I
With fate, like cannonballs, the risk is too high.
This turbulently strange year, when all the heroes die.
Who’s responsible for the senseless killing season?
So many innocent of the world, slaughtered without reason
They perished in droves, on the pavement they laid
A Gendarme pushed an empty pram, up the Nice promenade.
On beaches and in night clubs, celebrating or asleep
killing becomes fashionable for the dysfunctional creep.
A sad Teddy Bear with chrysanthemums marks the spot
Where evil took hold and that compassion forgot,
The Rainbow at Saint George, flew at half mast
In respect for those whose lives in Orlando, now passed.
Through garlands of colour – do the righteous ask why?
Sick murdering perpetrators are living out their lie.
While governments’ still drop hell from pastel blue skies
And target the hospitals, a blood soaked child cries.
Through toxic gas and thick clouds of concrete dust
The courageous White Helmets do what they must.
II
I need no love spell to invoke Cupid
I need no referendum to highlight the stupid.
Malpractice of the ignorant, there nothing left to save?
My heart bled out that day, seeing Jo Cox’s grave.
Her passing was a simile, although she’d made her stand
Of people’s indifference, for this country – England;
While lamenting the righteous, we have justice on our side
The year when all the Heroes, when all the Heroes died.
A modern day country that’s discarded its friends
Lose trade and jobs, what message this sends?
To ruin the economy with such xenophobic lust
Because the ninnyhammers voted – for the Fascists they trust.
III
So many too, passed away without the anger or the hate
With lives now over – the journey beyond, they illuminate.
The morning of the Carnival, I read the news on text
Gone – the king of the pugilists, was Cassius X.
At the Summer Olympics, he took the medal Gold
He did more for his people, that can ever be told,
While news print hollered and it skirled
Trash talking, ring dancing, king of the world.
So no razzmatazz, just hard rock n’ roll
On Ian in Los Angeles, death took its cruel toll.
There was also the Duke and indeed the Prince
The inspiration of my youth and forever since.
Names so numerous, we had come to learn
Rickman, Wogan, Corbett and Aherne.
The most awful year of fatalities, we’d ever see
Wood, Martin, Wilder and also Harper Lee.
Another and another, from the news one learns
Peres, Alexander and also Pete Burns.
Some have driven Pop Culture and we too are owing
Jimmy Young and the genius Leonard Cohen
Who will next its so hard to tell
This mornings papers said Good bye Fidel
But life is not totally ours, it’s a fixed term on a lease.
To all who died this year, may you All – Rest in Peace.
