sobering
North Star
shadows and a steeple
following the road to the bank
and another
cashing out
I hold on
to my husband’s hand
up inclines
up stairs
up and up
we’ve never been there
seeing the duskbow arch of clouds and pink
holding half a pizza
and a serving of Tagliatelle with sauce
walking off our unpaid meal
cashing out
serving up euros to Sicilian
of Germanic origin
the subtle path of lowing shadows
loving the path of lovers
needing to cool down
it’s Frühling Spring
On the 7th day of Christmas
it was new year’s eve,
and on that midnight 2025 ended
- just like that -
with the poof of fireworks.
Did we have to rush right into 2026?
No. We could have talked about it,
and come up with a better alternative.
We’ve all seen money
- you know, dollars, euros and pounds - right?
Those little pieces of paper have no intrinsic value
- we all just agree on their worth.
We should've channeled that extrinsic power and agreed on something else,
Like deciding that the year after 2025 would be 2029.
You know, the midnight when 2025 ended - poof - 2029 could’ve begun.
We’re all adults - must we amortize this horrible mistake we made?
Think about it - Donald Trump would’ve been out of the White House in days.
Or is it the ‘Trump-Gold-House’ now?
It’s hard to keep up with CrAzY.
.
.
Songs for this:
That's Me Trying - William Shatner
Gift cards, can it be stopped
How the swindlers begin a nice letter understand
The problem you have because of the pension that does not allow you to hire a person to help
Yes, they are so helpful, they can help if you send
Them gift cards instead of cash, they will help
It starts with a sum of cards at a value of 1000 euros, so you send the cards and, not wait they need more gift cards to cover the cost. Ok, so you send them the card and they promise to send you a packet with money
So you wait, but then they want more gift cards at a value of hundred euros, by now even a dick head understands he has been swindled
The next step is to alert the law, but the swindlers have flown away leaving no trace. They even enlist your own family to rob you of your savings
Money set aside to pay for doctors and home help
And so on
The daylight ghosts
I took the bus to the village
it didn’t stop there anymore, and no buses were going
that way.
The only road to my house was a track
For tractors and mules.
In my absence, wartime was hard
I met a man who
if I paid to drive to the village for a few Euros.
My old dog sat outside, and I took her some
moments before it recognized me
glad to see me.
The door was open.
I walked into the kitchen.
A man came out of the living room
He was surprised to see me.
He had moved in since the house was empty
The owner had disappeared.
The dog lives in the shed, he said. Not anymore
I said. I have nowhere to go, the man lamented
In that case, you can stay for a few days.
I took the dog for a walk in the woods
On the other side of the tracks, she liked that,
It disappeared, and I couldn’t find my way
back to the house, and the village had gone.
A person with a golf club in his hand told me
The tiny village had been razed years ago.
I had no business being here as it was the future.
And there was no way back to the old days
I had nothing to do here, and I walked towards the horizon.
Why death?
Why not life? Why not the Life? Why the Death?
Why humanity is its death factory?; Own. See?
What is the reason for this sad reality?; Meaning?
Self-killer humanity, self-destroyer of life. Speaks life?
Oh, yes, we can see a lot of humanistic news in life
But there are more sufferings, crimes against humanity
A lot of government, some groups, and others
are spending money on guns and war; innovation??
Yes, also. Investment? Yes too. Technology, logistics
Technology? Logistics? Yes, we have. High-tech are all
But there are other ways to use these things, but what?
To help create a modern world and prosperity, where…
… there is none. There is none. This a good question
And what about the future? Where we will live. Here?
How much longer do we live here? Eight billion people?
I am not sure. We concentrate on war and kill our kind
So many billion dollars, and euros for destruction; Sad
The better way to invest is to make life on another planet.
Why not?
Good business
And life is on
Will be on
Life on
The bric-a-brac shop waits on Rue Nationale.
In a sleepy French town.
It opens at ten,
And closes at one,
Till three.
Then on till seven in the evening.
Madame opens the shutters
Before going to feed her little dog,
Hettie.
Hettie's toenails clip clop on the ceramic tiles.
Madame feeds her green beans and tuna from a tin.
Hettie barks.
Madame sits at her counter
And waits for mail.
A customer comes in.
"Bonjour!"
"Bonjour. Ca va?"
A deal is done on a 1920s doll.
Three hundred euros until Christmas.
A good gift for a collector.
But no more customer's today.
All is quiet.
Evening comes.
Hettie barks.
She eats and drinks.
Madame is always kind. Hettie knows.
She clip clops to her basket again.
Madame thinks about her man in England.
She smiles, but no-one sees.
She shuts the shutters and puts out the lights.
Another evening alone with Hettie and the TV.
Her man is waiting. Her man is waiting.
Footwear and a mendicant
After going to several shoe shops, I found shoes that fitted me
happy, I walked along and saw a woman sitting on the pavement
begging, she looked old for her age severely marked by poverty.
I stopped and looked for change; I didn’t have any, the woman
waited, what to do now?
I could not walk past, like not noticed this wretched soul
I gave her a note of ten euros and cursed myself, but it triggered
a memory from my childhood.
Mother had gone into a shop she had stamps to buy woollen socks
nylon socks were for the rich; a lady walked past, saw my holed
tennis shoes my brother had outgrown.
She went into a shoe shop, came out with a pair of black shoes
gave them to me, they fitted perfectly; I couldn’t wait
showing them to the children on our road.
