It's Time

The poems in this thread are all taking some aspect of how Time features in much of our thinking and actions -and plans for actions...

It's Time

It's time to bring hope for the future to the many who are just clinging on
It's time to say no to more tyranny and those that siphoned riches away for too long
It's time to stand up and make our voices heard, so be sure you are not silent again
It's time that our votes are placed and counted, so no extremists can tell us when


Don't let them tell us when it's time to throw more people out from their homes
Don't let  a million people live by begging at food banks and taking out payday loans
Don't force another generation to expect no decent jobs will ever be found where they live
Don't make them feel they have nothing to offer that is worthy of pay for the time they give


It's time for change to get the super rich out of the power they hold over all of us
It's time for change when 1% own more than over half the rest of our population does
It's time for change, so come on everyone, get on down to vote for that this week
It's time for change to bring some sense of equality back so more can seek


Seek a future with a home they can call theirs for as long as they need
Seek a future where the jobs pay a living wage so all that want can succeed
Seek the right box to tick when you vote, for no change will come if we do not
Seek the right path to take by conscience for if we don't care what have we got?




©Rhumour
May 3rd 2015
~~~~~~~~~


Now Is The Time

And the children keep on coming
Though it's not their fault you see
Thirteen million of them are lost
With greater need than simple poverty

These are the orphans of the world
With a need far too great to overlook
Let's forego some rounds of ammunition
And ask all in power to take a closer look

As orphan numbers swell in life now
So ever more in casualties they do cost
Worse than the wars we daily read about
Three thousand every day are being lost

Bring every voice to bear upon those we need to sign
Papers that will bring power to send Hope to them all
Action now is needed for our love in action to show
This is a great big thing we ask what a shame it isn't small

©Rhumour
April 18th 2009

~~~~~~~~~~





A Timeless Legacy
 
This world is still a wonderful place,
to mess it up more would  be our disgrace
so keep it fine for our children to see
for that would become their timeless legacy...

In truth we are not owners of the land,
but merely tenants that should understand,
all simply share the woods and the seas,
with millions of natures other great species.

©Rhumour
June 24th 2011
Edited April 5th 2012
~~~~~~~~~~~~~




Another Shore


Given time I'll tread the path again
Hold my own in this crazy world of pain
Shake the shackles of all that's passed
Maybe learn to love myself at last

We look around and see the madness
The frenzied dash for more
All the while I'm wondering
If we can reach another shore

Some distant place where value is held
To be in people not their goods
Where peace and understanding
Are taught and understood

For in this land where cash was king
And now replaced by plastic
Our spending's planned by marketeers
Who show us things that are fantastic

But do we need them to live in peace
Or are they really too devisive
Those that can buy them with ease
And hate those that stoop to stealing

So take me back to a place and time
When spin doctors and marketing grime
Had never even been given a thought
Where people shared their tables
With strangers that had sought
A place to shelter from life's gales
 

©Rhumour
May 6th 2008
~~~~~~~~~

Bell 

Bell
Tell me
It is time to rise


Bring me back to wakened state
Early enough to contemplate
All that must be done this day
Try to balance work and play


Signals we use to define our time and place
Something in common throughout this human race
Our need to define the way we run our lives
Without such disciplines would we long survive?


Bell
Toll me
Upon my demise


Bring the people to see my parting marked for all
Some will come to say goodbyes and see the pall
Others may mark that time in their own way
While I can lay still without guilt that day


The longest rest some believe brings with it a new dawn
If I find that I still have some more to say will I yawn
And rise spirit like to visit these keys some more
A ghost with lines to write or will I just silent snore?


Bell
Tell all
If I come again...


©Rhumour
April 3rd 2010








 

 

 

This acrostic poem is the title for the blog too as it signifies the entire premise of my vision for the viable future we can work towards if we just decide to abandon confrontation and waste and adopt cooperation.

As a lot of my thoughts are expressed in poetry there will be many more poems added to this blog, but not to the exclusion of other writing forms.

 The following poem was written when events in Gaza were dominating concerns over peace in the Middle East.  Now it is the conflict in Syria that brings so many 'World Leaders' into a huddle - but with all the preamble we know that nothing more than rhetoric can be expected in the near future...

What price do we set on the live of women and children, the elderly and other non-combatants?  Evidently the passion for feeding conflicts with more and more weapons is of little value when aiming for peace - but shares in armament companies will benefit as they always do.

Is there a connection between the power brokers on either side and the companies who depend upon death for profits - I doubt it can ever be denied to the satisfaction of any open minded people...

