9 November 2016 – The First 48 Hours
Re-View From Down Under — Seven Months On
“Thou majestic in the sadness at the doubtful doom of human kind”
What happened last night?
Was it all a bad dream?
My head aches, my heart hurts,
My eyes are bleary.
I stumble outside,
The bed still unmade –
A cup of tea just won’t cut it
On a day like today.
Retrace my steps from the night before –
A songwriting demonstration to show the
Faux optimism of a major chord,
To momentarily distract, from the
Stream of notifications that bleep of the
Change in the world.
And on the way home,
I stop for a tune –
Martha and her lone guitar
Sing of midweek gloom.
While the phrases I read
On the gallery walls:
“Every question is a defeat” leads to a
“Day of mourning”.
We huddle together, seeking shelter from storm.
Finding the sanctuary of a
Beautiful voice, and poetic words –
To momentarily distract, from the
Stream of notifications that bleep of the
Change in the world.
There’s blood on the streets –
But who is to blame?
The left and the right draw their battle lines,
Call each other vulgar names.
Justification of
Decisions now made –
Blow up the status quo,
Make room for the point of change.
Lateline shows the footage of the outrage marching down.
Effigies burning, the ratbags revolting –
It’s all they can do to fend off a civil war.
Is the judgement now upon us?
Or is the world to be made Right?
Bowie held the fabric of the universe together,
And everything unravelled in his aftermath.
Now Leonard’s quit the party as it starts to get quite interesting –
Turns the lights out as he leaves:
“You want it darker?”
Another day on,
Remembrance Day*.
But it seems a generation past
Our memory fades.
Through the ranting and the wailing,
Post-mortems abound.
What brought on this disaster?
What comfort can be found?
The world never changed,
We were already there.
Desperation simmered the pot –
We just never saw what was all around.
Blinkered in filter bubbles of the
World we wanted to see –
Our personal reality.
(14 November 2016)
*In Australia, Remembrance — or Armistice — Day is on 11 November, to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France
