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| Rob Harle |
The baptismal fonts decay
and information structures
breed like alien dictators;
fat rubber stamps rot slowly
as the assumption of integrity
collapses under hypocrisy's vengeance.
Force the young to live in gutters
squats and cardboard cut-outs,
build your National empires grand
which rest on stumps of misery;
your status rises, temporarily
with every option to oppress.
The young who only want a chance,
share the air and blood that's yours,
even more they trust you with their care.
Just like Judas you betray
not once, not twice,
but your enshrinement in the Chamber
perfects a continual betrayal
of lies and graft and horror.
Even as you drown your mind
and whisky spills across your soul,
you can't escape the burden of their hope.
Councillors of heavy hype and hail
empty, heartless, barren,
your life is a useless farce
if you sleep warm and weightless
when your children cower and freeze
in the sewer of your mind.
The Guillotine
Our global village waits
numb with disbelief
as the invisible decision rises
hovering high above humanity;
the particles of death honed
sharper than any rapier or razor.
The Rainbow sails as David,
across a dancing darting ocean
at peace with dawn and dolphin
to meet Goliath's genocidal guillotine.
Nurses, scientists, farmers chant
Chernobyl: Chernobyl: Chernobyl:
Vacant homes on abandoned farms
stare back at empty hospitals;
records, medical notes, paper bits
stained by blood red rain
lie in the strange ashen dust,
and our global village cries.
They speak in constructions of liberty
but the syntax is one of dire deception,
their empty sentences
sentence every living organism
and echo across the sinking vortex
of an earlier Rainbow vision.
And we are silenced by superiority,
by the rhetoric of arrogance
and impenetrable imperialism.
And our global village screams,
Stop! Stop!
The guillotine has shuddered down
a hundred times or more,
down, down, down,
each descent disgorging
the inner hearth of Hades.
Evolution's history writhes
and the mutations wonder why,
at first the monstrous babies
with three hearts, no arms or eyes
are gently euthanized,
but the frequency of mutation grows
and our global village dies.
NB: The Rainbow Warrior was a peace protest ship involved in many actions to help save our planet.
The Sign of The Beast
The 21st century icon stood before me
glistening black and chrome
inviting, seductive, sensuous
DC ATM - all cards accepted
Fees Apply.
Security video 24-7 hovers above
guarding the cash excreting mouth.
The DC ATM is silent,
strategically located
midway between Supermarket and Butcher.
Pet Mince 99¢ a kilo
Hearts – Brains - Kidneys on special
Today Only.
Then - THE SIGN - assaults my eye
clean, crisp and callous,
black letters on white-cold metal
fixed to a filthy drab-grey concrete wall
protecting the cash excreting mouth.
No Skateboarding
No Bike Riding
No Scooter Riding
No Loitering
No Begging
Thank you – Centre Management
No Begging – No Begging!
for whom is this sign intended
the questions begs?
The white middle class consumers?
DC ATM cash grabbers?
Little kids on scooters,
their mums one step behind?
I think not!
Indigenous people come and go
quickly passing the slick black DC ATM,
not looking at the sign
or the filthy drab-grey wall.
A mindless act of cultural vandalism,
has stained the air,
flagrant social discrimination,
stings my saddened eyes.
The Centre Manager
obese and crass,
full of self-importance
in a cheap polyester suit
waddles past
secure in his position of power.
His complacency a deadly trap,
The Wheel is always turning!
The Dulling
an ancient rusted farmhouse roof
the red-brown weathering of time's been cruel
it's witnessed by a million stars each night.
storms have lashed the shiny silver, dull
children born beneath this sturdy mantel
have long since gone their wandering ways.
the hearth and home deserted, bare
watches through the shattered glass
of weary woeful windows
the building of a four-lane strip.
another fast, black-paved
white-lined highway to hell,
connecting nowhere to nowhere.
an ugly fence of sickening green
goes on and on
along the further side,
a barrier to dull the noise of traffic agitation.
behind the jail-like fence
a putrid pox is growing,
the red-brown brick boxes all the same
the red-brown tiled roofs all the same
the silver television gallows all the same
they're there to reinforce the dulling.
Not one tree does this Wasteland grace.
The Colour Of Greed
Paint the colour of greed,
a sickly phosphorescent yellow-green
rising from the foetid waters,
a burning acrid colour – deadly.
More gas wells are drilled,
more corruption fuels more corruption
anonymous investors burn with greed
a yellow-green poison mists over the land
a land in the tremors of dying,
the frogs and lizards long gone.
As a child I drank the water pure,
flowing through forests of energy
in streams through fields of swaying grass.
What do I tell the children?
How would Monet paint the colour of greed?
How do I explain democracy – a deception?
What is majority consensus – a bad joke?
How do I paint the politician's auras tinged with black,
glowing with sickly yellow-green?
Farmers and mothers and greenies – unite,
forging deep connections,
a solidarity for sustainability.
Yet still the yellow-green-black politicians lie
their deceptions the manifestation of cancerous evil,
Dear children - I am so sorry!
Ledgers of Creation
Enter into this deep loathsome secret
your anachronistic education cannot save you,
my therapist collapsed into oblivion
as I recited the formula for her,
the equation for nano-genetic-conflation.
The seeds are all in Patent Process
The seeds are all in Patent Process
animal DNA is following fast,
precise catalogues of life
Ledgers of Creation owned by the few.
Bank vaults bulge with vulgar obscenity
as plastic wads of worthless cash inflate,
traded on the Stock Exchanges of insanity
where Piranhic feeding-frenzy riots daily,
the blood wrested from the Everyman
'till only a dry and empty bag of skin remains.
Shylock reigns supreme in this deep secret
with raw blood slopping down his chin
as he devours his every "pound of flesh".
