Michael Batchelor's Blog, page 12

The Fruits Of Our Labour

It’s interesting
God made the world
Free
And yet we’ve gone and
Put a price tag on everything
Are we really
Heading in the right direction
When it costs
$4
To buy a bottle
Of water
That came from
A cloud
Or $6
For a punnet
Of strawberries
That came from
A bush

Book Snobs

To those who say
Books have to have meaning
Deep characters
Riveting plot
And a strong moral compass
Fuck you
Books can be light
They can be funny
They can be offbeat
They can be whatever
The hell they want
There’s enough space
On the shelf
And you are not
The adjudicator
Of what makes a book
“Worthy”

Plastic Smiles

The first world
Offshores hell
To the third world
To make paradise
They make our clothes
Our phones
Our toasters
Our crap
For pittance
Then
As thanks
We send our rubbish
For them to dispose of
And then
When we travel
To these exploited countries
We wonder why
They look at us
With a plastic smiles

Banks

Banks
Are glorified safes
Lending money
To poor people
Because nothing
Can be paid for upfront
Anymore
And then they charge interest
On the loan
Keeping them
In debt
For decades
Making it almost impossible
To get ahead

And to think
We’d laugh
At the people
Who buried their money
In the backyard
Or put it under
Their mattress

I guess the joke’s on us
Now

The Glowing Pearl

The older I get
The more I feel
The fantasy eroding
Family members getting sick
Putting down pets
Alarming news stories
But within me
There’s still this
Glowing pearl
That refuses to die
Even when I want it to
To make the pain easier
But it refuses to stop glowing
Maybe it’s a delusion
Maybe it’s a necessity
Maybe it’s my soul
Either way
It fights on
Against the dragons
Trying to kill
The fantasy

Rat Race

The gun
For the rat race
Goes off
And everyone
Around me
Rushes ahead
To the finish line
The house
The boat
The savings of money
The wealth
But I stand
At the starting line
Watching them get ahead
And yet
I envy them
Because
The race
Is a materialistic scam
Thought up by
The banks
The government
The corporations
The hamster-wheel
Manufacturers
Made to put you
In debt
Financially
Physically
And saddest of all
Spiritually

My Poetry

Sometimes I worry
That my poetry
Isn't that good
That it's inarticulate
Obvious
Generic
But dammnit
It's honest
And dripping with feeling
And if that isn't the point
The essence
Of poetry
Then I don't want
To write it

Birdman

There’s a man
Who walks around the park
Every day
Feeding the birds
Magpies
Pigeons
Ibises
They follow him
Like he’s their god
Bringer of breadcrumbs
And I think
The man’s a genius
Not just because he’s one with nature
But because
Come springtime
He’s not getting swooped
Unlike us
Indifferent bastards

The Cosmic Lottery

The scientists say we have a
1 in 400,000,000,000,000
Chance of being alive
And that’s pretty amazing
So I guess I’ll be grateful
For winning this
Cosmic lottery
Even when the payout
Isn’t so great

The News

What bothers me
About the news
Aside from the misinformation
And the sensationalism
Is that they forget
About the arts
(aside from what Hollywood is farting out)
There are hours of segments
Dedicated to sports
And yet nothing is said
Whatsoever about
Books
Or poetry
Or paintings
Or anything
Artistic
Even though
The book shops
And art galleries
Remain open
And filled with people
Hungry for the arts

I guess those people
Are smarter
Than me
And not watching
The news