[RCL]

Blues Bits

Look at me:
been down so long,
it looks like up to me.

*

If I didn’t have bad luck, y’all,
I wouldn’t have no luck at all.

[Jerome Betts]

The Life Of Riley

Eton, Oxford, then banking, where soon
Sub-prime profits began to balloon
So I married a honey
Who also had money.
Now I work twice a week until noon.

I can have a safe seat any day
(The party has bills it must pay).
With my contacts and cash
I shall make a big splash
And, Brexit once over, oust May.

The Life of Murphy

I survived in a slum and sink school,
Drank and loved like a fish and a fool.
My brain was for hire
Until forced to retire
Deep in debt, and beginning to drool.

My care home’s the absolute pits,
The inmates have all lost their wits.
My relations regret
I’ve not snuffed it yet
And the court keeps on issuing writs.

[Douglas G. Brown]

Let us go then, you and I,
Beneath this dank polluted sky;
Life's not some poetic joke.
We grow decrepit; then we croak.

[Douglas G. Brown]

The politician meets his doom;
But happily, he enters Hell.
It's just another smoke-filled room,
Like those on Earth he knew so well.

[Ann Drysdale]

Going on down…

Old friends are on the downward slide
To land where they’d begun
And their dogs have gone before them
At the rate of five to one
And I don’t want to walk the walk
That takes me where they’re going
But if I run the other way
It doesn’t stop me knowing
That days ahead are numbered
And days behind crossed through
So I will stand and hold your hand
And talk the talk with you.

[Aaron Poochigian]

I have been amazed by the quality of the poems posted on this thread (and by its popularity). Many Ancient Greek poets assert that song/poetry, along with wine, is the only way of escaping the misery of human life. The poems on this thread serve that purpose in the very act of talking about the misery and unfairness of human life.

Brava! Bravo! Keep 'em comin'.

[RCL]

Ann, Do I detect a note of hope!?



When in Doubt Delude

Those ubi sunts, just flee ‘em
And always carpe diem!

[Jerome Betts]

Depressing Outlook

“Welfare for Osborne was just a bottomless pit
of savings, and it didn’t really matter what the
human consequences were, because focus groups
had shown that the voters they wanted to appeal
to were very anti-welfare . . . “

- Nick Clegg as reported by The Guardian

Hard hat on head, photographers on hand,
He knew to whom this image most appeals.
Disabled? Jobless? A negligible band,
Their money useful, though, to grease his wheels.

Cold-bloodedly, the snake, now scotched, not killed,
Still slithers towards its overarching goal,
A prospect leaving half a nation chilled,
The pitiless George Osborne in control.

[Roger Slater]

LIFE

You're born. You're slapped.
You shriek a breath
that takes you on
your march to death,

ninety years
if you are lucky,
though the final
ten are sucky,

filled with aches
and pains, dementia,
before you end
your brief adventure.

[Erik Olson]

Scratch that. Depressing to no purpose but to be depressing is a silly waste of energy. Besides I should not like to produce filth. No need to introduce more filth into the world. I know about garbage but need not rush headlong into it.