An Affliction of Poetry: July 2017

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

The Circle of Life: The Crocodile's Verse

Come little fishes
Adore our golden scales
And smile
It's easy to flit between our claws
To grasp the tidbits...dangled
So enticingly out of reach
I dare you.

And if you fail
You should have swum faster
And if you fall
We will crush you

Come little fishes
Imagine your scales turned to gold
And rejoice
Our riches could be yours
If you work forever
Or win the lottery
We rigged just for you

And if you fail
You should have worked harder
And if you fall
We will crush your family

Come little fishes,
Cry all you like
We don't need to make the water drinkable
Your tears overflow our crystal glasses
We don't need to have the water wadeable,
When sweet oils fill our swamps to overflowing

And if you drown
You should have grown lungs
And if the rivers should fail
We will eat our fill

Come little fishes,
Not much longer now,
Offer your puny lives
And we will give you
Everlasting
Death

A.J.

Part of my Circle of Life series, this began as a simple poem, but keeps on growing. We can do better, we can bring voices to the table, create a more equitable world, but not when we incentivise people to look after money and not people.

1) The Circle of Life
We have let the snakes

Into the hen house...

2) Circle of Life II (Snakes in the Henhouse)
Too long
We left the snakes in charge of the henhouse...

3) Circle of Life 3: The facts of life
I know you've heard
There's a new snake pimped out on the lawn...

But however dark it may look, there's hope on the horizon. What do they always say? "it's always darkest before the dawn" Of course in the physical world, we don't all need to battle against the night to have the return of day, but this is a metaphor here...

Have a great week
A.J. Ponder

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

The Great Weta Robbery

Once again I have failed to meet the Tuesday deadline with a poem, I'm trying to keep up posting every week and get a new book out, but in the meantime, I'd like to link you to a book I co-wrote with Peter Friend, a few years ago now, called The Gre at Weta Robbery. It's a great little book published by Gilt Edge for early readers. There's an audio version at the above link, and even better for teachers, there's an educator's guide here.

The blurb: When your after-school job is looking after weta the size of cats, it'd be understandable if you thought that your life couldn't get any more exciting or dangerous. But there is a darker secret lurking in the laboratories of Krell Reserach and it's down to one boy – with his sidekicks Snapper, Fluffy, Five-Legs and the other mega-weta – to get to the bottom of it.

I hope you enjoy it (even though it's definitely not poetry!)
A.J. Ponder

Links (for people who like to see where their links are going)

The Great Weta Robbery Book and Audio Link
https://www.giltedgepublishing.co.nz/products/the-great-weta-robbery-1

Educators Guide
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54aabd1ee4b037e9bad286f6/t/58b4336459cc684cc88b9a63/1488204656597/Friend%2C+Peter+and+Alicia+Ponder.+THE+GREAT+WETA++ROBBERY.pdfteach

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

A New World, Today

We could home the homeless
End poverty
Tomorrow

If only we wanted

We could create a new world
Based on facts
And reason

If we followed the evidence

We could save ourselves heartbreak
Misery and sorrow,
Even death

And not be any poorer

We could do all this and create a better
A fairer world
For everyone

No more ifs

We are way past dreaming
It's time for action
Today

A.J. Ponder

See links below to understand just how expensive austerity is, and why we need to change the paradigm we've been conned into believing.

Have a great week

A.J. Ponder