Brave Men Needed

Hundreds more Dead
Thousands more bleed
What hope can we give them
When will they be freed
Where is their peace
Is there water to drink
Can they find food
What are they to think

The innocent lie in pain and in blood
Their homes bombed to mere rubble
Seen by spies up above
Their anguish will forever blight any love
Is there some answer from those who are free
People are people wherever they be
Vietnam, Korea, China, Japan or Iraq
Once more out in Gaza who can shield their backs

Who can see further than the next shell or bomb
How long until peace comes
How long
How long
No place on earth is safe for the poor
How much they all suffer
Look at what they endure
Those that send hate must take blame for all this
Such deaths fuel more anger and so violence persists

The greatest courage is to stand and shout Stop
Are there no politicians man enough for that job
Are there none that can see beyond the next vote
No voices of reason without fear of the chop
We need some real leaders with the vision to say
We can never end conflicts while we do it this way

Shame will be written in more history books
Don't ever forget those crippled children's looks
Their puzzled expressions reveal the real loss
No spin can ever justify those that do boss
The armies and fighters who inflict all these crimes
And damage the future while they corrupt more young minds

Brave men are needed to stand and be heard
To carry on with bombing is brutally absurd
No eye for an eye will come to an end
Until all sides agree that they must learn to be friends

©Rhumour
January 14th 2009

 

Wars have scarcely ever been out of the news in the 45 years since I penned my first anti-war poem during a free period in Grammar school. That was a result of my growing awareness that wars were often fought for rather dodgy reasons - and yes there are endless questions to answer about how to resolve differences when political and economic differences are seemingly insurmountable.  

But we don't go to war between towns and cities when they have differing political control and one gains commercial growth at the expense of the other. And as populations migrate and form multi-ethnic societies in more and more countries, how long will national boundaries remain 'valid'.

And here is that poem from 1968 - simple and I am told still impactive to many who read it.

 

 

WAR

 
War, war, war
What is it all for?
Does it bring happiness
Does it bring joy
It gives me much less
For I'm a soldier boy

Drafted into conflicts
With folk I've never known
Right across the planet
Some other time zone
None of us have interests
In the other's needs
We're simply hanging on until
Some bullet makes us bleed

Patch us up in the MASH
Send us home to mum
I'd rather do without the dash
Over minefields all alone
So many buddies splattered
Across the field behind
Are those that sent us over here
Really of sound mind?

©Rhumour
June 1968 

 

The death toll among people in the military has been well marked after the World Wars and civilian casualty statistics are fairly well know with regard to many wars.  But there are the seemingly forgotten deaths that also took place when many unborn children died with their mothers.  This poem is dedicated to them. 

The Unknown Child

I am the unknown child the stork didn't bring,
my mother struck down during endless bombing,
no chance had I to ever see the light of dawn,
or graduate from milk to rusks made from corn.

The web can reveal the millions that died in war,
those that were soldiers and sailors and more,
the many others who died without raising a fist,
but who counted the babies that were never kissed?

Many fathers away on battlefields never knew,
until many months later about bombs that slew,
the families they had to leave behind to be brave
and wives carried children with them to the grave...

I am the unknown child that was not born,
just one of millions who have never sworn,
never had one chance to play out in the sun,
or gaze up into the eyes of a loving mum...

©Rhumour
February 5th 2012

 

Visionary leaders such as Gandhi. Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela  among others have already left their mark on the world.  How much better if we could see our children have the prospects of a united world, where mankind recognised the futility of conflicts that have already wasted millions of lives, devastated whole cities, squandered massive resources on military hardware and oil, etc. 

The erosion of national boundaries is taking place every day as more world citizens make friendships across the vast reaches of land and sea simply by using the world wide web to meet, free from the constraints of geography.  So let us decide now to act together...

 

Let's Act Together

Friends of many nations
We gather here to say
Let's act together as if
We're one big family today

For all our children's futures
Should be held in our own hands
Not bartered by some business
Or maimed by armies on our lands

This world is large but finite
We have no more room to grow
The food we need for all to eat
Must come from what we sow

And if we divert our efforts
From battles over dwindling oil
And make tractors now not missiles
Then we can make futures from our toil

Lets praise the men of peace now
Let Mandela be the mould
In which we cast our values
So our children may grow old

No rights can be the greater
Than the one to live in peace
I'm sure that all who read this
Want hostilities to cease

Far days may come the sooner
If we all hold fast and shout
Stop the deaths by slaughter
By starvation and by drought

©Rhumour
February 25th 2009