– POEM –
It’s a cruel world
Where the charity worker dies of hunger
Where the selfish prosper
And the unkind live out rich, full lives
It’s a cruel world
It’s a crazy world
Where the incompetent wield power
Where the undeserving get it all
And the fat are given the means to get fatter
It’s a crazy world
It’s a lonely world
Where the gentle spend nights alone
Where the fragile are broken
And their lonesome cries for help are never heard
It’s a lonely world
It’s an imperfect world
With its injustices and cruelty brought upon just people
Where people commit crimes against nature
And governments engender blissful ignorance
It’s an imperfect world
It’s a dying world
Fish, birds, mammals and plants; going or gone
Honour, chivalry, truth; going to be gone
Love on probation. Respect at a price.
It’s a dying world.
It’s a broken world
Where a life of work is rewarded with hardship
Where the good die young
And the old forget that life is for living
It’s a broken world
It’s a telling world
Where the bets are off
Where the truth is buried
And the gamble gets you in
It’s a telling world
It’s cruel
It’s crazy
It’s lonely, imperfect and dying
It’s broken and telling
Its a world without care, without loyalty and without compassion.
It’s a world where the decent decays
And where evil will always flourish.
The mother cradling her still born child
The husband patting the coffin before his wife is laid to rest
The sister missing her sibling who fought for so long against her illness.
And the father who will never know what became of his daughter
Yet there is light outside the darkness
There is kindness somewhere among hate
And there is a gentle hand waiting to take yours
It’s a cruel world
But if you’re lucky, you won’t find it so.
by Martin Gregory
Dedicated to Helen.
Author’s note: Last year, this poem spilled out of me at 2am in the morning, after learning some very sad news. It is presented unedited, exactly as originally written in order to preserve the raw emotion.
