Candles
in the Darkness
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We sold the Sun for a Peppercorn

7/6/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
We sold the sun for a peppercorn

To industry who promptly closed it down.

Filling the skies with coal- dust and Co2.

They charged us our children’s future

And blindly we paid.

Promises broken

In the land of broken hopes.

 

We gave away our water

To business.

Who taught us lessons in greed

And the price of apathy.

They own what once belonged to all.

Like the sun and wind.

And the broken clay beds of once mighty rivers

Echo those broken promises

Of a government, Orwellian in its thinking

And brutal in its structure.

 

These shady men in power

Do they really believe we don’t know?

They line their pockets with our future

Steal from us with no qualms

Claim we’ve given them permission.

 

They have pimped us out

To greasy bosses and slimy bankers

Not bothering with honest prices

For services we gave them no leave to take.

They have made a brothel of this nation

Sold us down the sludgy river

Thrown our dignity out with our future

While they shake hands in smoke-filled back room deals

 

Arrogant and dangerous

The bully in the playground

Has grown and wears a suit.

He stares with lizard eyes

Holds reign in a parliament of snakes

Where blood runs cold

And empathy is extinguished.

 

Is there no legal precedent to force honesty and transparency from elected government?

This Liberal government, arrogant, ignorant, and misogynistic seems to do what it likes despite sound advice and legal argument?

When a government becomes a dictatorship, when it breaches international laws and human rights surely there must be a way to remove it?

Or do we, as a nation, not care enough?

Will we offer the same excuses as the Germans did after the war? That they didn’t know?

Maybe in a world without twitter it might be possible to claim ignorance. But we can’t claim ignorance any more.

Just apathy.

Evil happens when good men do nothing.

1 Comment
Colleen Keating
7/26/2014 09:50:14 pm

Evil happens when good people do nothing.
My poem is a reminder of this, a reminder to keep the stories alive , keep the candle burning always believing in the critical mass to change things.

keeping a story alive



write it
feeling by feeling

asylum seekers captive
captive at sea
detained in a prison hulk

use the pen to write it
one hundred and fifty three
or more
there could be a birth by now
maybe one hundred and fifty four

yes its hard to get a human stance
without names without stories

use the keys to type it
speak of seclusion
imprisoned on an ocean vessel
by our country
with our money in our name
in silence and secrecy

use the net to spread the word
name it as piracy
don’t let the story drown
under todays news

ask how can this be
question its morality aloud

keep the story alive
let our record be their witness


colleen keating

Since writing this poem the immigration minister
has been forced to capitulate and agree to bring to Australia
now note 157 asylum seekers..
They are being taken to the remote Curtin Detention Centre
while the Government tries to circumvent our High Court
in their absolute ruthless behaviour to asylum seekers.






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    siobhan colman

    Shining a light in the darkness.

    Human rights

    The Environment

    www.siobhancolman.com



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