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Epitaph For The Waste Land

 

I see them in forgotten towns

men in pairs and burdened mums,

nowhere stares with heads bowed down

"Something broken this way comes"

 

In carless forecourts of bleak hotels

where fag butts rot and litter blows,

cruel deals are done that no one tells...

We turn our heads so no one knows.

 

While in the dens of whispered spite

be-trolleyed locals sneer and scoff,

at those who stain their one birthright,

and dare to be of different cloth...

 

This inheritance of human spill

a cash cow for the Corporate Kings,

who for 14 years and lack of will

made misery their sum of things.

 

Times will change as time must do

with cut and thrust new Kingdoms Come,

and who’s to say it won't be you

that those who rise will hateful shun.

 

 

🌷(9)

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Comments

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David RL Moore

Thu 14th Nov 2024 09:20

Hi Telboy,

Thanks for your comments.

I would agree that it isn't all the tories fault and that inaction on immigration issues started back with Blair, arguably before.

I don't agree everyone can simply choose their own lifestyle. We can maybe choose a moral code to live by but there are many social and economic barriers that can influence individual aspirations... of course one could say that's just life, but not in all cases I believe.

I recall when there were Visa Sections in British Embassies abroad that dealt with people wishing to emigrate to the UK. These days you're lucky to get any meaningful help from the FCDO even if you are a British Citizen.

An established immigration policy that provided secure routes might help, unfortunately it would not entirely stop dangerous and criminal exploitative smuggling.

I have sympathy for genuine asylum seekers and those whose lives are in danger. Economic migrants arriving in the UK illegally are a hinderance to genuine claimants, that said if we had established effective systems years ago we would still be able to accept a controlled flow of economic migrants that would be mutually beneficial.

The tories are responsible for stacking up thousands of asylum seekers without effective planning for integration or return.

There are towns in the UK now dying from lack of investment in the economy whilst able bodied immigrant's wander the streets unable to work. Some of those are recruited into crime gangs which have now got a firm foothold in communities that are fragmenting into ungovernable areas.

Very little of the above is the fault of those who come here by whatever means they can to better themselves. It is though the responsibility of those who have governed and who govern now to ensure such descent into social incohesion is somehow reversed and fixed, if at all possible.

David

PS. When I last worked in Kabul I sponsored Afghans who were working alongside me, some of them succesfully came to the UK. Most preferred to apply to the US via other contracts they had worked on.

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Telboy

Thu 14th Nov 2024 08:51

A great poem David.

I don't subscribe to the idea that it is all the Tories' fault. People have free will and can choose their own lifestyle, in fact the state helps them to do this by allocating benefits with little pushback. It will be interesting to see whether the change in government maintains this arrangement or not.

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David RL Moore

Thu 14th Nov 2024 07:03

Thanks for the early likes to RBK, Stephen A and Tobani.

David

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