Looking at the affairs of this world my emotions sway from tremendous optimism, to abject despair. You look towards the Middle East and North Africa, and you see a swath of the world that is awash with blood and suffering, with daily deaths and destruction on a massive scale, the hand of the new era of capitalist imperialism. Trying to grasp the scale of the suffering and deprivation seems to be beyond our minds. How can we allow such misery to be the sum total of so many people's lives? War, power, greed and destruction, seem to be the only tools this rotten system can bring to bear on people's lives.
Winter
Dark malefic clouds crowd the sky
winds carry the stench of carrion to every nostril,
the crazy ape has followed the faculty of hawks.
All around stand crows, magpies, jackdaws, vultures,
edacious eyes anticipating their putrid feast.
A weary Cassandra laments;
doves, hearts weeping for a better yesterday
forsake their olive branches.
Dark malefic clouds crowd the sky
winds carry the stench of carrion to every nostril,
the crazy ape has followed the faculty of hawks.
All around stand crows, magpies, jackdaws, vultures,
edacious eyes anticipating their putrid feast.
A weary Cassandra laments;
doves, hearts weeping for a better yesterday
forsake their olive branches.
Then of course we direct our eyes to the relentless struggle of those ordinary people, to shatter the grip of this cancerous system. From all corners of the world people are standing up and defying the power of neo-liberalism and its imperialist intentions. People are coming together and linking across borders in what they know is one struggle, one war, the war of the will of the people against the greed of raw capitalism, You have to stand back and gasp in admiration at this power and solidarity, and know within your heart, we will succeed. We can look at each other with pride knowing that this war is like a relay race, we take the baton and run with it, knowing that when we have run our lap, there will be somebody else there to take the baton and run further.
I’m Proud
I’m proud of my people, proud to be one of them,
that great mass on society’s bottom rung.
Those who, with coal-dust under their nails
in their eyes, in their lungs
claw at the earth's entrails.
Their brothers,
cement in their hair
in their mouth, in their ears,
oil ingrained in their fingers,
on their face.
Sisters, glistening with sweat
midst the ceaseless noise of machines
that throw out shirts, shoes, toys, carpets
for other people.
Those with soil and sweat stuck to their skin
smelling of the earth, feeding the multitude,
grinding out their lives in a harsh pitiless system
weighted down
with a sack load of half-dead dreams,
sometimes brought to their knees
by a tidal wave of despair,
never defeated,
groping in the dark to find tomorrow,
keeping hope alive;
they amaze me.
Somehow, from somewhere
in this cold, cruel
unforgiving scheme of things
they find love for their children.
Not a teaspoonful, not a cupful,
but buckets full, to bathe them in,
to pour over them.
They seem to know
that one day this world will be ours
and to take care of it
we will need those who have been loved.
