My Fifth Christmas Card of 2014

I will take a green light on that one everyday.

An Observation Of Civility

Is it just me? Or is it plain to all
that amongst everyone we meet in life
those who say 'Please' and 'Thank you',
and apologize, unprompted, are the people
who are usually the more observant
of the effect of their thoughts, words and deeds on others?   

When Waste

is definitive proof of choice
then Consumerism is King,
and the kingdom is for the willfully blind.
Those who seek forever-seek to consume
and destroy the here and now,
rather than to try leave behind the least trace
of their presence possible, for others
who have to be thrifty to live with and mourn.

The Amazon forest being destroyed, to make way for cattle.

My Fourth Christmas Card Of 2014

For that younger person's sense Christmas. From here.

Family

are the fruit in the flesh,
the proof of The Fall,
that proves we all
should be asking
for much much less.

Life In Peace Time

Alcohol is like many a substance,
it makes a good servant and a horrible master.
To make the best of their choices
imbibers have to know themselves
inside out, to learn which they are
-unhappy servers or well served?
Those that avoid asking, out of fear,
have already made their choice plain.
Furthermore they will always create
in their dependents a bleaker sense
of humour and hope than ever
they dare to imagine.

Not that a communal life
without substances is temptation free.

If Winston Churchill had been asked
'Which causes does alcohol serve best?'
He would have answered 'War and government'.
Where this leaves the life of the masses
in the long domestic peace since 1945,
with so many outlets for drink
and so little for imbibers to rule over
is beyond hope and guesswork.

Naturally Artificial

The sign that would become easy proof to the masses
that artificial life had arrived would be if the machines we make,
and we rely on, spontaneously made Christmas cards
for each other. Some humans might think this insulting,
believing the machines do not have souls to rejoice with,
or expect the machines to do more for their makers
than each other, and send said cards to who made them.
If the humans returned the favour it might be okay.
But given the amount of despair that humans
have put into the planet they could hardly complain.