RIP Michael Jackson
The last crotchgrab done
The final incisions closed,
on a life of extremes
There is no doubt
that you were
off the wall
and
as barmy
as a bagful of badgers
but
unlike the white boys
who copied you
at least you really could dance.
What a shame then
that you couldn’t find peace
within your own skin
and know
you were not alone
and that
it would always have been okay
to just be yourself.
your unhappy and changing face
or suffer the slings and arrows
of outrageously low
self esteem
which made you
cut
yourself
off from a world
that wouldn’t leave you alone
because,
honestly,
most people thought
it would be pretty cool
to live in Neverland
even if the media
always seemed
to be giving you a hard time.
So now it is you
who is gone too soon
although some might say
you’ve already
been gone awhile.
about you sleeping in a glass coffin
and touching up little boys
I think in general
you did more good than harm
and deserved
better press
So beat it then,
you smooth criminal
who helped many people
make that change,
but who didn’t
heal the world
and even if there was
less thriller in you
than there should have been
for the last twenty years
The world will still tap feet
come together
and rock with you
for evermore
Moonwalk your way
to a better place.
It’s probably for the best
that you never grew up,
that you could be remembered
for what you were
and not what you
would have become.
I’m sorry about
the way we made you feel
but at least now
you will stay
the little boy who
blamed it on the boogie
and rocked our world
who need scream no more
for at least
the endless pain
of your difficult reality
is over now,
whilst for the rest of us
the beat goes on….
Bank Bosses Are Criminals
After the attack on the home of the former RBS Chairmen in Edinburgh by a group calling itself ‘Bank Bosses Are Criminals’ are we seeing the start of a violent backlash against the greedy instigators of our world’s demise?
AIG bonus benefitters have been sending back handfuls of cash, some of them, quite possibly in fear for their lives and the safety of their families after a US newspaper published addresses of the homes of several who had received government bailout money in retention bonus form.
When the system promotes usury, there is always payback. Until we design an economy based on a fair return for a fair exchange and governments are forced by law to be utterly transparent and accountable, we will not be able to stop the money men from stealing our earnings. It’s time to stop accepting the staus quo and demand a better economic system for the future.
Bailout Busters
by Carey Lenehan
Infatuated with the tangled twine of ancient embezzlement,
moribund in extremity, and gushing in their excuses
the orotund wastrels of frippery, who value only excess,
rest apprehended in the process of meaningless extraction,
count their shrinking waistlines
and ruminate on their profuse gluttony
Across the spooked cities of a shrinking world,
the masses, in excessive harmony,
befuddled by hypnotic politispeak
and seeking symphonies of revenge,
watch mesmerised in eerie silence
as pinstripe suited actuaries
draw immoral lines between prosperity
and its muddled brother, greed.
A World of Hungry Caterpillars
The greedy men are eating the world,
one bite at a time,
chomp, chomp, chomp,
like a horde of Very Hungry Caterpillars
who can never get enough,
watch them go
through the book of the world,
where every page
now has a bigger hole.
They have demolished liberty,
polished off equality
and are making their way through morality,
soon the earth will be hollow,
sucked out and wasted away,
the forests will be destitute,
the seas will be bankrupt
and even the air,
will be in debt
to the Fed Reserve
and Goldman Sachs
The money men are eating the world,
one bite at a time
chomp, chomp, chomp
like a plague of gambling locusts who can never play enough,
Russian roulette,
they have chewed up justice,
regurgitated honesty
and with their unsustainable appetites,
soon the living forests will be consumed,
the rocky mountains masticated,
the riverbeds sucked dry
and all those hatching, multicoloured butterflies
will have nothing to left to eat.
The insatiable bankers are stealing the world,
robbing the fields of oil,
selling the deserts to the deepest digger,
short-trading the oceans,
disembowelling the forests
and when they are done,
all those gilded butterflies with nothing left to eat
will dry out their wings beneath an unrelenting sun
take to the sky
and find other worlds to devour
Barack Obama, Man or Myth?
Ode to Barack Obama
So, Barack,
Democratic candidate
for change,
you made it
to November.
You came,
you saw,
you conquered,
but many people
did not vote
for you
because
You have the wrong coloured skin
but I
think you rock
So
Barack, man of many words,
some believable,
You have your chance
to change the world
so, will you,
or will you stuff it up?
24hr News Overload
Exponential chaos
rains
from little fluffy clouds turned to
raging thunderheads, insurmountable.
Calm is a memory,
dust and tragedy rule my
sympathy.
Tanks roll across battlegrounds
spread far and wide,
exponentially chaotic,
globalised death,
scattered fragments of life.
Skulls crackle underfoot as I
traverse the uneven floor of
my shrinking domain
Social order expertly denied and mystified,
ensuring that we, fall apart.
Exponential nature
strains
lifting yellow eyed devil heads
above the clover circus of a forgotten lawn.
Tragedy is reality,
fire and disappointment ruin my
empathy.
Flames shoot the sky golden over Sao Paolo,
travellers’ charred remains on CNN as
exponential chaos expands,
globalising death,
obliterating particles of life.
Ashes scattered underfoot as we
fail in quests for peace,
rupturing domains.
The world relentlessly devours and disempowers,
and raggedly we, spin out of control
Think of Someone Else Today
© Carey Lenehan 2007
There’s an old man out on my street
with bundled rags upon his feet
and a plastic bag of old tin cans
but not a single thing to eat.
I can see him crouching there
with his twenty-five yard stare
with nothing to be hopeful for
mutely daring me to care
All the people pass him by
But no one thinks to ask him why
He’s sitting out there in the rain
Beneath a leaden, weeping sky
I tried to show him that I see
But he simply wouldn’t speak to me
Closed his face and closed his mind
Trapped in his insanity
There’s a child crying raggedly
A beaten, battered tragedy
of stolen hopes and secret fears
That somehow only I can see
A thousand babies died today
As I made my pointless way
Along the path of my own life
What am I supposed to say?
There are soldiers dying in a war
Who knows what they’re fighting for?
Oil or land, revenge or spite
It doesn’t matter any more
In a world I’ve come to hate
Starving people sit and wait
Forgotten in their poverty
As governments procrastinate
We are the kings of greed and gain
Perched upon a world of pain
Obsessed by sheer prosperity
Convinced that we are not to blame.
One old man out on the road
With tattered mind and ragged clothes
Dying slowly in a world
Where every, single door is closed
To stop this global travesty
We must first accept reality
What right have I to feel content
When misery is all I see?
I am so angry and ashamed
That we chose to live this way
So, I ask you, please, just try
To think of someone else today
A.Nonymous
© Carey Lenehan 1989
Handrearing
© Carey Lenehan 2008
For five minutes,
there is stolen, momentary, empty space
in a day filled by need
calling me from
luxurious reverie,
fracturing inner silence
with headbutting intrusion
Crawling bundled life on
unsteady legs, open mouthed and ready,
for the next feed
Liquid eyed dependence, always hungry
driven by Id, unaware of the cost
of its own survival
Chasing tails, pursuing the clock
I run,
trying not to fall behind
Two hourly feed
merry go rounds.
Reality TV
© Carey Lenehan 2003
