What do we say to our children?
What did you do daddy?
when the butchers
knocked at the door
sharpening their knives
to cut with their smiles
What did you do daddy?
What did you do daddy?
when the thieves
in grey striped suits
sat at the cabinet table
ready to cut with their knives.
What did you do daddy?
What did you do daddy?
when the nurses and doctors
worked too many hours
and had no more time
to look after us or you.
What did you do daddy?
What did you do daddy?
when all the teachers
working too many hours
had no more time
to teach your children.
What did you do daddy?
What did you do daddy?
when all those liars
with their crocodile smiles
did what they did
and wanted to do anyway.
What did you do daddy?
What did you do daddy?
When all the taxes you paid
bank-rolled the bankers,
the liars who thieved our Services
and skinned them to the bone
What did you do daddy?
What will you do daddy?
Now the services are gone
and the rich get richer
and the poor get sicker
and no one’s listening to you.
What will you do now daddy?
What will you do daddy?
When coronavirus
Is killing the old and the young
And all the others in between
And the nurses and doctors
Have no protective kit
Have no masks to shield them
And there’s no tests
Cos everything’s run to the ground
Are you clapping daddy?
What are you clapping for?
©robcullen2020
In the UK we have been subjected to an experiment in political ideology called “Austerity” … all public services have been cut to the bone and beyond in the name of an unproven economic theology that's based on greed and making the few richer!
Now a virus — long foretold but ignored — has emerged and puts the politics to the test. However, the generation of politicians we see bluffing their way through, acting with an authority they do not possess and with no knowledge of what virus’s are capable of — and without the equipment to make society safe, continue to pretend they have the answers. The charade must go on above all else! And lest we forget, over and above all other duties, the politician is mandated to keep society safe!
And so we are forced to watch puppets going through the motions, the pretense of being in control!
Meanwhile in every country, including my own, we have to endure the direct results of this political experiment — the deaths of so many of our families, friends, those we know if only from a distance and our countrymen and women who have been buried in mass graves.
In all countries people are having to cope with the grief of sudden loss!
This poem is about a friend who died late last year — not of cobid-19 but of old age. Loss is being felt everywhere and an empty space has been left everywhere. I don’t want to here the glib words and empty expressions of a political fool at this time. Enough! Enough of these stupid shenanigins…Enough!
The space you left is vast
The rain held off for our arrival
I knew you would have laughed if I told you
we’d travelled to your funeral by train
so we stood with friends waiting for the beginning
of a service — a mass of all things — in a scaffold wrapped church
bedecked with corrugated gun grey cladding
your coffin had lain in this place overnight
I suppose there’d been no vigil
the old ways no longer serve, no rites
old ways are set aside, so just cursory farewells
and so it was that you were left alone
to begin the journey of your ending
the plaster of the church walls long perished,
crumbled and falling, a punishment maybe,
for the priests’ abuse of so many small children
a community of victims in silence remains,
and you a non-believer unable to protest ,
lying unseen, in silence, for once in your life.
I sit open eyed, while empty prayer words are mouthed,
I stand in silence, while once familiar hymns are sung,
as I thought of you my friend, and what you’d make of this.
On this dank grey morning, in an Autumn graveyard,
I watched you laid beneath the turf in seeping clayed earth,
not far from the place of your birth, and all your memories.
Rain swept in while walking away, a gravestone caught my eye,
five children’s names, a year between each birth,
marked out on jet black stones — life etched in months.
Remembering your voice, at our last meeting,
still raging at the injustice of a government — so cruel,
of its rough trod way of breaking poor people,
of trying to destroy a small community -
that birthed you, succored you, raised you,
and the close knit family from which you grew.
I wonder whether the space you leave will ever be filled?
And so the small leaves come fluttering down,
to quietly cover the place where you lie now.
©robcullenoctober2019
Peter Lenaghan 2nd August 1938 to 20th September 2019
And so another adventure begins….
