Christmas

Here it is, that time of year,
When we look back and shed a tear
To me the facts are very clear
That better times are in the rear

The world around me is going bats
Replacing houses and gardens with big ugly flats
Digging caverns for cars - are they underground bunkers?
Melbourne's traffic increasing by ever more clunkers

Further afield every bit of space
is under attack from those seeking a place
For ever more cars and bicycle wheels
Thru our peaceful parks where we once cooled our heels

Small pieces of land with scatters of trees
Are deemed surplus to needs and sold off in the breeze
"No one will notice" behind closed doors they say
But the community loses a little each day

On a national scale we had an election,
It threw up an amazing Senate confection!
Such a surprise, One Nation arise!
Who else can the poor, disaffected turn to?

In the US t'was the same situation
though they really did it to utter perfection
Not just a loud voice from the red gallery
A developer star from reality TV

Over in Britain, they put in a lady
to mop up the spillage, (we won’t call her Sadie)
from a sudden and brutal and final exit
From the EU by a disgusted proletariat

Meanwhile in a wedge between India and France
We just can’t ignore that there isn’t a chance
Of stopping the wars in the Middle East
Or all sitting down to a peace giving feast

Until all are united in stamping out ISIS
or Da’esh or any damned name in a crisis.
With this situation let’s watch this space
We really don’t know quite what we will face.

Next year’s an unknown in international affairs
If you are religious then please say your prayers
Can it be worse ? Well may you wonder.
Lets hope that Trump, as he promised, will cast war asunder.

[Candobetter.net Editor: To view entire poem, you need to click on the title]

I had trouble keeping up with it a few short years ago ,
But I’m here to tell you all today that I’m still on the go,

I found a way around the fact that “Toys North Pole's" too dear to run
So I globalized activities, outsourced , off-shored and won.

Instead of one big trip each year, I spend nearly all the year in flight,
Placing orders in the Orient in the night and in the light

My emissions rate has risen as the reindeer can’t do this,
I use a jet, its pace is set, orders made just will not miss,

I like to think I’m viable, future proofed and in the black,
My suit is red , my trim is white so don’t give me any flack.

I’m rushed today and in a spin, it’s hard to make things rhyme
It’s all very well for you who sell, but I haven’t any time,

I must away as dawn approaches, westward as my reindeer know
Yes, they do the trip , they do not slip responding well to “Forward ho!’

On Christmas Eve 2013, as much of the world is threatened by war, stories which commemorate the Christmas 1914 truce are published on the Internet. They include: The Christmas Truce of 1914 by Tony Cartalucci; and 99 Years Ago: A Pause in the War on Christmas of 14 David Swanson.

This story of how British, French and German soldiers stopped killing each other on 25 December 1914 is remembered and celebrated as a high point amidst the unprecedented slaughter of the First World War.

More videos of programs, or excerpts of programs, which commemorate the Christmas truce of 1914 are linked to from the page of the YouTube video used by Tony Cartalucci.

On that day, French and British soldiers were to learn that the Germans they had been fighting for the previous four months were not the depraved monsters that their governments had claimed them to be. German soldiers were to learn the same of the French and British.

What is rarely acknowledged or questioned in these depictions of Christmas 1914 is that the war resumed the next day and millions more, including many who had fraternised on that day, were to die in terrible battles of attrition in the coming years.

The slaughter in the Battle of Passchendaele fought from July until November 1917. This was only one of many bloody battles of attrition fought in the four years which followed the Christmas truce of 1914.

How the generals on both sides of the trenches were able to compel those who had fraternised on 25 December 1914 to resume killing each other even more ferociously than they had in the first four months of the war, needs to be explained. By the time the slaughter ended, on 11 November 1918 9,911,000 combatants and 6.5 million civilians had died.

Santa Claus is now in gear To punctuate our living year. He has a lot of jobs to do, including a trip to Humpty Doo. He was his own boss til 2002 It had been like that since toy trains were new. But Toyland Corporation wanted a share Of his global market reaching everywhere!

Santa acted on bad advice and sold the lot
He really didn’t care a jot
For monetary rewards
Which the boss could get with much lower awards,
As workers slaving all over the world
Earn much less than at the Pole we’re told
So many changes came to bear
Santa was nearly pulling out his hair!
His polar elves stood to get the sack
But he held fast to them as they had the knack
Of making toys beyond compare,
They truly had just so much flare.

So was it good or was it bad?
Or was Santa really "had"?
He works so hard with his staff of elves
He was told they would have much more for themselves,
But as they’re paid in toys, not money
The whole thing seems just terribly funny!

It’s that carol time of year, they’re playing in my head

I hear their joyful melodies from daybreak until bed,

Singing “joy to the world” and “oh Holy night”

We hear them in the evening and again when it’s light,

How can we honestly and truly sing “the night is divine” ,

And cattle are lowing, the baby’s born, all’s fine ,

When in our cruel world the suffering is as much at Christmas time,

As any other time of year- with accidents and crime?

And for a song all through the year, people kill each other

One does it to his enemy, another to his brother,

The sadness of each dying soul brings worry and despair

And grief and all the hollowness of losses hard to bear

We pretend the peace and comfort some experience each day,

Is normal and ubiquitous and all the world’s at play,

But not far from where we live, others’ innocence is melted

A dog tied up for days on end, without food or drink or shelter

Cries out for help but no one comes, a casualty of the system.

Forgotten by her owner, the trusted one.. her world,

Abandoned to live out her fate and at last die of starvation.

A band of happy kangaroos in country quite near here,

Are shot en masse, their world destroyed, to leave the land for profiteers.

Unwitting cattle in the north are bred to be exported,

They grow up strong and fat til ready to be sorted.

Obedient, and trusting they line up to board the ships,

Without the need of prodding, manhandling or whips,

Their last few days on board the ship of misery and torture

Finish not in green and rolling fields, gentle weather and good fortune

But in blazing heat or blistering sands

Of far away and foreign lands

Greeted not with care or kindness but brutal actions and dislike,

For crimes they’ve not committed not in memory or in life ,

Of course we shouldn’t send them and our government's to blame

Their hands are stained all red with blood. Most of them are the same.

So Happy Christmas everyone, I hope your table’s loaded,

That brothers talk and mothers speak in phrases carefully worded,

And that carols play for you that day all spiritual and sublime,

To make this festive holiday a holy wondrous time

And you hear the finer voice of yours, your mind can carefully capture

Then you will see the purpose clear, a duty. ‘Twill enrapture!