Paladins and Pirates – Etheree/Tilus – May 3, 2016

 

clash
unrest
as markets,
crash constantly
and the people call
upon bright memories
of peace and prosperity
and of brave paladins of old
who’d took up the sword and rally all
to beat down the treacherous scalawags

my friends, those saviours never existed
paladins won’t come to save the day
pirates abound and scalawags
wreck disastrous ruin
as homeless multiply
in the name of greed
all may be lost
markets crash
people
clash

no  easy solutions
we must all
work

© G.s.k. ‘16

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I couldn’t tell you where this morning’s reflection on the world economic situation came from, I was thinking about something completely different, anyway …

I guess there were/are always a lot of pirates and scalawags (as well as real issues – like expensive war spending)  involved in keeping the world economy in its perennial oscillating state – paladins in the form of central banks and governments have tried to resolve the most recent problems over the last 10 years by reinforcing banks, companies and countries that over-stretched themselves heavily investing in toxic assets. They too are now stretching themselves thin – economically speaking.

World economy isn’t even a little easy to understand – though we do like to find someone or something to blame everything on – in other words a scapegoat. A paladin won’t solve our problems and neither will a scapegoat.  I won’t deny that banks, their executives, corrupt government officials, nearsightedness, the proverbial 10%  and all that jazz don’t exist.  However, let’s try to see where we too work into that scenario, because we do – and we my friends are the manipulated majority.

I came to the conclusion, pretty much forty years ago laying under a bed as bombs fell outside my house in Chad, that as long as everyone looks out just for number one there will always be disunity and economic disaster. From burning down forests to beating up those who are different – closed-minded violence, bigotry and selfishness, is an endemic disease among the people’s of the world which will keep us, the majority of humanity, in a state of poverty – moral and economical – and that 10%?  They enjoy the wealth which we happily give them and then just as happily destroy their profit givers.  They couldn’t do what they do without our collaboration and consent…  something to think about.

 
Etheree

The poetry form, Etheree, consists of 10 lines of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 syllables. Etheree can also be reversed and written 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Get creative and write an Etheree with more than one verse, but follow suit with an inverted syllable count.

Tilus

A non-rhyming, 3-line poem with a syllable count of 6-3-1.

The Half Eaten Brioche – August 8, 2014

Photo Credits – Leanne Cole

The Half Eaten Brioche
Sitting at the breakfast table, I took off my glasses thinking about what had happened yesterday.

Everything had seemed so normal, nothing outstanding that could have been a harbinger of future events. Just morning coffee and a brioche as usual.  I finished breakfast then walked downtown to work off some of my winter fat. Then to the bank to make some payments I didn’t want to do on-line. It was whilst I was sitting reading the paper waiting my turn, that the man came in.

He looked quite distinguished. Perhaps in his early fifties with a well kept beard and salt and pepper hair. He wore an expensive suit and his hands were well manicured. I have a weakness for hands and they’re often the first thing I spot in a man, after noting if he wears a beard or not.

He looked nervous, in fact, vaguely panicky. It wasn’t anything really up front, just an undercurrent.

The bank manager came out of his office and greeted the gentleman, solemnly. They hadn’t closed the door properly and we could all hear the rumble of their voices growing steadily louder. It seems that the gentleman couldn’t keep up the payments with his loan. He remonstrated, then cajoled the finally began to shout. Everyone looked somewhere else, embarrassed for the man who was obviously about to be financially ruined. Then, we heard a loud explosion followed by another.

We all ran towards the door, someone pulled out their iPhone and started taking pictures. There in the office lie the manager, blood on his white silk shirt. The gentleman now had a gaping wound for a face.

I sat here this morning with my brioche and coffee, reading the article of what was behind the tragedy in morning paper. The crisis … he had a construction firm and his clients, a public administration, weren’t paying the work he’d done for them. He still had to pay his workers, his suppliers and the bank though. Just another story of the economical crunch. I lost my appetite.

 

Note: In Italy over the past few years something similar has happened and not just once or twice.  The only difference is that the person who’s being financially ruined doesn’t take the bank manager with him. So this is based on a reality with a little fiction thrown in.

Troubled Times

Trouble Times

Seems like the world is getting harder.
Friends in trouble, towns under water.
Wondering what will be the conclusion,
Of yet another round of promised illusion.

Getting still older getting more tired,
Economy shot, will one be fired?
Over 50s kaput, kids can’t work…
Yet that banker had a stupid smirk!

Can there be some hope in these sad times?
Can there be a righting to the wrongs?
Can we hope to see old folks secure?
Can we hope to see jobs for youth?

 

Modern Alchemists – Trifextra Challenge

(c) Thomas Leuthard

Modern Alchemists

toiling over tomes
of modern magic
and alchemy
new age wizards
of compound interest
study the pitfalls
of inflation
in fearful fascination
under
constant scrutiny
of wayward dragons
dedicated
to dangerous thoughtless
speculation!

This week’s Trifextra challenge: This week we’re asking for 33 of your own words inspired by the picture.

Free Verse: Direction

Direction

And where will they find direction..
In a world that knows no goals,
In a land that lives in constant crisis,
Where production is a by word for, dereliction.

The communists fell with a shattering smash!
And we all exalted at the capitalist’s  win!
The world with it’s bright productive new future,
And the markets shed their fetters to expand!

Too bad that expansion was without substance,
That the growth was all in some bubbly imagination…
That without rules everyone screwed everybody else!
And we’re now in our euphoric hell singing hurrah!

The money’s there somewhere…just not for you or me…
All the arms that we’ve sold made a profit somewhere you see.
And the banker’s who were bailed out…still pull in their interests,
So why is it that so many are without jobs and homeless?

Well, my friends it’s because we need direction…
We need to think positive and smile all day long…
Believe brother and sister in the system…amen
And, well it helps if your pappy is Goldman-Sachs.

 

This was written for Poets on the Page:  This week we will use the theme of “Direction” – you may take that in a multitude of places (I almost said directions!)

Trifecta: Week 105 A Power Short – The Auditors

Trifecta word Challenge is up!

This week the word is the third definition of pluck:
3: to move, remove, or separate forcibly or abruptly

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Spread sheets on hand…account books opened, the two auditors in the Akashic Library looked at each other in amazement.

“Well, isn’t that interesting.  This company has also been plucked out of the abyss of  economic disaster by the economic crisis!”

“Yep, too bad the owners didn’t pass the moral auditing though, no one will pluck them from the flames of hell!”

word count: 61

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