Piece On Politics Poem by Charmaine Burke

As Foucault has said, and many after him,
Politics is everywhere,
both without and within.
Politics is power and that is all it is
but how we use it tells us more
About ourselves than we could envision

Power works in families
both now and from the past
Where men held sway and all obeyed
Where inequity begins

Employers use their power
To extract a profit from
The labour done by others
In conditions often grim
Such that money is the aim
And the real world disappears
And suffering expands
Across the world and years

Now politicians reign
Replacing Kings and Queens
Yet both must shoulder blame
For multiplying sins
Of dividing souls at birth
And dividing by beliefs
And extending this dichotomy
To foster pain and grief

Religion, too has contributed
To this divided scene
Claims to be right
And others wrong
Have now become obscene
They justified the slaughter
Of peoples who proclaimed
A different view of the world
Than that which they had seen

What hope is there for humans
Who fail to really think
Who do not learn from history
And took this earth to the brink
Destroying lands and people
Destroying cultures too
Respecting naught but power
What is this what we do

For all of us are guilty
In myriads of ways
We neglect the Divine order
For the comfort in our days
Our pleasures overtake us
And satisfaction comes
From things instead of service
The evanescence of our days
Now Two have come
To remind us all
Of higher aims and goals
Repeatedly exhorted
By those who came before
But this time all the knowledge
That we had no access to
Was spilled into our world
Like the diamonds in the dew

And unity though preached before
Has now come to the fore
And takes it place to head the march
As we go into war

A War against our egos
A war against the waste
Against the need for power
To blandish in the air
So now the power is shared
Between all creatures great and small

And though we fall and lose the thread
With bloodied knees and all
Up we get and keep on marching
Together on the Path
Designed by God, the Only Power
That any of us need
And this does lead this world
To a blessed Unity.