The land of a rich man

Some haiku

Here is foolishness;

gathering goods into barns

constructed from fear.

Have you not enough

to live with grace, dignity

gratitude and love?

The foolish rich man;

these things will be swept away.

All is vanity.

We separate them,

these two words, foolish and rich;

should be joined as one.

The poor, he once said,

will be with you forever.

The rich too, I fear.

Yes, it's a cliché:

you cannot take it with you.

Still, it is the truth.

Storing up treasures

is futile, gains you nothing;

be rich towards God.

© Ken Rookes 2016

Building bigger barns

Building bigger barns

Dwelling in the frantic phoniness
that fills the weeks
between the calling of the election
and the voting,
we are confronted by the various parties’ priorities
for building bigger barns.
We shall gather to ourselves
and lock away for the fearful future
those things that make us rich,
that we value above all else.
We shall erect a barn for the borders
that must be desperately protected
from people who voyage in boats;
poor, fearful, and as wretched as the vessels
to which they have entrusted their lives and their hopes.
Wealth shall be gathered into silos
and defended against the ravages of responsibility
that might see it paying for the big clean-up
that everybody knows will have to come. One day.
There shall be a separate, sheltered barn
for leaders afraid of making decisions
that might prove to be unpopular,
lest they no longer enjoy the favour of the people.
This is democracy, and it has its own barn,
galvanized and gleaming in the sun.
There is also a barn, full and overbursting
with responsible economic policies,
that all of our leaders are required to visit regularly,
to establish their correct credentials,
or else we will not place a number low enough
 in the boxes beside their names.
They say that there is a barn, somewhere,
that holds the nation’s store of compassion, truth and justice.
It is apparently a small barn
and there are no proposals to build a larger one;
besides, its GPS coordinates are believed to have been mislaid.

© Ken Rookes

Building Bigger Barns

As I get older I find I'm getting angrier.
This poem is a response to the parable of the Rich Fool.

Building Bigger Barns

Dwelling in the frantic phoniness
that fills the weeks between the calling
of the election and the voting,
we are confronted by the various
parties’ priorities for building bigger barns.
We shall gather to ourselves
and lock away for the fearful future
those things that make us rich,
that we value above all else.
We shall erect a barn for the borders
that must be desperately protected from
people who voyage in boats; poor, fearful,
and as wretched as the vessels to which they
have entrusted their lives and their hopes.
Wealth shall be gathered into silos and defended
against the ravages of responsibility
that might see it paying for the big clean-up
that everybody knows will have to come. One day.
There shall be a separate, sheltered barn
for leaders afraid of making decisions
that might prove to be unpopular,
lest they no longer enjoy the favour of the people.
This is democracy, and it has its own barn,
galvanized and gleaming in the sun.
There is also a barn full and overbursting
with responsible economic policies,
that all of our leaders are required
to visit regularly, to establish
their correct credentials, or else
we will not place a number low enough
in the boxes beside their names.
They say that there is a barn, somewhere,
that holds the nation’s store
of compassion, truth and justice;
It is apparently a small barn and there are
no proposals to build a larger one; besides,
its GPS coordinates
are believed to have been mislaid.

Ken Rookes 2010