Kate Jay-R
Lessons
A tower on fire as lives expire
Needlessly lost and burned
And the powers that be, chant endlessly
That lessons have to been learned
Systemic discrimination of half the nation
An outraged public spurned
Still what comes out from their collective spout
Is lessons have to be learned
Fatal decisions from top positions
A salary never honestly earned
Still the thing we hear buzzing in our ear
Is lessons still have to be learned
Planet in crisis as we roll the dice
Is there time for it to be overturned
Or an eerie cry across a toxic sky
Of lessons should have been learned
The warning signs and the anodyne
True feeling and meaning adjourned
Hiding behind, the empty line
Of lessons still need to be learned.
Kate Jay-R is an author and has written extensively. Her novel The Other Side Of Carrie Cornish was inspired by her personal struggles with the benefits system, and her own experience with long term mental and physical health problems and those of others. She has been campaigning online against changes to welfare changes since 2010. She prefers to call it Social Security even though she regards that as a misnomer, as it’s more like social insecurity these days. She wrote another novella related to the benefits system over twenty years ago entitled Lost The Plot which was published in an avant-garde magazine Texts Bones published by Skrev Press. As well as writing many novels she has written short stories, some of which have been shortlisted for awards. She also writes poetry and co-edited The Brown Envelope Book with Alan Morrison in 2021. Her poem ‘Lessons’ was published in The Morning Star in November 2021. She set up the Facebook group Nothing4Something nearly a decade ago for disabled artists and those with long term health problems. The group is now called Don’t Go Breaking Our Arts where members share their poetry, writing, satire, art and photography. Kate also loves music, singing, cats, LFC, genealogy and photography, not necessarily in that order.
thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
Militant Thistles