VERACITY.

I don’t write about flowers and vales and hills
Better writers than me have already done that.
I prefer to write about what the worlds about.

Getting up at an ungodly hour to go to work
Sweating your guts out then watching some
over-paid pampered footballer on TV say he’s tired.
That’s what the worlds about.

An old lady robbed of her life savings and
beaten senseless by some drug-crazed yob
to feed a habit he shouldn’t have.
That’s what the worlds about.

World leaders sending troops into Iraq,
their way of saying, “Sorry we didn’t catch
Osama Bin Laden, will Sadam Hussein do?”
That’s what the worlds about.

Old people in so-called civilised countries
dying, because they’re frightened to put the
heating on for fear of not paying the bill.
That’s what the worlds about.

People in uncivilised countries dying, for the
want of clean water, basic food and above all
the education to help themselves.
That’s what the worlds about.

The fourteen-year-old mum’s and dads
who think the world owes them a living.  Then
spend the rest of their lives trying to prove it.
That’s what the worlds about.

Big business, brain washing children via the
media. Making them a got-to-have generation
of designer clothes and labels while Mum and Dad
struggle to keep up with the world of price control.
That’s what the worlds about.

Religion! the shield used by zealous warmongers
fighting under the banner of Catholicism, Protestantism
Islam, Christianity etc etc. And perhaps the worst of them all,
the religion of being American, thank God for the atheists.
That’s what the worlds about.

The homeless guy sleeping in the shop doorway,
sneered at by the ‘Who cares as long as it’s not me
generation?’ on their way to another nightclub.
That’s what the worlds about.

The so-called football supporters setting fire
to cars and shops, beating people up and killing
them because someone’s team beat theirs.
That’s what the worlds about.

The purists who protest against genetically modified
crops, oblivious of the fact that 36,000 people a day
die from starvation, 85% of them children.  
That’s what the worlds about.

The bigot who believes he’s superior to some of
his fellow men, because at the moment of his
conception his father happened to be white.
That’s what the worlds about.

The Internet, that poorly policed super-highway
of information and misinformation, breeding a
whole new world of faceless immorality.
That’s what the worlds about.

The individuals and businesses who knowingly
pollute the earth and its atmosphere.
Killing forestation, wildlife and humans, in pursuit
of another nought on the end of their bank account.
That’s what the worlds about.
 

Governments spouting empty rhetoric about the
greenhouse effect and doing nothing. Sitting back and making
another dollar until it’s to late and we all die as a result
That’s what the worlds about to do- to itself.