Tyrant – A Fable for Modern Tyrants

oblivious to all entreaty
the tyrant built up stranger’s walls
a line of obfuscation
retreating from the calls
of desperate voices, long silent,
now crying for peace and bread
Instead
he gave them
bread and games
a new identity each day
a new spectacle of the saviour for his people

great the walls became, and broad,
so fifteen men could stand abreast
their solid battlement
entrapment for those held within
isolation for those kept without
who with entreaties still
Shouted
for sake of those they loved
for entrance to the vaulted halls
of plenty and of life

behind the solid division
smirking smugly sat the tyrant
his men compliant
bent easily to his hardened heart
the expression of his love a
stony will that had no regard
Artfully
he spun them round, a fairground ride
of human dross

the days, as is their wont, multiplied
themselves into the years
and those without sought succour
amongst themselves
seeing afresh the dignity of
Communal life
commonality of man and woman
and, despite taken from their soul,
they sought a lighter path

realising then
they had no need of the tyrant
they snubbed the daily leaning
and keening
About the walls
and made instead their own
daily bread

within the walls, the suckle of need
dried upon the whispering breast
and hunger for the power of old
Gnawed
upon the shrinking hearts
of those within
with empty guts they looked without
upon the new community of plenty
and life
from the safety of the high walls

they saw the food that was without
and spoke unto the tyrant, pleading
that they might go forth and
eat their fill
The tyrant led them out …

and learned then a great truth

greed is blinding to those who
proudly sit in opression

and when they built their
encircling fortress
in arrogance they forgot
that in order for it to not become
Prison

the tyrant should have
allowed, within the proud edifice of
The Wall,
the humility of a gate

The sun shrivelled them then,
And bleached their hides

And
The tyrant

Wept

As tyrants do, when their last breath
Falls due.

and those without never sought again
to be within
amongst the dead souls
who moved not
and neither
breathed
nor held power or dominion
Over aught.

©2013 R Wright.

Time To Stand – A Brief Call To Arms

 

Those who champion the cause of private, insurance-based healthcare, as opposed to free at the point of need NHS, should look at the example of insurers where a non-profitable risk exists.

I speak of flood insurance for people on a flood plain – it is becoming exorbitantly expensive, and may disappear altogether. For a while it looked like governments would continue to require insurance companies to provide such cover, but this was deemed anti-competitive. It violated the free market.

Directly similar, those who are in poor health will not be able to afford, or even get, health insurance, and will therefore suffer appallingly. To legislate for compulsory provision by insurance companies will also be a violation of ‘free market principles’.

 

Is that what we want in this affluent, cash-rich society of ours? The old and the sick denied proper care, denied basic human decency, freedom from pain?

 

Such things should not be part of a civilised society.

Such things should be thrown into the bin of history, at which memory we should all shudder.

 

Profit will not deliver universal care.

The two are totally incompatible, and diametrically opposed to each other. Money can only serve money; it cannot have two masters. It may well be a good misquote: you cannot serve man and mammon.

 

Fight for your country’s honour and decency, not by killing families in Iraq, Aghanistan, but rather by refusing – loudly and forcefully – to support those who wish to plunge this country into shame and dishonour.

 

If you do not fight, this will be our legacy to the children – fear of illness.

 

Fight.