Stink

The phrase 'All in it together'
Begins to smell more and more
Like an aging sewer.

While the policy of austerity
Begins to rot the heart of society
The stinking, filthy rich get richer.

Ideas of fair taxation
And wealth distribution
 Decompose on the compost heap.

And the poor are provided
Modest scraps from the food banks.

Amid the reek of zero hours,
Bedroom taxes and benefit sanctions
Ordinary lives get flushed away.

But the rich still benefit from raised noses
And fresh perfumed posies
Of tax breaks and loopholes.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/26/recession-rich-britains-wealthiest-double-net-worth-since-crisis

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/27/life-at-the-sharp-end-five-families-hit-by-five-years-of-austerity

Marathon

A swarm of agitation

Nervous at the start

Bunched up runners await the off

Buzzing anticipation

Bees within their hive

Flighty bubbled limbs

Adrenalin kicks and dances

As the start line does arrive

Twenty six miles of pain

Of euphoria, adulation

A challenge to be completed

With only pride to gain

A backdrop of London gems

Greenwich and the Cutty Sark

Canary Wharf and the Tower cobbles

All beside the sparkling Thames

And a crowd gathers to see

Effort and endurance

Sweat and sweet success

As they watch from park to quay

For each runner hopes to tame

To purge their soul upon the course

Arriving with spirit cleansed

Only self won victory to proclaim

Inspiration

Sometimes inspiration deserts you,
Like the back end
Of a vanishing train.

Sometimes it overwhelms,
Like the flood of fizzy drink bubbles
teeming up your nose.

Sometimes you have to work hard for it,
Like that pretty girl
Who's playing hard to get.

And sometimes it just flows,
Like the sensuous water
And kneaded massage
Of a spa treatment.

Flag

Can a symbol or a flag
Be truly national?
When we are so diverse.

Doesn't it just highlight
Differences in ethnicity?
Making situations terse.

Nationalism has surely run its course.
We are all human
A species that could harmonise

Within our lonely planet.
So let's come together
And for once do what is wise.

Shift

They're drilling for oil
Fracking for gas
Just to extract
A pile of cash.

Burning coal
In power generators
Pushing the spin
Of renewables haters.

Seeing the oceans
As mere dumping grounds
Since a dying coral reef
Makes no protest sound.

Destroying the ground
Destroying the air
Destroying the seas
Destruction everywhere.

So lets wrestle our planet
From their hands
Amalgamate
Our grains of sands.

And shift the balance
To nature's favour
Leaving ourselves
With an Earth to savour.

Smudge

Dead on a windowpane
Sightless eyes missing
The speeding landscape

Shuttered wings
Famed for buzzing platitudes
Sparkle in dawnlight

Spirit flown
Into smudges on a page
Smearing the truth

Drowned

Riding the waves to escape
In a sailing boat of hope.
Battling for a better life
And a fairer wind,
Away from the choppy waters.
Seeking refuge in calmer seas.

But hope is dashed
Upon the rocks of inhumanity.
Blown off course
By storm winds of fear.
Safe harbours blockaded
By the bobbing drowned,
Who found their escape
Beneath the waves instead.