Mother came out in her hands had the woolly socks,
I showed mother my shiny shoes; take them off, she said and
put the tennis shoes on the new shoes are for Sundays only.
My t-shirt was bought on vacation.
It pictures a Vespa in front.
On seeing it, I felt elation,
Completing my souvenir hunt.
A kiosk outdoors was displaying,
With other reminders of Rome,
The shirts for which tourists were paying
In Euros to pack and take home.
I wear it and I can envision
Those tees flapping out in the breeze.
I bought it with no indecision,
Just know-what-I-like expertise.
An object can oftentimes trigger
A memory flash in the mind,
Investing it with enough vigor
That moments don’t get left behind.
There it goes
sliding down the throws
of market drop
just when you thought you were on top.
Look at it plunge
sinking everyone's 401s
and to think the government
once wanted to invest
in Wall Street's continual mess.
No worries
relax don't hurry
all those CEOs and financial gurus
hid their payouts, not in euros.
Millionaires and billionaires
have neither worry nor cares
with loads of currency to spare
and you in your beleaguered funds
fall low and lower expunged.
It's okay, we've seen it all before
foreclosures, bankruptcies for the poor
there always tents and boxes for the homeless core
what's a few unnoticed more
the rich can easily close their doors.
The visit to the past
I took the bus to the village
Only it didn’t stop there anymore, and no buses were going that way.
The only road to my house was a track.
For tractors and mules.
In my absence wartime was hard
but I met a man who for money could
drive to the village for a few Euros.
My old dog sat outside it took some
moments before it recognized me
it was glad to see me. The door was open.
I walked into the kitchen. A man came out of the living room
He was surprised to see me.
He had moved in since the house was empty
The owner had disappeared.
The dog lives in the shed, he said. Not anymore
I said. I have nowhere to go, the man lamented
In that case, you can stay for a few days.
I took the dog for a walk in the woods
On the other side of the track, she liked that
It disappeared, and I couldn’t find my way
Back to the house and the village had gone.
A person with a golf club in his hand told me the small village had been razed years ago
I had no business being here as it was the future.
And there was no way back to the old days
I had nothing to do here, and I walked towards the horizon.
I used to be German of true Prussian decent
These days I am European to my content
Travel without passport for thousands of miles
Meet people of all kinds who offer their smiles
Am free to live work and enjoy in 27 countries
Which is how it should be and is rather funky
No customs control no one inspects my trunk
Whether I seem established or look like a punk
Don’t need traveller’s checks or money conversion
Use what little Euros I have on all my excursions
Journeys are user friendly for the average folks
Just think what supreme liberation that invokes
One extra bonus if you want to voyage up to an old age
These days we are not fighting wars and hostile rampage
We may happily live and not die for some sort of madness
Ideology foreign conquest or industrial military apparatus
The EU brought decades of Peace to a once belligerent place
‘No ... Sherlock’ to understand that we are one human race
05th June 2019
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY : XV & XVI
XV
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were the Treasury Secretary
I'd outlaw all big-time " companies " who beg for money
Especially those who beg in the name of the Almighty
I'd write virulent circulars on how to cajole Him through litany
To wheedle trillions of dollars euros yuans rupees throughout Eternity
That is, if ever I were the Treasury Secretary
And even if I never ever had no country
XVI
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were the Minister of Finance
I'd make every charitable organization head dance
On a tight rope stretched from here to comeuppance
For wasting nearly all what we give them on bribes penthouse mags and stamps
And take them on a tour of the streets and hovels littered with hungry children and tramps
That is, if ever I were the Minister of Finance
And even if I never ever had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 5, 2018
TIPPY TAPPY FOOTBALL
Tippy tappy football, I hear the pundits say
That's not proper football, that's not how you play
Tippy tappy football, now what's that all about?
Why can't they play like our lads and take the player out
Tippy tappy football, it's a generation thing
Six players through the middle and no one on the wing
Now tippy tappy football will never quite catch on
It's slow and it's lethargic and next year it’ll be gone
This tippy tappy football that the Spanish want to play
It's pass and move and pass and move and keep the ball all day
This tippy tappy football, It’ll be the ruin of the game
Why can't they shoot or make mistakes, it's really very tame
Tippy tappy football, now what's the great big fuss
We like blood and thunder, so it's really not for us
Yet this tippy tappy football, it's on the up and up
It's helped Spain win two Euros, and one Jules Rimet cup!
Pounds, Dollars, Rupees, Yen
Time to stop this if we can
Impossible, I know but still
When money rules, it’s all downhill
Euros, Pesos, Shekels, Krone
What the evidence has shown
Happiness does not equal wealth
Dividends do not foster health
Francs, Rubles, Riyals, Rand
How much more now can we stand
The quest for riches overtakes
Killers, liars, cheats, it makes
Love, kindness, fancy free
That’s the currency for me
A pound of friendship, worth its weight
There’s no cost to aggregate
Brexit Sonnet No.2
‘Precious Time’
One Billion earned takes patience, faith and years.
To calculate it out on goodly pay,
It’s twenty thousand years of sweat and tears,
Twenty thousand years with little say.
Yet glibly do we quote this awesome sum;
To use an average wage it’s even more.
Thirty seven thousand years ‘till done.
Beware this sum; it’s more for rich than poor.
One hundred millennia for Brexit’s wayward turn;
So grab that trunk, shake that moneyed tree,
To gullibly pay again for what we burn.
So please don’t spend or trade this time for me.
Disgorge your Pounds and Euros by all means,
But waste not my precious time on useless dreams.
©Keith Murphy
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