A New Dawn

How do we face the slaughter
Of fathers and their daughters
When we're part of a system
That leaves their lives without order?
Government disorder,
Integrity? Tall order,
Forsaken by the devils,
They're the devils on our shoulder,
A history of telling lies,
Promising the sun will rise,
But nature follows nature's course,
And that's where liars coincide,
Breeding animosity,
Invested in austerity,
Fueled by the deprivation
That it subsequently breeds,
Knowing what the people need,
What you sow is what you reap,
Showing us an oasis
And throwing us into the sea.
You eat it up, they spit you out,
They feed you lies, they sow that doubt,
You let that hatred grow inside,
And cast a vote to cast us out,
Coz this is where the problem lies?
Infiltrating, spreading lies,
Blaming others for your drought,
Bumbling Boris breaking ties,
Disbelieving people's cries,
Justifying all the lies,
Spurning all the kids out there
Just trying to stay alive,
Cuts are systematic, organised,
Breadline coping normalised,
Puff go all the services,
Privatised and polarised,
Food banks now outnumbering,
McDonald's, oh please unspin,
Wake me from this nightmare that
We find ourselves deep within.

Change it up this December,
Make it one to remember,
And do it for the many,
Let us all come together,
And never let yourself forget,
Change is always within reach,
So reach out, make a change,
Be the change that you preach,
Reach out, make a change,
Be the change that you seek,
Reach out, make a change,
Be the change that we need.

Ramadan Muslims

There's this guy who, wait, how can I make you understand? Is the kinda guy you'd only ever see in Ramadan - a phony? Perhaps. Eleven monthly lapses, now a portrayal of something he ain't? Bleakly emerging from the underworld as the monthly saint - he is - turning away from the whites of eyes that roll back in judging heads, he chooses the month to worship and devote himself instead.

He'd never hear the comments as much as he'd see em, but they were always so plain to see, "part-time Muslim" is what the eyes said, fickle fault-finders couldn't let what was, be. But this year, the winds carrying change blew harder than ever before, and the one scorned and disgraced was adorned and graced, presenting sincerely at his beloved's door.

Indeed I saw the one shunned for his pointless ritual that "wasn't made to last", riding ahead of the pack, not once looking back, down a track enjoyed only by the steadfast; in their preoccupation, they'd barely noticed his station, as he excelled to a place they could not go, their brick walls for brains oblivious to his progress, a vision blurred by the ugliness of ego.

With both hands do I shake his both hands which I pray will be raised with my name in the mix, his every whisper and cry pierces heaven's eye, so glad tidings to yesterday's derelicts.

Hollow

The taste of fatigue and hardly moving a muscle,

A standing man compelled to his side as his heart and mind wrestle

One another re the past and the present and the hollowness of his vessel,

Wondering whether the emptiness is a necessary feature

To purify and remind us forgetful, temporary creatures

Of the purpose and permanence of that which lies with the Creator,

Like a shell reminds its listeners of the sea and the sea shore,

Or perhaps symbolic of our empty hands at arrival and departure,

An emptiness insatiable except by His love and a desire to reach her,

But indeed He made us social creatures,

So maybe it's just me and maybe I just miss her.

So I'm thankful for better times despite not showing thanks then,

And I'm thankful for now to make up for thanks in lieu,

Reminding myself that I'm just in transit passing through,

And that this transit lounge is another man's life, another man's hell hole,

And while I move on into the light, for him there's just tunnel and darkness and his hollow passage,

So death to sadness, death to darkness and death to death,

But until that final breath,

And until that final hollowness,

We wallow not in that which wishes to consume us

But trail hopefully in the darkness

With firm conviction that there's a light.