Socialist Sonnet No. 249: Going through the Motions (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Going through the Motions

 

Fine promises are all too glibly made

In a conference hall, filled with delegates

Gathered from the political estate,

Where future electoral plans are being laid.

All this nation’s ills are the fault, of course,

Of other parties, but power won’t be lost

With well thought through proposals, fingers crossed:

All delivered with rhetorical force.

The only real obstacle is the cost,

Because money’s always in short supply.

Profits remain sacrosanct, which is why

Though politicians try, markets won’t be bossed.

Conference approves what has been arranged

And then departs; yet nothing will have changed.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 248: Social Truth (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Social Truth

 

What is truth?’ Is an immemorial

Question posed by Pilate, and still a sage

Query this secular social media age

That’s dominated by the spectacle.

Don’t let bare-faced fact tarnish an image

Fostered by some present day potentate,

Determined to determine others’ fates

As he pompously struts his national stage.

Meanwhile, red hobgoblins haunt the courts

Of public debate, their schemes and schisms

Practically confusing socialism

With nostrums, redundant and out of sorts.

While potentates will secure their capitals

For as long as the spectacle holds.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 247: Today (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Today

 

Today billions did not kill each other,

Didn’t perpetrate any atrocity,

Didn’t bomb any village, town or city,

Didn’t knowingly exploit one another.

Didn’t become celebrities or famous,

Didn’t receive honours for doing their jobs,

Didn’t gather together in murderous mobs,

Didn’t see different colours and make a fuss.

They did work required for wealth creation,

They did hours of housework, as ever unpaid,

They did see folk in need, came to their aid,

They did all the world’s administration.

And no one ever really seeks their views,

And not even be mentioned in the news.

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 246: What Price Democracy? (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

What Price Democracy?

 

Why democracy? What does it entail?

Best chance to change the world from how it runs

Now, by revolution that seeks no guns.

Except, of course, it’s been put up for sale

To shady crypto-coiners who profit

From sharp selling of bubbles, which float

Higher, for a moment, than they aught,

Before skimming the dividend off it.

There are those who can be bought by the rich,

Self-aggrandising, dismissive of need,

Being single minded about personal greed,

Making dubious deals to secure their pitch.

We who have clear vision, nothing shocks us,

Not even buying of ballot boxes.

D.A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 245: Echoes (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Echoes

Socialism or Barbarism! Which?

Citizens, of what once was the Third Reich,

    Voting in numbers for the barbaric;

    Can they be persuaded, one day, to switch

    From all parties left and right and centre?

    They’ve fundamental grievances of course,

    Yet bitter politics lead to remorse

    Once nationalism’s allowed to enter

    Everyday discourse. Politicians try,

    But their best intentions fail hour by hour

    Because capital holds the real power:

    And patriotism is its biggest lie.

    The ballot box can leave pundits aghast,

    When it’s an echo chamber for the past.

D.A.

                                                                                                                                

Socialist Sonnet No. 244: Making Waves (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Making Waves

Take a body of water, a Great Lake

And draw a line, calling it a border.

Then let a president give the order

That he has a pressing claim to stake,

Being the Commander in Chief of the rain,

And which way the wind blows depends on him,

With the whole world subject to his whim,

No reason required, no need to explain.

Never mind those who have lived and still live

Lakeside and beyond, or generations

Yet to be who’ll transcend contending nations

And the imperial imperative.

Water laps at the shore ever the same,

Utterly indifferent to a name.

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 243: Mr. Presidents . . . (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Mr. Presidents . . .

 

Mr. Presidents in Washington and

Moscow, presiding on a mystery:

What’s made them myopic to history?

Have they seen some virtue in what they’ve planned,

Ignoring examples of Stalingrad,

Of bombing Hanoi back to the stone age?

The blitzing of London provoked cold rage,

But no surrender, no matter how bad.

Missiles and drones don’t defeat, they incense.

Kiev and Tehran shaken, yet do not fall,

While the shattered dead lie beneath it all,

Civvy Street victims of absence of sense.

Mr. Presidents, brother to brother,

Look in the mirror and see the other.

D.A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 242: Culpa (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Culpa

 

          Firstly Venezuela shaken,

Many thousands dead and injured,

More homeless, living with the dread

And the sorrow for those taken.

Columbia had felt the shock,

The persistence of danger shown

By a sudden quake of its own.

The earth trembles and buildings rock

And fall. A tumble of concrete

And shattered glass on those who die.

A question: Where does the fault lie?

Between plates, the one that’s discrete?

The most deadly fault seems to be

That which’s running through poverty.

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 241: Record Breaking (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Record Breaking

What was seen as this green and pleasant land

Is being relentlessly bleached into straw

By desiccating sun, its dazzling glow

Frazzling all in between mountain and strand.

Our carbon abundant atmosphere acts

As a lens magnifying remorseless rays

Through unremitting procession of days,

Focusing attention on climate facts

That’re surely undeniable unless,

Of course, economic necessity

Requires oil to lubricate equity;

Then the market cannot resist the press.

As long as demand for profit exists

It’ll create naysayers and populists.

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 240: Punch and Judy Man (2026)

 From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Punch and Judy Man

 The tide ebbs and flows in Clacton,

Waves advance, pause and then retreat,

Quite unmoved by human conceit

Enjoying the fresh air and fun.

It’s not beyond Westminster’s reach

The squabbling for office and place,

Where everyone’s more than one face.

There’s to be drama on the beach,

A show that’s seemingly funny

And yet is actually grotesque,

The character behind the mask

Only performs for the money.

Once you given all you can spare

You’ll find he is not really there.

