Ought To, Need To

Ought to be more than mere feelings

Ought to feel more than an urge

Ought to serve something more than the self

Ought to resist, need to purge

Penchant for serving mere mammon

Proclivity for take and take more

Ought to give back, need to give in return

Need to even the score.

Ought to vest interest in many

Need to voice justice the same

Need to do something, we have to,

To be worthy of human

In name.

Ought to look to the future,

Need to see to the kids,

Ought to remember our parents,

Need to do what they did.

Need to consider the options,

Ought to speak out, ought to vote,

Need to acknowledge there’s much more at stake

Ought to know that by rote.

Need to relive the lies told

Ought to remember result,

Need to do more than shrug shoulders

Need to read up and consult.

Need to recollect rights here

Ought to reckon responsible too

Need to quit saying nothing changes

Ought to matter to you.

Ought to get on with the housework

Need to remember each task

Ought to and need to, quite different,

Must remember whenever I’m asked.

Need to go now and cook some,

Need to is my middle name,

Ought to is in there as well though,

I guess we’re something the same.

Human with plenty of options,

The ought to’s, the needs and the must,

In it together, we all are,

Need to go now and do what I trust.

Ought to be cleaning, I told you,

Ought to but I have a choice,

Need to’s a whole other matter,

Need to needs to be voiced.

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F#*k You Philosophy

The ‘fuck you’ philosophy,

With satin bow tied on,

Still rhymes with ‘get it up you’

In the selfish song.

A bauble or a tassel

Isn’t fooling anyone,

Fuck you philosophy,

Sin defined, most wrong.

Chartered

Lift up your voice, let the clear air carry

From the Sounds and the Firths out to the seas,

Enter in the inlets, in the estuaries,

Vocal now, no supplicants’ pleas.

These are not the voices of the woaded tribes,

But the born to be, destined to be free,

Lift up your voice, let the message ride,

Polemicists, apologists we.

These are the voices of the meek grown bold,

Emboldened by the truth when it is known,

History rewritten, in the present told,

Seeds of justice long ago sown.

Vanquish defensive, the cringe once bred

By the words of the woeful, books and news,

Lift up your voices, elevate your head,

Sing songs of freedom born of battled blues.

Carry the banner of the free, unveiled,

Perish the thought of lowly born,

People of the future, never more assailed,

Abandon ashes, sackcloth ever worn.

Shrug off the fear, designating state,

Antonym to action, thus enslaved,

Write now with purpose on a wipe-cleaned slate,

Capitalised, italicised, writ brave.

Be the free citizens where’er you live,

Terminology none may revoke,

Pass on egality as the gift you give,

Charter of mankind now quote, invoke.

Old and New

New class, brand new school,

Old ways and new ways combined

Harmony in action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday saw me move into this wonderful new school building. We’ve been going at it solid for three days, unpacking and setting up again, getting prepped for the return of the children today who scored three days off in the move. I’ve been climbing all over furniture hanging frieze paper on to fresh, new walls.

From this..

Rotting from inside,

Beneath papered coverings,

Old gone very wrong.

The dilapidated decant building used while the new school was being built. What lies beneath the paperwork, right enough. Uncovered in all its glory while we stripped every inch of the old bare to salvage the worthwhile. January has been a different sort of job, teaching while packing and uncovering the horrors beneath. The Scottish Parliament has been investing in new schools the length and breadth of the country. Investing in the future. In our children. I, for one, am extremely thankful that some old things, long past their sell-by-date, will soon be demolished. It is possible to keep the old if we care for it. And it’s beneficial. The above fits no criteria worthy of retention.

Before first footprints,

Aged in fresh fallen snow,

Serenity known.

I took this from my bedroom in the early hours of this morning with my new camera phone, without a flash, on night time smart-setting or something that this auld bugger doesn’t quite get yet. But I like old and new. And I liked the results. About four minutes from here is my youngest daughter’s lovely new school at which I’m teaching for the year. Falling out of bed now. With the snow. Old(er!) and young, hand in hand, as off we walk to school. 🙂

Air

She gasped for breath that day

And I,

I was useless,

Almost.

Asthma, in a panic

And I panicked too.

What to do?

What to do!

Hands flailing, breath wheezing,

Drowning for want of air.

Eyes wide,

Terrified.

I was there,

With a phone, that’s all.

One call.

Take charge,

Take control,

Take inhaler

And point

And press

And pray

And it worked.

 

Watching

Someone gasp for air,

My mum,

Helpless to help

But still,

It went well

With advice,

Calmly given

And actions taken,

Eventually.

 

Listening

To reports

Of chemical

Warfare,

I cry.

I die a little,

Remembering

That day.

How dare they?

How dare they!

Air,

First on the hierarchy of need.

Not greed, but necessity.

 

Shoot me,

Stab me,

Bomb me,

Kill me quickly.

Do not take

My air.

Seconds of drowning,

A lifetime of suffering.

Terror in eyes

Not easily forgotten.