Meating Need

Don’t set an Amazonian ranch hand

To cut or burn the rain forest for beef,

As animal husbandry is the thief

Of earth. Pork and mutton degrade the land

No matter how organically they’re farmed.

Then, however well-tended, there must be

The trauma of the slaughterhouse, To see

A grassy grazing meadow is to be charmed

By an idyll, concealing the bolt gun

And letting blade. Also, there’s the methane.

Yet the world can be fed all its protein

Once precision fermentation’s begun,

And three quarters of farmland reconciled

To a natural carbon reserving wild.

D. A.

COP27

Climate in crisis, temperatures soaring,

Hurricanes vying with droughts to be worse

And humanity’s primary curse,

As sea levels rise. It’s worth restoring

Equilibrium surely? And yet,

Perhaps the problem is just too intense:

The only response, another conference

For politicians to attend by jet.

Banquets are arranged, discussions begun,

Though radical measures are rejected

If it seems profits might be affected,

Even though all say something must be done.

A strong resolution, they’re all for it,

Until they fly home and then ignore it.

D. A.

Climate for Change

When, three hundred million years ago

Lepidodendra, solar sponges, fell,

They were pressed deep into the earth. A slow

Transmutation from toppled tree to coal,

Petrifying sunshine, eons before

The first human eye looked upon the world

And sought to abate the dark and the cold,

Beginning to dig into nature’s store:

But human industry will have its way.

While those who exploit power for their own ends

Have grown careless of the way profit tends

To determine the climate’s desperate trends.

A choice to be made, socialism’s sense

Or capital’s storm, famine and pestilence.

D. A.

Marketing Democracy

A government of quite bewildering

Incompetence, so fiscally inept

The currency crashed. It can’t accept

Responsibility for what’s occurring,

Proffering excuses and platitudes.

Rather than letting the truth emerge,

Ministers are pretending they’re in charge

By not letting reality intrude,

Because reality’s quite sinister.

Elections held, but the ballot box hides

From voters it’s the market that decides:

It hardly matters who’s the prime minister.

Vote right! Vote left! Stand on the centre ground,

Enjoy a free choice – while profits abound.

D. A.

Kakistocracy

Mark the rise of the Kakistocracy,

Misrulers of wherever they occur,

Prime minister here, a president there,

Or some such grandiose sobriquet.

Falsely claiming visions they don’t possess,

Being rendered myopic by vanity

They can no longer see humanity;

Making worse every problem they address.

Politicians who are vulgarly dense,

Enriching the rich, impoverishing the poor,

Slaughtering our young through their acts of war;

Gross mismanagement through incompetence.

But they only rule from their gilded towers

Because people surrender them their powers.

D. A.    

Orthodox View

Patriarch in robes sown with gilded thread

Before his glistering altar stands,

Holding the Gospels in jewelled hands

Firmly proclaiming what those scriptures said

About swords, plough shares and the Prince of peace,

While praising the president and his state

And damning their enemies to their fate,

His cheek unturned. It is time to release

The apostles of war to bless with shell

And shot hospitals, nurseries and schools,

Wherever the innocent or such fools

Seek refuge in such a Christian hell.

This prelate seeks power as his word dies

On his lips, with him being Lord of the Flies.

D. A.

Losing our Heads

Too many place their trust in queens and kings

Or posturing, self-promoting presidents.

But where’s the difference? When to all intents

And purposes, whether birth or ballot brings

Them to throne or office, each for all the pomp

With or without benefit of election

Become the focus for misdirection,

Hoping none see the trick by those who romp

Away with the profits and disappear,

While the esteemed leader of the nation

Receives the expected adulation

From all whose vision’s presently unclear.

But what meaning for any head of state,

When the spectacle fails to fascinate?

D. A.

 Must the Show Go On?

When, finally, a monarch’s life is spent,

Then a precisely scripted spectacle

Is enacted, highly political,

It becomes a theatrical event.

Cue republicans who are expected

To heckle from the fringes, even though

There would be a very similar show

For a head of state who’d been elected.

The crown becoming dislodged by fate

Poses the point, what need for any head

Of state is there, either living or dead?

Indeed, why have a nation or a state?

 Only when capitalism’s interred

Can a leaderless future be inferred.

D. A.

 X Factoring

Votes cast and counted, there’s the liberty

Of one hundred and sixty thousand choices

Choosing without forty million plus voices

Being heard. Such is bourgeois democracy.

The “first amongst equals” is selected

According to the whims and partial views

Of Tories. Whoever might win or lose

Little can reasonably be expected

Beyond measures intended to serve

Capitalism’s best interests, its state

Designed to serve its purposes and fate.

And yet, the unconsidered still reserve

The power of all the present process mocks

To transform their lives via the ballot box.

D. A.

Doing Business

Twenty twenty two; six years of Brexit

And the Tory headed plan realised.

Surely then, no one can be surprised

Their country is actually in the shit.

British sovereignty means freedom for sure

For every water company that dumps

Raw sewerage overflows through off-shore pumps,

And each beach becomes an open sewer.

This septic isle set in an ordure sea,

Where pursuit of profit and private wealth

Must take precedence over public health:

Such is this effluent society.

Lapped by crusted waves of filth, Britain sinks

While capitalism literally stinks.

D. A.