Tuesday, 21 December 2021

Freedom with Responsibilty

 

Freedom with Responsibility - 21st December 2021

 

Twas the Day of Mars, and on time marched,

Fire raged in Northland, by dry winds parched.

Declining Delta followed by overwhelming Omicron,

The new plague struck while the old was still on.

 

Hysteria and Cynicism, those dark handmaids

Of dark times, were present in spades.

Hysteria cared naught that Omicron was less fatal.

Cynicism ignored cases where Omicron was fatal.

 

To be or not to be? Whether to vaccinate

Against viruses and by opposing, end them.

Or suffer the slings and arrows of infection,

And achieve herd immunity without injection.

 

Who was right? No one knew.

Who was wrong? No one knew.

Those who knew the science were few,

And even they were in a stew.

 

Cone Man reflected: “No stew can forever simmer”.

“The heat must end, or the stew become grimmer”.

The heat of controversy would burn off frivolities,

The heat of controversy would create policies.

 

The sillier regulations would be relaxed,

The sensible measures would be reinforced.

The less hesitant would be vaxxed,

The more effective measures better resourced.

 

Pride, Arrogance, and Ignorance were often found,

In the halls of power to abound.

Would the government find the middle ground?

And the cry “Freedom with Responsibility” resound?


© Craig Turney


Friday, 10 December 2021

Better sentences – 9th December 2021

Twas a happy day when to the printer went,

His book of verse, in time for Advent.

Relieved as he was, he could not relent,

Fearing the loss of time, through time poorly spent.

 

He was tired of rhyming couplets,

He simultaneously found them comforting.

In rhyming verse poetry emerged in droplets,

Yet archaic discipline was strangely enabling.

 

Why? Why should ending sentence,

With a rhyming suffix, produce better poetry?

What was the point of rhyming pretense?

Was it not mere sophistry?

 

Rhyming required constructing whole sentences,

Allowing less scope for vacuity

Rhyming required composition to make sense,

Allowing scope for clarity.

 

Cone Man was bound by this discipline,

Frequently forced to re-write sentences.

Cone Man was empowered by this discipline,

Frequently forced to write better sentences

Sunday, 5 December 2021

Cone Man takes stock - 5th December 2021

 

Cone Man takes stock

5th December 2021

 

Cone Man’s compiled verse to printer went,

Cone Man comfortably enjoyed Advent.

2022 was drawing near,

How could he seize the New Year?

 

The sands of time waited for no man,

Slipping away from the man with no plan.

Cone Man had lived 9 and 50 years,

Cone Man hand not well used these years.

 

“You must seize time or be seized by time,”

Cone Man muttered, lamenting wasted time.

How many left works unwritten,

Being by untimely death smitten?

 

Knowing not the day of his death,

He’d repent of sloth till his last breath.

Plan for 2022 he should,

Seize every day he would.

 

If his god allowed him many years,

Then he would have few fears.

If his god summoned him in a few years,

Then he would have few fears.

Either way he’d hope to hear:

“Well done, good and faithful servant.”