Narrative

All the world’s become a narrative
A place of stories not things
Opinions not facts
Prejudice on wings
Myth is now our refuge
from the fear hard truth brings
 
Wishes not hopes
Desire not aspiration
Feeling unchecked by thought
Vicarious pain
Spectated suffering too
To see is to be
To watch is to do

Growth is the story
told without shame
double or quits with the earth
but someone’s skimming the maths
in a zero sum game
Musical chairs where
Banks hold the chairs
and markets the tune
we circle in hope
with no one to blame
 
The honest granite of work
the truth of the real
once our salvation
that had roots limits checks to desire
respect for the common weal
shared worth to admire
is now plastic phantasy
shaped by our whim at our will
The new reality leaves many behind
in our self-absorbed selfish solitude
out of sight out of mind.
 
The rigour of a real world
that must first be obeyed
before it can be changed
submits to fashioned narrative
a purpose built on magic dreams
to wish is to do
and death now passes away
into an endless sleep
 
War is over there not here
a gruesome calculus
where thousands balance one
and market forces rule
a false imperative where pious greed
trumps honest need
selfishness is good the way to go
economics tells us so
 
Yet imagination’s flights
are launched from
the ordinary the everyday
and fantasy is rooted in
the mundane certainty
of the commonplace
Our wildest dreams
need stable things
that can be true or false
not just what they seem

Truth is fiction’s friend.
the story can transcend
and lift the spirits high
myth and poetry too
but there is no narrative in the news
except the stories that we choose
Fake news we shout as people die
too weak afraid and lazy
to call a lie a lie