Destroying Legacy
By jfarrell
For profit,
Legacies are being destroyed.
My children’s home, for example,
And social housing trusts.
Long before I, or many of us, were born,
Rich, caring people, ‘philanthropists’, we called them;
Left great areas of land and building
IN TRUST!
To be used for social housing, children’s homes….
Hospitals, schools, the list is endless;
A hundred years before I was born
A rich person entrusted his lands which became my children’s home.
That piece of land, holding 25 houses, for children in need,
Was sold for one, solitary, single pound (british);
And each, now private, semi-detached house
Sells for a quarter of a million pounds.
Whether a hundred years ago, a person left housing,
Or today, you build a school…
Because tomorrow we make money selling it…
What real legacies are there left, or will remain?
They will sell it.
As midnight approaches
By jfarrell
All my life prophesies are becoming….
Or so they shout;
The end is nigh, day of judgement,
Day of reckoning.
When USA dropped their bombs on Japan;
That was the real…. you heard the toll, too, didn’t you?
The toll.
Midnight had struck.
Cuba, Bay of Pigs, started the clock all over again;
You’d think they’d have learned….
The rest of the world got drunk, had lots of sex
Got rich, or got poorer, and forgot about everything important.
And that’s a big part of why we are where we are today;
The world might blow up tomorrow;
Me, myself and I, is all that matters..
For tomorrow we may die.
It’s never been the bombs that have scared me;
It’s always the people who might push the button;
North Korea might, coz they really think Trump won’t;
Trump might, coz he don’t like anyone thinking he won’t.
Blowing up women and children
By jfarrell
If you wanna blow up women and children -
- in fact, hurt children in any way -
If you wanna drive a car into a crowd of pedestrians;
You would be kept alive and awake with drugs
As we cut the skin from your screaming body;
Alas, no pain relief
You would be kept alive,
Screaming, dripping
Literally a bloody sight
I don’t know if it’s possible for skin to grow back,
After being so completely removed,
But, if it does, great
We get to skin you again and again and again
And stream it on live tv;
Terrorists? You with the bomb
You’re no different than my dad,
He could only hit the wife and kids, such a big man;
I should fear you?
Come, sit with me, talk,
See the visions my god shows me
Then you will know terror
Vivlaldi’s Four Seasons
By jfarrell
“Hello, you are through to…” whoever you called;
“You are in a queue.”
Why is it always Vivaldi’s four seasons,
And I don’t know which.
I don’t know much about classical music,
I’m more a Queen, Marillion, Metallica,
Kinda dude…
Why are we being forced to hate Vivaldi?
And I know it’s the Kafkaesque part,
I should ask about…
I phone number ‘A’, am told to phone number ‘B’
And round and round till I get told I’m spose to be
Speaking to number ‘A’
But, why Vivaldi?
If it was Abba,
I reckon more people would be less pissed off.
I don’t even like classical music;
Why am I spose to hate Vivaldi?
1. Many people ask one's culture-
2. “I'm Hispanic-”, “I am Caucasian”, “I am Asian”...
3. But I'm not African American or Nicaraguan.
4. I am not American nor Southern;
5. I am Otha Grimsley,
6. I am my father.
7. Role model attitude, stern personality.
8. Systematic living, holds his dignity.
9. Never just says, he always does.
10. “Eat right, talk right, walk right.”
11. That's his slogan.
12. His children are his own,
13. He's proud and knows we've grown
14. but we're always Daddy's Babies
15. Even when we're old.
16. Growing up in society,
17. Between two clashing environments.
18. Constantly breaking through harsh words of my peers,
19. And reciting the lectures about being closed-minded,
20. To the obnoxiousness and ignorance,
21. That heavily surrounded me.
22. Not just with my peers,
23. But now with my mother.
24. New marriage, new personality.
25. That seems to be the case.
26. “You were never this way.”
27. For me, she's now pictured and displayed,
28. Like flowers in a new vase,
29. And on a clean canvas,
30. She paints a herself new face.
31. Arguments and miscommunication,
32. One day, the pinnacle of my patience arose.
33. “Why won't you just talk to me? This is your problem!”
34. No... I refused, this was not the problem.
35. “I can't talk to you, you never listen!”
