Lords of the Sea

 And thus we fought for honour, Lord

T'was our honour lord, we lost. 

We faced the kraken, Lord
And couldn't take its arms

So we filled the seas with oil
And we filled the seas with death

And now that evil kraken
will take its final breath

But the fisherfolk can't eat the fish
And our soldiers die

And a new evil it stalks across the land
My lord, 'tis you and I 

A quick little poem this Tuesday, I hope you enjoy.

A.J.

More kraken poems:

The Kraken by Alfred Tennyson
Under the Surface

And if you're interested in my other writing, please check out what's new on my blog: https://ponderbooks.com

My books are available wide, and my favourite, Quest is now out in audiobook. (If you're in US Chirp is the cheapest option 😊😎)

Whose World is it, Anyway?

We're adrift
in a tv show
with Drew Carey's evil twins
pronouncing
the facts don't matter

Only we're not talking about
who gets the credits -
or the last word.

It's not like we can escape
the gas that's seeping,
or the oil you're sweeping
under the stage

Not to mention the
loose wires,
the smouldering fires
and the sprinklers set to Climate Change.

Come on, guys,
it's too late for improv
and some nob
spouting metaphysical
"what's real, anyway"
bullshit.

This is a crisis.
We're dying down here.
Overheated,
poisoned
and drowned in
endless
obfuscating
babble.

You can't make these things up
and not even Josie or Sandi
can balance the obvious bias.
We need the audience
in this game,
pointing out
the facts.
This theatre,
this game
was never about the points,
it was about having the time of our lives.

A.J. Ponder

A piece inspired by a right wing "libertarian" who insisted that facts don't matter so much that I couldn't help but think of Drew's famous line on Whose Line is it Anyway, "Where everything's made up and the points don't matter."

Who knows what we're meant to do with these people who fly into endorphin releasing righteous indignation any time the lies they base their lives on are threatened - Seriously, what are we meant to do with people whose opinion can't be swayed by facts, and who've ensured that, by simply refusing to believe that facts are a thing?

I almost put "where the spin's made up" but that spin is
terrifyingly real so...

BTW the clip opposite has been captioned many times, you'll find most of them by searching the slogan. Where everything's made up and the points don't matter. so here's another one, because the meme is so screamingly obvious, the U.S/America line had already been taken.
#posttruth

Have a great week,
And never take a good fact for granted ;)

A.J. Ponder

The Circle of Life: The Crocodile's Verse

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

Are you ready?

It's almost a New Year
again
Let's not make America fear
again
Let's not throw our brothers and sisters
to the wolves
again
We could make the world a better place
again
Are you ready?

We've done it before
in days of yore
We broke the bonds of
kings and queens
We threw off the shackles
of slavery
We stood up and demanded
One Person One Vote
Again and again
we demanded a minimum wage, a living wage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage)
and the democratic world flourished...

But now it's dying,
strangled by the weeds
we were
so careless of.

So, I need to know - are you ready
to speak up
against those who would silence us?
Are you ready - to stand firm
against those who would
strip away your vote?
destroy your living wage?
poison your food and water, the very air you breathe?
and allow innocents to be destroyed -
- in the name of oil- in the name of money
- in the name of power

Are you ready to throw off the lies that mute us?
Are you ready to stand against the gags that deny us?
Are you ready to make this world a better place?
Can you accept the cost?

The longer we wait
the more we'll pay.

So I need to know,
are you ready?

A.J. Ponder

An early poem so it can be published before the New Year in time for resolutions. There will not be one on the 6th, because there's no reason not to make a New Years resolution to support human rights. Mine is to speak out when I see injustice, to hold our politicians to account and to join at least one local group that supports human rights and the environment. 

Happy New Year everyone, also PS - a link to Mike Moore's 5 point plan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbaqst_B498 (it's basically all in first minute or so.)
A.J.

Draining the swamp of all human decency

In New Zealand
We love our wetlands
They're beautiful places
Rich habitats
Vital to environmental and human well-being

I've heard you're draining yours -
"What of?"
I asked,
And the answer seems to be
"Of all human decency"

*

Where once the bullfrogs croaked
And the blue herons soaked
And the land was buffered from the sea
Now
there's nothing in sight
not a bird in flight
just oil
as far as the eye can...

...look out
upon the desolation
of a once fair
land.

*

Yes, you heard me,
you're draining your swamp
of all human decency
and replacing it with
nothing but snake oil
and swamp monsters
grinning through their golden teeth

and pretending they can hold back the tide.

