Ten 4 Ten
(1) The Thinker.

The start of a new decade, the second
of a young millennium; optimism has fled
consumer led prosperity was an illusion
that drove nations to delirium.
Hope and change promised to rearrange
the old world order. Change came too fast
and hope, the refuge of the lost,
was a chimera. Changes cannot take root
if they have no room to germinate
and change on top of change
made a quicksand on which to build our dreams.

Somehow we lost religion
and failed to gain philosophy.
Shaking off the priest’s tight hold
we did not replace the Nicene creed
with self-control. Asceticism is dishonoured,
self indulgence triumphs.

Around Pacific’s rim and West Africa’s shore,
beyond the boundaries of Rome’s
empire of the mind, in cultures left behind
two thousand years ago, new confidence blooms.
The north’s omnipotence is dying.

(2) The Economist

Selling, buying. Buying, selling.
The economic model swelling, fed by trade.
From trading salt and skins and grain
to selling debts and dreams for gain
trade has driven progress.
The monster must grow John Steinbeck said,
and to grow it must be fed
always with more, never less.
If the monster cannot grow it dies
exposing the fallacies and lies
that built the world we live in.
Rome’s Empire of the mind transformed
into an empire of dreams and fantasy.
Promises of prosperity, a better world
that always lay just beyond the next mountain
drove nations on. We could reach the goal
if we all will give a little more.
So humans allow ourselves to be enslaved
because the monster must be fed.

(3) The Politician

We are dying Egypt, dying,
China, India we are dying,
there is no use in trying to cure
the great malaise. The west’s days
of dominance are done and now
in company with the setting sun we sink.
The wolf opens it’s mighty jaws
and Sol Invicta is swallowed.
The stones of Albion crumble,
In Langue d’Oc: the oriflamme
goes up in flames. The sturdy Gothic Oak
is bending, Athens and Rome are memories.
Columbia is dying from sea to shining sea.
Is there no way we may save this culture
on which we found our nations,
no sanctuary on hallowed ground
that offers protection for the life we made?
We are dying Asia, dying and as we fade
a new world order rises, supra – national,
one culture, one land without borders.
One political entity ruled by one elite.

(4) The Banker

I made a mighty fortune
in the initial dotcom boom,
doubled up my money
when I ran a Ponzi scheme.
Bought into Enron early
and I sold out at the top
then property provided
another fruitful crop.
Sold off all my holdings
in the months before the crash.
I bought gold when others sold
because they needed cash.

In all my time I never turned
a sod nor turned a screw
though I hold in very high regard
simple minded fools who do.
My skill lies in ensuring
no opportunity is missed
when it comes to making money
trading things that don’t exist.

Let others bash the metal
or plant seeds in the ground
it is Investment Banking
that makes the world go round.
I break the seal on Champagne corks
while others break their backs
and wonder why I grow so rich
while they pay so much tax.

(5) The Industrialist

First they closed the coal mines,
tin mines and iron mines
and called it progress.

Next they closed the cotton mills,
smelting plants, steel mills
and called it progress.

Then they closed the car makers,
engine makes, machine makes
who made looms and lathes
and generators
and they called it progress.

Now they close the warehouses,
offices, clearing houses,
soon they will close the call centres,airlines and shopping centres
and tell us it is progress.

Can we all make a living
from servicing another’s need?
Who is left to turn the screw
or plant the seed?

(6) The Teacher

It has been called dumbing down,
this stripping away of our humanity.
It will destroy the things the social anchors,
culture and community.
Lessons ridicule tradition,
make science a religion
and teach an ever more complex syllabus
to ever less receptive minds,
conjuring deceptive statistics to justify
a widespread inability to read
with true understanding of meanings and ideas.
In recent years merely knowing
the names of words has been enough.
In mathematics too
what good is it to know differential calculus
for one who has not mastered addition.
History is being rewritten. Slavery is
the white man’s crime, not a fact of life
since the dark time before civilisation
when nothing was black and white.
A critical analysis of the past’s realities
is meaningless without consideration
of past imperatives that shaped decisions.
Without understanding, knowledge is only data,
information open to misinterpretation.
Without culture to provide the theme
how can we fill in gaps left by unknowns
and deliberate omissions.
If we cannot think for ourselves and dare
to be wrong, will we still be this human breed?

