And thus the sunset beckons now the night As stars begin to glow and so reveal That once the dark has quashed out all the light The moon and stars display with wondrous zeal.
As man will walk in countryside by night Polaris shining bright to light his way Where pitch-black sky was not a unique sight He searches for that unspoilt place today.
For mankind spread and in his wake made light Which blurs the view of Heavenly array While phosphorescence glares so very bright We miss the wonders of our Milky Way.
Have we really lost our way Open warfare every day Perhaps if some could compromise Earnest talks could open eyes.
Sparing children from seeing death Plaguing memories till dying breath Rights of all, to live in health Interfering warmongers who all get wealth No money, the poor go to food banks Guess you dine anywhere if you sell tanks Somebody making a fortune from others.
Each bullet fired can kill someone’s brothers Talks round the tables among heads of state Extracting solutions before it’s too late Roses should be given by lovers on a date Not on the gravestones of victims of hate Armageddon is the end-game we fear Let’s step back from the edge, it’s dangerously near.
Where now the promises of five years ago We’d all feel much better, but do we, O no! Some having now to use a food bank Children are learning in schools that are dank.
The roads have become a sea of potholes Zero-hour jobs not much better than dole Fewer police officers walking the beat Feeling secure is becoming a treat.
The man at the top expounds thoughts anew Deputy man has a different view University fees we won’t let them change In government though such things rearrange.
Rich businessmen avoid paying tax Down below credit cards teeter at max Inflation comes down as they try to impress But energy bills never get any less.
The silent majority keep a stiff upper lip As their security starts losing its grip But it gets barely noticed in the Westminster bubble For those less than rich will always spell trouble.
Naturally, of course, there’s a different view From politicians cast in a different hue All trying to wheedle their way to get votes Filling our heads with more promissory notes.
Imagine if you will it’s December next year Do you feel right now that you have less to fear? Or is it the case that nothing has changed? Just the furniture in Downing Street got re-arranged.
Maybe in fact it stayed exactly the same And we voted back in this bad lot to the game We can blame ourselves later, when we see what we’ve done Ensuring that actually, we’ve really not won.
Thinking back now, knowing it wasn’t then the same Sex lives free and easy and the rest just a game But recalling the names of my friends from back then I find they’re so few now and I miss those young men And I bless that I knew them as I take up my pen.
It was a time they called ‘swinging’ in the press of the day But those of us there at the time just made hay As we carelessly staggered through our wild teenage years Racing round in cars with bad brakes and crunched gears Till we arrived at adulthood and took on new fears.
Some of us got married and our lives felt complete A few drowned in alcohol and lived on the street While others tripped out just that one time too many On the drugs that were freely available to so many You literally could get them at ten for a penny.
But most of us moved on and we raised families With mortgages or rent life was no social whizz And our children carried hopes for things we’d failed to do Such an ordinary tale that reflects me or you But it all helps to bind us together like glue.
Now we find ourselves older and wiser perhaps Managing to sidestep some of lifetime’s worst traps And we pause for a moment and think of those days Many of them spent in a drug-induced haze And we’d not change a thing, we just shifted our gaze.
His pain from fire was seen round the world And Governments’ collective lips all curled Such profanity was displayed without a care A King left the runway as his jet took to air. Leading his people against this vicious attack It began long ago and there’s no going back They’re baying now for the terrorist blood He’s sure to know it will come to no good.
So many wars and so much fighting And so much bloody death New children are brought into the world Where wars just rob them of their first breath. Everywhere now seems awash with the blood With the blood of the Innocents While the world is slowing destroying itself In human inflicted increments.
Has man ever really stopped and looked at all the beauty that Nature has cooked arrayed throughout the world to see by stumbling humans like you and me.
Deserts filled with shifting sand moved by winds and Nature’s hand creating dunes of epic scale compared to this we are so frail.
Rill and brook, stream and creek all a river’s end they seek as they head for oceans wide moving always with the tide.
Filled with fish of every size sometimes caught for dinner’s prize and on their trek it’s life or death they struggle on for every breath.
Through the forests these rivers flow passing trees whose names we know they’re the lifeblood of our world new breath with every leaf unfurled.
Too often though we cut them down turning green land into brown and yet somehow there are still flowers grown by Nature’s greater powers.
They brighten days in glorious hues so many colours, too many to choose in meadows watered by rivers’ flow past those trees whose names we know.
And on to seas with sharks and whales the mighty Blues with their giant tails whose flukes are wider than football fields what majestic beauty the ocean yields.
To care for our planet we would do well it’s a living thing not just a shell it isn’t ours to destroy and maim it’s future health should be our aim.
Wizened by the hardships of his life he moved his tired old body to the edge, it took him longer to get out of his bed these days, but get up he would for if there was one thing he had learnt it was that time spent in bed was time lost in the fields and the crops didn’t pick themselves, of that he thought he was sure, though he couldn’t quite remember why.
He sometimes wished that he had not been so adamant about farming in the old way – a bit of that confounded modern machinery would sure help sometimes as digging potatoes across all those acres was hard work and he’d been doing it for so long he was beginning to hate the blasted things – he certainly never ate them, preferring instead to eat all his food from cans as a way of getting his own back on some other poor so and so who probably hadn’t broken his back at harvest time for sixty years.
Dad – Dad – it’s Tom , Dad, your son, never mind Dad, perhaps you’ll remember me later. It’s alright. What potatoes? – It’s alright Dad, let’s sit here and you can tell me – no please – please Dad, don’t cry – please don’t cry. I know Dad I miss Mum too. I wish I could explain Dad I really do.
Why does this horrible man always keep me from my work, I’ve got tomatoes – – potatoes to pick, tomatoes, potatoes, well I’ve got to pick them anyway. Why should I sit down? Tell you about what? I’m not going to tell a stranger where my potatoes are, or is it tomatoes? I’m not sure now. I must sleep – I’ve got lots to do, I must be fresh when I start.
Dad – Dad – you sleep now then. I’ll just be in the next room. Perhaps – perhaps we’ll talk a bit later. I miss you Dad………….
[This is a repost that is a direct response to the continuing cuts in services within the NHS. The front line are doing the work with one hand tied behind their back. This is one of those services. One in three people over 65 will develop dementia and there is currently no cure. There is also inadequate funding in both care and research.]
I didn’t realise. I was a fool Just another government tool Beavering away, working hard Until I got the pensioner’s card.
And now my ancient bones all ache I’ll need NHS for my health’s sake But a third of contracts in sickness’ fray Like my local hospital, they were given away.
People’s views all treated with disdain The Health Service reeling from such internal pain While the wealthy go private, it’s simple for them The ire of voters won’t be so easy to stem.
Jovis on a Journey... 