36. The shadows of those words were my feelings,
37. Bottled up for two years, with my silent tears and anger.
38. I can't trust you, stop trying!
39. My head screams in agony, as I plan to see my father.
40. I've been pushed around too long,
41. I have to get away from you!
42. “If you walk out that door, I will call the cops!”
43. Her desperate attempt to frighten me,
44. Only made me worse.
45. How dare she deny my right to see my father!
46. “Call them! I'm not doing anything wrong!”
47. My feet are pounding on the concrete,
48. My eyes leaked hot tears,
49. Like water boiling over the sides of a pot.
50. More anger drew more tears,
51. “I'm such a horrible mother!”
52. “No, don't say that, you are not...”
53. You're not the victim!
54. My tears suddenly spilled as she wins all the glory.
55. She gets solace, as I get pounded with forsake.
56. As my escape arrives,
57. I gather my thoughts, my tears and my belongings.
58. I hop in and sigh.
59. Finally, my turn for solace.
60. As I spend the weekend laying on relief,
61. And still sipping on reminisce,
62. I believe I made significance in the house.
63. Things aren't the same,
64. Actually quite awkward...
65. And begin to play tug-of-war with,
66. Wow, I feel bad...
67. And no I needed to do this.
68. But overall I decided to stick with my stance.
69. Although I returned, to new a house with stiffness,
70. I thought maybe I can get used to this.
I didn't know they package coffee like IVs
tubes, into our bloodstream
13 hour work days
it's madness
Caught up in all this traffic
from the suburbs
to this gateway to hell
all these workers dazed
drunk under the wine of greed
Boris Johnson as Delboy Trotter
By JFarrell
“El dolce est decorum…” he says
Waving a hand nonchalantly
Just because he uses Latin phrases
Doesn’t mean he’s using them correctly
Like Delboy with his French phrases
And his ridiculous heavy south London accent
The pronunciation exaggerated his ignorance
Of what he was saying;
Boris uses a posh accent
And everyone falls for the super-intelligence act.
If “Allo, Allo”, “Only Fools and Horses”
And “Upstairs, Downstairs” had a love child
Boris would be it.
Don’t laugh
With how our current prime minister is doing
He could be our next Prime Minister
Leading demand for a second referendum on Europe
Leading the Remain campaign
And he’d probably end up
The most popular prime minister ever
The Problem
By JFarrell
The problem: War
Why do we have war?
The big boys, the US, Britain and Russia
Sell the guns and tanks to either side in every war
The problem: Unclean drinking water
Why? The wars we enable pollute the land
But, also, we have water-purification tablets;
Why do we not give these away, free
Stop people dying through lack of safe drinking water
The problem: 30 dead in a burned out tower block;
Why? Facts (not opinion): the less fire resistant cladding was used;
Fire services did not have equipment capable of reaching the higher floors
There should start your ‘Public Enquiry’ now.
In these times of austerity it was not cost-efficient
To use the slightly more expensive cladding
Or ensure our fire services were properly equipped
Profit before people is today’s world
Profit is the be all and end all;
Profit and wealth are not the only important things.
People are important, more important.
Think on this, you rich, wealthy people…
Apartheid had to adapt to the fact of there being more black people than white people, or face revolution.
There are far more poor people - people with nothing, people with little, “hard-working, honest families” - than there are rich people.
Vive le Revolution :-)
28th Day Sober
By JFarrell
(“All the people in the world, they have the chance to change things;
But they must think and work and dream,
And break some rules, to change things.
They must change.” John M Watts of Fischer Z)
I am still sober on the 28th day,
But with the London Bridge attack, last night,
Forgive my lack of jubilance.
I have had to be determined to get to this place; sober,
And I have new determination
To learn Arabic, to destroy this ideology, with poetry.
You can’t fight lies with lies;
You can’t fight hate with hate;
So truth and love are the only weapons we have.
And WORDS.
And it is words that started this mess,
Since the beginning of time.
No god has ever asked MAN to war, fight or hate;
No god ever wrote a book:
Gods make mountains, rain, love.
MEN write “these are the words of god”
MEN who want power speak “in the name of god”;
And, please notice I said “MEN” - this is not my hidden sexism poking through;
MEN cause this.