Poem: Why I am a socialist

Issue 

Because there is a better way

A safer way to touch and cradle humanity

Because understanding starts with understanding

And understanding that is just the start.

Because caring is intellectual

Not the ineffectual nonsense demeaned by

Right-wing amoral propagandering

Meandering fiscal drivel driven by market forces

Apocalyptic horses

Pounding down and out at the worst of our fears.

I'm a socialist because there are always years

Ready for a redder dawn

Ears born to listen to wider concerns

Yearning to sort it out.

Because caring means fighting back

Caring means taking stock and sticking at fighting that good fight

Knocking out the Thatcherists

And the worst excesses of materialism

And yes I said Thatcherists

Because no matter what Blair did or said

It's never stopped being Thatcherism.

The bankers took her brains

And the bankers took her soul

The bankers lick their lips

And her sulphur stinking hole.

They said they were our friends

They would lend us time and money

That when they took control

It would all be sunny on the surface

I'm a socialist because bankers created our debt-bed

And not the National Health Service.

[Gerry Potter is an English poet. Visit www.myspace.com/gerrypotterpoet .]

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