(7) The Environmentalist

Mathematical models emulating God,
omniscient and omnipresent
apply their linear reasoning to predict
nature’s non-linear cycles.

From equinox to solstice,
from age to precessional age
the turning of the wheel is fixed but not
the turning of the page.

Thus while science tries to be predictive
humans must be reactive to nature’s whim.
The Sun knows no nuclear physics
but is a nuclear reaction.
 

The winds forego matriculation;
the tides can’t even count
and no amount of wishing
can change that.

Nature existed first, science described it later.
The past can never alter but a political agenda
can bend the facts to present’s need.
If we would succeed in alleviating
consequences of materialistic greed,
we must not meddle with nature
or try to cheat the fates. The seasons
and the ages turn inevitably.
Earth will survive but humans must learn.

(8) The Subsistence Farmer

The rains are late again,
the rivers dry. The crops all die
in parched fields. Cow and goat
will not yield their milk
while they graze on pastures
baked and bare.

And when the storm clouds come
rain falls so heavily
fertile soil is washed away.
Is God angry with us or
are the old gods taking revenge
on we who have abandoned them.

People come from university
and government to help.
They move around, take measurements
write things down and promise
They will find an answer. Then they
go away again and nothing changes.
 

Neither prayers nor ologies can help.
Neither aid nor apologies can compensate.
Mother Earth mocks us, her spoiled brats,
as the stars look down. The crops
still wither, cow and goat still die
and children cry from hunger.

(9) The Realist

I tried to hit the bottle,
got lost in soaps on my T.V.
swallowed all the tablets
and mainlined therapy,
but still I cannot shut my eyes
to injustice, fear and pain,
the needy keep accusing:-
their empty eyes contain
a catalogue of our failures,
war, avarice and greed,
hypocrisy and righteousness.
The love of self our only creed.

The pious who would ban abortion
condemn an unloved child,
the quest for profit sets the price
as crops rot in the field.
A pharmaceutical panacea
may help us through the day
but there's no profit to be had
from curing a poor man's plague.
The rising waters ridicule
the mighty S.U.V.
and every lifestyle magazine
destroys another tree.

So here I stand conscience in hand
to ask what I can do?
This world we made points all to trade,
the exit routes are few.
Try to understand those who demand
far more than their fair share
commit the poor for evermore
to squalor, want, despair.
Its time to eat the bitter fruit,
to face the truth at last;
each continent has been exploited,
the golden age is past.

The worm within the apple
rotted it to the core.
Poison flows right through the system
from the mountains to the shore.
The fearful cry to heaven,
but heaven turns away,
only the brave can hope to save
the environment's decay.

(10) The Child

Will this be all you leave for me,
this broken toy?
Did you enjoy
spending my legacy?

A few explainers:

The John Steinbeck reference in (2)alludes to a passage in The Grapes Of Wrath

We are dying Egypt, dying (3). Much quoted and little understood line from Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra. Anthony, putative Emperor of Rome, addresses Cleopatra using the Royal "we" as the personification of the state while Cleopatra (Egypt) is the personification of Egypt thus their union was the marriage of Rome and Egypt. I use it in a literal sense here.

Also in (3) as the politician refers back to the cultures that formed western civilisation, the wolf (Fenrir) that swallows the sun in the poem swallows Sol Invicta, (the sun god cult of Roman Imperial religion of Rome at the time of the Caesars) is a referernce to Roman and Nordic myth, Albion is a mythical name for Britain and the Langue d’Oc or Languedoc is the ancient Celtic Kingdom of Southern France which was closely linked with the Spanish Kingdom of Castille. Languedoc survives as a province of modern France.

The Oriflamme, a flag or pennant bearing the depiction of a sacred flame was the emblem of the Merovingian dynasty mentioned in The Da Vinci Code but a real, historical Royal house. This reference is quite significant as Charlemange was a descendent of the Merovingian line and is generally recognised as the founder of modern Europe in his role as Holy Roman Emperor.

(9) The Realist was written some time ago and recorded by Brother Bastion (my son) with the title Bitter Fruit. At the time of writing the album it features on has sold around 10,000 downloads.

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