O’ it’s Broken this Society

O’ it’s Broken this Society

O’ what is the sound of love aborted?
Does it hum, drum, thrill the ear
For a lifetime of waiting

Like in countries where freedom
Does not exist, where
There is no protection of law for the poor?
O’ what is the light so flush and clear
Does it color the distance bright

Like a star, or an angel of morning
Shatter the usual manoeuvres of morning, warnings?
O’ how do the scarlet soldiers fare?

Who have not life, not love, not house or cheer
They have no future, well, my dear
Only the sun as their weapon
Only the promise of tomorrow as their idol
With so cunning and misfortunate, opportunity,

O’ we have no fields to farm, anymore,
Or mothers and fathers, they have died
Before society became too ill, O’ what of the

Sad dark years to come, I can feel it
Impossible to prepare for the world that is coming
O’ what is the sound of hope departing?
Does it hum, drum, flash before our eyes
Does it dwindle, kneel, down to our last savings

Until we have to sell even, our
Most prized possessions, our dignity.

F o o t p r i n t s of Loneliness

F o o t p r i n t s of Loneliness

I am hunted by my father’s lack of approval
And haunted by my mother’s naiveté
How a family can live on inside
A psyche, for good or ill, but one day

Our parents die; we may even lose touch with a brother
The empire in which we were born
Might lose its world-power and prestige

Taunted by a ruined name, we live on
With each version of our childhood we remember
We must pass a threshold of regret

And carry a student’s debt into the decades
I don’t know if it’s secrets which I carry
Or simply the dread of ancestors and descendants
The broken chain that started with me

Hypnotized by shadows, too poor to settle anyhow
Our ovaries will dry up one day
And my fleshy handle won’t be operative

If I were a dream you could say I unravelled
My mortality, but truth does not matter here
Only that answers we tell ourselves at the end of a long day
And the souls who save us with kindness and security.