123/2023

In the final bleak waiting room, we
Arrange the urns along the wall
In order of size.

The biggest contains the ashes of a
Life-time of regrets, bitter tastes
Of what we neglected.

The next, an off-shade of orange, is
Full of the lies we’ve told, the ash
Of it white with spite.

Along the shelf, only slightly smaller,
Stands the purple one, plump and
Round, black ash; hates.

We lose count of the lids we lift to
Take a peek at what we’ve burned
Of our existence

Until we reach the end, the tiniest box,
Bright yellow, echoingly empty.
In it was hope.

R 03/05/2023 18:22

There is, again, a shorter version on my mastodon feed, but this one is infinitely better (a part of me says I shouldn’t even be posting it because it’s so good).

A day of frustration, where I feel I’ve made no progress with anything.

On the day job front, the deluge of applications continues – what depresses me most about this right now is that it signifies a step change in need out there, a bigger step change than covid-19 ever was.

Separating myself from that – I fail to see how spending £100 million of taxpayers’ money on a false feast of royal vanity and jingoistic juvenility is the right thing to do at this exact moment in this country’s history. All the mainstream media are busy telling us to watch the charade so we can be part of history – the only part of history we’re actually witnessing is the decimation of people’s hopes and dreams on a bonfire of self-obsession and greed. And for those of you who, like my mother, abase yourselves before royalty, think yourself as worth less than those people in their gilded carriages and cages and comforts, stop it. You are, each single one of you, worth more than the entire Establishment put together, worth more than that entire cabal of monarchs, politicians, and hangers-on which stitches you up and hangs you out to dry day after day after day.