What Encouragement!

 

 

What encouragement it is

To promise someone that’s down

Something not likely to happen?

They must think I’m a clown.

 

Politicians do it everyday

And especially at Election time

And they mostly get away with it

Particularly with the blind.

 

Christians do it as well

Like when they tell you to pray,

It’s their solution to every problem,

It’s their affordable get-away.

 

The apostle James mentions it:

Send the mendicant away,

More than likely he’ll be satisfied

If I tell him I will pray.

 

I may have the means to help

But prayer will do so much more

Than giving him from my abundance

Before I let him go.

 

Think of someone in pain

Moaning and groaning in anguish,

What great encouragement is it

To leave them with a wish?

 

I can see you are in great pain

But you know, it could be worse,

You could be in yonder churchyard

In the back of a hearse.

 

Or you go to church a Sunday

Weighed down with worldly care

And the preacher beats up upon you

Trying to convince you he cares.

 

 

What great encouragement

Blaming people for their woe!

You are getting just what you deserve,

Change or there will be more.

 

What encouragement is it

To give a man who has no feet

The most expensive pair of shoes

To walk on the dusty streets?

 

 

Or to promise 100 buses

That will be arriving next year

To sort out a critical present challenge

That many commuters fear.

 

Like the loss of employment

Because workers arrive late

And children missing time from school

And currently not up to date.

 

What encouragement is it

To blame the last Government

For all we are experiencing now

In our present torment?

 

Two elections since

And nothing much has changed

At least, for the most vulnerable,

Don’t you think this strange?

 

 

What encouragement is it

For the at-risk people living here

With all the shooting and the killing

To be told it’s worse elsewhere?

 

What encouragement is it

To pay exorbitant salaries to some

While the employable unemployed

Keeps on getting none?

 

Paying a barrage of Ministers,

Not to mention several consultants

Out of the Barbadian tax payers’ coffers

To sustain their extravagance.

 

And to boot, before I finish,

The middle class is being wiped out,

What encouragement is there in this?

None without a doubt!

 

 

What encouragement is it

To promise that better will come

And this for the last several years

When to-date there is none?

 

Pseudo encouragement I call it,

It's only in the mind

But it never rolls out in actual fact

At any given time.

 

Stewart Russell © May 1, 2024

Class Is Just A Mask

This thing we call class

Needs getting rid of fast!

Looking down one’s nose

Must be a thing of the past.

Some turning up their face,

Someone is in their space

Who’s not better off than they

Yet allowed too much to say.

Lower, middle and upper

Living together in a cluster,

But I better off than you

For, I am one of the privileged few.

Money making distinction

Regarding who high and low

But death treating all alike

‘Cause class it does not know.

Interred in the same earth,

Doesn’t matter origin or birth,

Death is likely to come your way

And with it class will have no say.

You see class is a big pretense,

A real discriminating offense

Making people more than they are

Whether white as snow or black as tar.

It’s time to pull down class

And time to put up equality

And give everyone a chance

To demonstrate his real ability.

 

Dollars do not a person make

Or character from another take,

Social cliques do not build worth,

Pretense is no sign of genuine growth.

Yes, class is no more than a sham,

You are a billy and I but a ram!

We both eat of the same grass

But you feel you’re in a higher class.

  

Where we live, doesn’t that count?

Not in my view, that doesn’t amount.

In the final analysis when all is said

Both will lie in the earth dead, dead!

You have no right to question me,

Don’t you know who I am?

Well, if you are not a woman

Then hopefully, you are a man.

Some want to be our servants

Then strut around like peacocks.

Our vote puts them in a class

That invests its money in stocks.

In our churches too, there’s class,

There’s little, big and mega blast!

But they who heed not the Gospel

Will be left in their class at the last.

Schools are a part of the problem too,

Amazing that some only see a few.

These have class, oh yes, real class

But their reputation lives in the past.

Class is class while form is temporary

Somebody once said but it wasn’t me.

Classes and forms should be at school

But classes in society are not really cool.

Class often hampers our very best effort

And robs our nation of vital support,

And so we satisfy our selfish greed

And class-consciousness continues to breed. 

Down with the crap, class is crap!

It does us no good and that’s a fact!

Now we have time to make it back

Let’s come together and get on track.

Now I’ve shown that class is a cancer

That seeks to destroy our very mind.

Isn’t it time that we come together

And leave this debilitating sickness behind?

Stewart Russell © 2014