A.J. Ponder

PS: Release the kraken. :) 
PPS if you liked this poem, you may also enjoy:

The Circle of Life I  

The Circle of Life II

The Circle of Life III

I was particularly impressed with Senator Warren when she stood up to the drug companies. Her fight was my fight. For although drug regulation in America is so far away, it has had a detrimental effect all over the world. She did so, despite the bad optics, because the cause was just and right, and the consequences of failing will not only haunt America, but all the countries that through the FDA's influence allow America's drug industry to influence treatments.


 #globalwarming #kraken #swamp #swampmonsters #golden #tide #oil #snakeoil #drug

This is not a #posttruth world

Facts are not confetti
to be thrown in our faces
Journalism is not he said she said
it's the building up of a picture
a story
a truth
without partisan political
or monetary bias.


Facts are:
#StandingRock police are militarised
#WaterProtectors have been brutally injured
#WaterProtectors were met in freezing temperatures with a water-cannon rubber bullets, pepper spray and more.
There is a police blockade across an important bridge
One that would allow better access to emergency services?
Why should this be denied them?
It's been a long time since the safety of the bridge was questioned
Find an engineer already.
I mean, seriously
The lies are thin as a coat of
whitewash

Scratch the paint.

A.J. Ponder

It's said we live in a post-truth world - but the truth is the organisations that give most of us our news have failed us. "He said/she said is not the news, not when the reporter have evidence that one side is lying. But it's more than that, news has become about ratings, not about truth, it has become about what corporations want reported, because that's where the money is. So now very few sources of media are working for us. The Guardian is one of the last major stalwarts. But it can't tell the truth alone, on almost no budget. So yes, it could do better.

Standing Rock is one of the clearest illustrations of the injustices of the modern world, and the way media can ignore, twist and distort a story about peaceful people, protecting the drinking water of millions against an oil company who has bought a supplied a militarised police force who have used their new "toys" to seriously injure men and women who posed absolutely no threat to them. Something that has been clearly documented. But look now. Online evidence (as I know from a previous cause) can be quickly removed. And what cannot be removed will be discredited or muddied with false evidence. The police at Standing Rock changed their story 3 times within 24 hours after a particularly brutal action - as they discovered the protestors had footage that clearly showed their lies. (Nov 20 2016)

A girl had her arm mangled so badly she'll almost certainly never get the use of it back, another was fighting to keep her eyesight days later, after she was assaulted by a chemical weapon that would be illegal in international warfare. And hundreds battled hypothermia after being blasted by a water-canon in freezing temperatures. This is against Waterprotectors who have been so fiercely non-violent that they even managed to diffuse a pipeline worker who drove into their campsite and threatened them with a gun. (There is video)
I've seen this before. Truth turns to lies, and vicious public attacks as people are silenced "for the greater good." So remember "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither." Benjamin Franklin

Below are the techniques used to prevent us from seeing the truth. Watch out for them. And stay safe.

A.J. Ponder

Misleading Techniques to watch for:
1. Lying by Omission
2. Controlling the Debate
3. Scripting and Synchronizing News
4. Politicizing Everything  
5 Chasing and creating buzzwords and memes
6. Asking the Wrong Questions
7. Closing down the topic - or airing it like the birther conspiracy long after it was dead.
8 Triviality and Distraction
9. Outright Lying
 

Give me the boy and I will give you the Demon

America created a tyrant -

and bayed for his blood

You might think that is the beginning

and the end -

but the middle?

Nothing more than one foot

after the other

over a trail

of bone and blood the size of a country

and slippery as oil.

 A.J. Ponder 

Something vaguely topical - and the carpet is metaphorically pulled from under my feet.  Ironic huh?  No picture this week, though. for more Tuesday poems click on the Tuesday Poem hub :)

"Silvery Grey Ribbons" An Oil Triptych from Space

(I knew I wanted to write a poem on the spill, but I couldn't get my perspective right until I saw these pictures of the oil spill from space. Nasa link )



silver-grey
smothers
the wild blue
until
it lies
flat
and
glinting
in the
treacherous
sunlight

#

Midas
Your Gold
has infected
the sea
and turned
its waters
bright with
the blood of
generations
past

#

still-
black gold
proves
not rare
enough
nor precious
enough
to save-
like
the invisible lives
washed up on
on a calm
silvery
tide
of death

A..J. Ponder