Dispute

There is always a need to modernise,

Old ways of working are superseded,

Without real change progress is impeded;

It’s in novel thinking the future lies.

Technology advances to the point

Of labour not being so laborious,

Could work even become glorious

And not something that puts life out of joint?

Who would resist choosing a better way

Once the consensus has been apprized

That benefits commonly realised

Resolve issues of poverty and pay?

But for now, workers are forced to dispute

Changes capital wants to institute.

D. A.

Court Circular

(A Tale of Two Leaders)

One summoned to court in recognition

Of his leadership in commissioning

Bombing, shelling, blasting and reducing

Cities to rubble. True to his mission,

No matter what the human rights and wrongs,

Or the legal opinion of lawyers.

Another, once a lawyer who prefers

The statesman’s mantle and honorary gongs,

Who also had cities blasted and shelled

To wrack and ruin, the dead unreckoned,

Has been duly recognised and beckoned

To appear at the Queen’s court, having excelled,

In profiting from political barter,

To merit the Order of the Garter.

D. A.

 Inflation

The world, it seems, is a hot air balloon

With burners turned on full blast. There’s soaring

Temperatures, prices, and no ignoring

That all the while capital fuels the boon

Energising profits. Quantitative

Easing further feathered a nest or two,

Making fantasy money with the true

Recklessness of counterfeiters. Now give

A glance towards a prime minister here,

Or president there, whose vainglorious

Egos, puffed up with self-conceit, don’t fuss

Over being strangers to truth. It is clear,

Surely, unless we all want to be tricked,

For a better world, this balloon must be pricked.

D. A.

 Choice

It is not by force of arms or terror

That this benighted world can be remade,

There’s no infallible elite to aid

This process, nor leader without error.

Reforms have not brought such change by stealth,

Reformers fail, whatever their intent,

Career politicians are mouths for rent

By those rich enough to safeguard their wealth.

All can be transformed through the power of choice,

A new world without money, war and greed,

Commonwealth arranged to satisfy need

And all achieved through the popular voice.

World without borders, no national schism:

True democrats demand socialism.

D. A.

Where Truth Lies

It seems there’s a self-appointed elite

Who are the exception that proves their rule,

And consider it’s only for the common fool

To abide by their laws; such their conceit.

These are leaders, those special chosen few,

Rising like Messiahs above the herd,

Convinced that truth is a flexible word

And a word can mean what they want it to.

Should they ever be caught telling a lie,

It will turn out they had their fingers crossed,

Or, perhaps, truth is a lie that’s been glossed,

And who cares anyway, let it pass by.

Follow my leader is just blind man’s buff,

And while folk shrug, leaders are secure enough.

D.A.

Party Politics

The law’s the law, without fear or favour

Or it’s no law at all, merely the whim

Of law makers who feel they’re free to trim

Statutes to suit themselves. How they savour

The power of impunity they presume

Is theirs by right as they’re elevated

Above the common herd who are fated

To be the law’s dupes. There is always room

For any self-promoting succeeder

To cross fingers and then apologise

If caught breaking his own rules or telling lies,

Especially the Prime Misleader.

The blindfold on Justice slips and, too late,

Sees herself as a hostage of the state.

D. A.

Loss Leaders

The Great Helmsman! Father of the Nation!

Or king, or queen, or tsar, or president

Or panjandrum…whatever the intent,

Good or bad, honorific adulation

Sits ill with democracy. To be led

Is to surrender self to other’s whim,

To live or die in another’s name:

Cenotaphs list the obedient dead.

Someone motivated by vanity,

Someone focused on the national mission,

Someone blinded by personal ambition,

Someone with no sense of humanity,

Someone who’s so qualified to succeed

As leader, should not be allowed to lead.

D. A.

As Then, Now

Then Vietnam. And ‘Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh’

Was the chant by a hundred thousand, more,

In Grosvenor Square. Militant anti-war,

Pro Hanoi, ‘Vietcong are going to win!’

And win they did, B52s undone

By bicycles and the body bagged dead:

Surely, surely, the future would be red.

But then the reckoning, what had been won?

Low wage work and long laborious hours

As life in the red turned out to be debt

Servicing profit. Legacy of Tet

Was securing of capital’s powers.

Now Ukraine. Though sides have been rearranged,

So many dead and nothing will have changed.

D. A.

Loss Leader

Don’t place trust in leaders, leaders tell lies,

They’ll rousingly speak of national missions,

But in their hard hearts personal ambitions

Echo, and all humanity denies.

Their bellicose blather’s so much foul breath

That poisons the air in far too many lands,

They’ve got indelible blood on their hands

Spilled by those they mustered and marched to death.

Leaders talk of courage, dismissing fear,

Of honour gained through personal sacrifice,

Privilege of paying the ultimate price;

All the while the leader leads from the rear.

Though leaders may rise and leaders may fall,

Pity is, there’s no need of leaders at all.

D.A.