Ambition breeds strife --
The arm draped round your shoulders
Often wields the knife.

Betwixt rock and sea,
Three Hundred haunting poems
And one melody.

How poor votes are sold —
Dreams of rainbow unicorns
And a *** of gold

In life’s Fairytale,
Happily Ever After
Always hides Dragons

The light my eyes receive
Reflecting of your face
That aids me to perceive
Each imperfected grace

Has had to wend and weave,
Though at tremendous pace,
Through airs that interleave
Our intervening space

And so I sometimes grieve
That I can but retrace
The beauty I believe
No time would dare efface.

They sit atop a low wall kicking heels,
Pyjamas draped in bathrobes pulled-to tight
To ward Antarctic winds — Nearby the squeals
Of blues and twos betray the mortal plight
Of some ill-fated soul — A fog bank peels
Up from their glowing embers, for in spite
Of coughing blood and dragging drips on wheels,
Collective will has long since lost the fight —

And did they think as children at the flicks,
As war was sold with glory, did they think
As Bogart raised a lucifer to his lips
How Tinseltown might guide them to this brink,
And just like Fleming’s catcher tempt them in
With candy coloured cartons and a grin?

To own a house has always been the dream,
Or so the kids are told — And so they yearn,
And enter servitude to pay to learn,
Amassing debts that pile up till they seem

As tall as any townhouse — Graduation
Goes by, and now they need a car to ply
For work to save to buy some old pig sty,
And banks will lend (subject to valuation) —

And so, kids born with nothing now have less,
And toil their life to pay the debts they owe,
And teach kids of their own how they should go
To lend to spend to learn to have success,

And buy a house to live the American dream,
Or wake from debt-fuelled nightmare with a scream.