gas and oil.

Delegates jet in for a jamboree,

To be feted by lobbyists who insist

Temperature targets can be safely missed

A while yet; it’s all a matter of degree.

Certainly, emissions might be reduced,

Just as long as profits are still produced.

D. A.