D. A.

 

Blogger's Note:

A sonnet prompted by Nigel Farage resigning his parliamentary seat in Clacton, in order that a bye-election is triggered, which he will then fight on a 'Let the people of Clacton decide' platform - I'm paraphrasing, of course. All rather silly.

Socialist Sonnet No. 239: Penalties (2026)

 From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Penalties

Both captains of England beaming

Out through a betting shop window.

The trophy they hold’s just for show

To entice punters who’re dreaming

World Cup dreams. Footballing success

Against the odds: There is romance

And an outside gamble that chance

Might pay out, and so help to address

The piker’s parlous fiscal state.

Also, there’s national pride at stake,

All lost on a simple mistake;

Seeming perniciousness of fate.

Briefly, the optimism flows,

But then, the final whistle blows.

 D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 235: Reformation (2026)

 From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Reformation

Maintaining ‘Socialism’ as watchword

Can seem unlikely, when realpolitik

Is succumbing to the three card trick

Of the slight of hand dealer in absurd

Demagogy, when the popular vote

Is placed on populist blandishments,

Falsified promises; reason relents

Its influence. Without considered thought

Reform, however tempting it appears,

Remains a mistaken gamble to make,

Especially with the future as the stake:

Gamblers regret can last for years and years.

There’s none as asleep as the mistaken,

Being so, so difficult to awaken.

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 234: Patriotic States of Mind (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Patriotic States of Mind

Problem is not simply Zionism:

Nation states however constituted

Are, by definition, ill-reputed,

The foundation of discord and schism.

Meanwhile, picking on one to vilify

And then promoting another to toast

Is to risk taking route to holocaust,

In which not only the selected die.

Power may grow from the barrel of the gun,

But justice doesn’t, nor finds solutions,

As conflict grows from national illusions:

Poll the too many dead as to who’s won.

Patriotism might motivate crowds,

While patriotic flags turn into shrouds.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 230: Malevolence (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Malevolence

                                              

By what malevolent mechanism

Does someone become so self-promoting

As to seduce voters into voting

In favour of division and schism?

For all such Herodians, innocence

Of those being killed and buried in their homes

Is easily dismissed. Victory forms

Its own rationale, though it makes nonsense

Of any claims to civilisation,

Which surely should be a society

Of the commonweal, where people are free

From obligation to any nation

And its capital. Power’s the sly drug

That so intoxicates the demagogue.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 229: Whither the Commonweal (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Whither the Commonweal

Beyond flame, smoke and rhetoric of war,

Muffling hearing and dimming the vision

Of spectators lost to indecision,

Is there some greater purpose anymore?

Nothing’s resolved by strike and counter strike,

Disputation of sovereignty and borders,

The commonplace of following orders,

Whether with bow and axe, musket and pike,

Missile and drone, always the casualty

Is humanity. Victory or defeat

Figure in columns on the balance sheet

While profit’s the deciding reality.

There can be no leaders without the led

If they but choose the commonweal instead.

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 228: Conflicted (2026)

  From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Conflicted

Infallible leader! The Commander

In Chief, fashioning and refashioning

The earth moment by moment to bring

It into line with his propaganda.

Bothered neither by doubt or modesty,

He’s a political Janus who says

What he sees myopically looking both ways

At once: the world as he wants it to be.

He will make America great again

Through the power of his personality:

A few thousand deaths, mere banality.

First tariffs followed by missiles; but then

A new policy when the old won’t abide,

When share prices fall and markets decide.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 227: Telling Lies (2026)

   From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Telling Lies

 Listen! ‘Tell me lies about Vietnam’*

And Suez, Korea, Afghanistan,

Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran…

War’s the very worst deliberate scam,

Always a gross act of misdirection,

By which the misdirected lend consent

To their leaders’ malevolent intent:

All, of course, for the good of the nation.

What does victory look like? Much the same

As defeat! Inspired by cupidity,

Or even hubristic stupidity.

To the Lords of Misrule it’s still the Great Game.

The news will be encouraging no doubt;

Appear bare-faced, ‘tell me lies about…’*

D.A.

*From: 'To Whom It May Concern'

             Adrian Mitchell (1968)    

Socialist Sonnet No. 226: Spectacular Stories (2026)

   From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Spectacular Stories

Headlines were about a sex marketeer,

Spiced with possible royal relations,

The media was alive with sensations.

Until the tale changed and it became clear

The Commander in Chief had his eagle eye

On Greenland; cue a sharp change to the script.

How easily sovereignty can be stripped

Away, without a by your leave or why.

But, then on to the next cause, the next plan,

Kidnap an inconvenient head of state.

Yet hardly had he succumbed to his fate

When the world’s focus was moved to Iran.

Not letting news settle on a topic,

Spectacles might make people myopic.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 225: Collateral Damage (2026)

    From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Collateral Damage

The primary target has been destroyed,

By a surgical strike designed to leave

Blasted and charred ruins for those who grieve

To pick through, for all who couldn’t avoid

Being reduced to statistics, a body count

On the evening news. Strategy is clear,

It’s the brutal diplomacy of fear,

Leaving far too few remains to amount

To complete human beings. There is concern,

International stock markets are falling,

With speculation, futures are stalling:

How many losses before fortunes turn?

The enemy is easily identified,

Being those barbarians on the other side.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 219: Security (2026)

    From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Security

 

More guns, bigger bombs, longer range missiles,

Thicker armour, smarter drones, firm allies,

Control of the land, the oceans, the skies,

Compliant nation of bellumophiles,

A leader blessed with infallibility,

Martialled prelates to assure the laity

That they have conscripted the deity;

Add political instability.

Meanwhile the bottom-liners try to gauge

Where the rarest rare earth minerals lie,

The cost/benefit of those who will die

And the profits to be made from carnage.

Behind rhetoric, where’s the surety?

Only real change can secure security.

 D. A.