rage, rage against the Dying of your Rights

Cherry

By Di_Hard

Sun, 26 Jun 2022
  • 1216 reads
19 comments
 

eagerly we grab new inventions

rejoicing in humankind's progress, each smoothing

of the way to Earth's immolation

 

pile up mistakes to rectify mistakes

 

all those of child-bearing age exhorted

to produce more tax payers to support

a population afraid of dying

alone from winning their successful place

in a world where increased efficiency

means high youth unemployment, their despair

 

worshipping Capitalism's belief

that Heaven is man made so can be bought

with a lifetime's guarantee we'll miss out

on an option of after life upgrade

(if having stuff is really all there is)

 

saying we do everything to provide

for our kids, yet can't stop destroying all

they'll need when we're gone. Possibility

for change is burning with desire not to.

 

I can see a time when cycling to work

will mean peddling in rows to make

electricity in vast warehouses

 

where make-do-and-mend values resurrect

the use of human bones to fertilise

food crops, as with those soldiers' skeletons

after Waterloo, but euthanasia's

on posters now : your country needs you

dead

 

after reading Marandina's vivid:  https://www.abctales.com/story/marandina/horses-wooldale-road-part-3-3

 

 

Certificate 15
Poem
Rant

Comments

Submitted by celticman on

pessimism is just another way of saying it isn't working for us. 

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

yup. Thankyou very much for the cherries :0)

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

This is very striking in its truth and somewhat depressing too. There is something really peculiar going on whereby we are constantly being informed about the destruction of the environment while being encouraged to partake in the overconsumption which is causing it. We grab new inventions a bit too eagerly, we need to stop grabbing. Excellent poem.

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Thankyou for reading and understanding Jane :0)

On the Climate Question on the World Service the other day they said that most people believe recycling is the most useful thing they can do to help against climate change. Yet only a tiny fraction of what we put in recycling bins gets recycled, at best the rest might get burned for energy. The old phrase Reduce, Re use, Recycle is anathema to our economic system. Until voters make climate the most important issue nothing good will happen.

In the mean time we celebrate space travel, despite it being a huge contributer to damning the Earth

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/19/billionaires-space-touri...

 

As you say, we are constantly being mis directed

 

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

You do bring up some important issues in your poem Di. It's hard to imagine what kind of world the future holds for the next generations coming up. It's all a million miles from what I understand, especially with technology seeming to take over everything, but I must admit to loving the information I get off the internet, sadly I gave all my encylopidias to the charity shop, so have no other way of learning. 

Give me space, the countryside and nature, which I think all children should get a taste of, instead of having their eyes fixed to their mobile phones texting.

Mother Earth rules always.

Jenny.

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Yes! Agree with you ABSOLUTELY Jenny! Thankyou very much for reading. I love having the internet, too, however much I complain about progress, having  the world's music, art, all the radio, lots of films at the touch of a button (supposing my computer feels up to it) is a wonderful thing :0)

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

I forgot to comment before but was struck by the powerful message in this cri de coeur - much food for thought and some very chilling imagery, especially 'your country needs you'. Awful thought, and as in Maradina's inspiration, I fervently hope never comes true, though I can totally see it happening

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Thankyou. I was wondering whether to take this down as so negative. I couldn't believe that they might have dug up people's bones to use as fertiliser. It would have been people in work houses that ground them up, wouldn't it? Can you imagine finding what you knew to be human remains and having to bash it up. 

Listening to someone talking in America last night, they were worried that one reason for banning abortion was because it was not in the Bill of Rights. But nor were women's votes or votes for anyone not white. The right to vote is such a flimsy thing, so easily wittled away by needing proof of address, no criminal record too in America, I think, which takes out huge chunks of the population on lower income. How easy, everywhere, to suggest if not paying tax you should not have a say in how taxes are spent?

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

I think in England at one point you had to be a homeowner (and a man obviously). Yes, it all seems so flimsy once the cards begine to fall. They're worried gay marriage will be next. It's horrific

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

yes. really really frightening and hard to believe from here.  They will need to drop the U from U.S.

and another thing how can you tell women they have to have children while wanting to cut wellfare many rely on??? As if children were bubbles blown out of a ring just to float away happily on the wind 

 

Submitted by marandina on

That's a pretty final line, Di! Powerful stuff [Should that say "human bones to fertilise?"] Paul 

 

 

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Thankyou Paul, have changed it, would not have written at all if I had not read your Horses story which made a big impression

 

Submitted by Tom Brown on

Though wise men at their end know dark is right, because their words have forked no lightning they do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

yes, that's where the title came from, I always struggle to think of titles

thankyou for reading and commenting, Tom, I hope you are well

 

Submitted by David Kirtley on

A very thought provoking and quite sad poem. You deal with some very real issues here. Capitalism is like a machine that does not stop, for good or ill. We need to control it and its effects ideally. Let us hope we do not all become surplus to requirements!

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Yes. It seems to me, if it is like a sum which cancels down and down eventually it cannot work out, for if every worker is being paid the minimum, or loses their job owing to efficiencies in production, then who is left to buy what is made?

Thankyou for reading and commenting David, Muggins for PM!

 

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

Hello again Di,

you know a memory just came to me of when I was working for an animal feed company down at Avonmouth Docks. It was for a company called BOCM Silcocks back in the early 1970s. I worked in an office with ten other people. We all had our specific jobs which we rotated daily. There were six sumtron machines that punched out cards with all the information needed. 

I worked for this company for nearly three years and loved the job so much, and even made some good friends from working there. But then they decided to bring in one machine that did the job of five, so then only two people were needed plus a checker, that meant loosing seven workers. I just thought it was so sad and unsatisfactory, so although they gave me a job, I left the company feeling so sorry for those made redundant.

Although jobs were a lot easier to come by back in the early 1970s. I just hated the fact that human life was treated so badly. It's always about money and if companies can supply their produce with machines at half the cost, then that's the way it seems to be...but not for me. People are important and should be given respect.

Sorry if I'm on my soap box, but the inspiration point, had me flashing back to those younger working days.

Thank you for listening.

Jenny.

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

That's brilliant feedback Jenny, THANKYOU, is exactly what I was thinking of, writing this. The seventies were the start of the first wave of losses, and the second wave is just gathering now, I think. It's hard to know, as I was a child then, if things seem less hopeful now. For sure the chances of getting an exciting, fulfilling job seem more unlikely these days.  And rather than evening out wages so low paid jobs are able to support a person, they are being cut altogether. In many countries over half their population is young and cannot get any work at all. Here,  if a person does find work it will often be more about saving money than doing the job itself.

Thankyou so much for sharing your experience. I am happy when you are on any soap box as what you say is always so interesting :0)

 

Submitted by airyfairy on