Wednesday’s wise woman ….

I read today that the government has cut Reading Borough’s grant funding by 40% this amounts  £39 million to be saved over the next 3 years.  This is dreadful; already funds are stretched to the limit.  The list of proposed cuts is huge and I won’t dwell on it now now suffice to say libraries will be closed, the buildings mothballed  or used for commercial enterprises.   Public toilets will be closed. The Town Hall and Museum will be subjected to staff reductions and the Hexagon and South Street will not offer the range of entertainment we have come to expect. The list that affects the elderly, children, those without work and the vulnerable is worrying. These numbers will increase as the meagre funds dwindle, as a result the housing stock will not meet the needs.  Those already on the poverty levels will be expected to pay more towards the community charges.  The list goes on … 

I don’t usually make a political point but I am saddened by this.

I came across this poem in a recent addition to my library Grandchildren of Albion ;  by Jean Binta Breeze (1956 -)  and it struck a cord.

Reality

Reality

dis is a reality

ah time we tek a stack a de reality,

reality, reality.

dis is a reality

They say the problem of the nation

is overpopulation

and the unemployment stages

and the cutbacks in the wages

are the results of that situation

while the brains of their technicians

are building new moon stations

war weapons increase

while young babies decease

from an illness widely known

as malnutrition

The voters return to the polls

con-trolled by a man in a rolls   

who has set up his loyal henchman

to become a politician

to thrill poor people’s souls

Then come new laws on sanitation

designed to cut down on the pollution

but the big man’s factory

dumps its waste into the sea

We read of wars in present history

aimed at saving democracy

each man has won a vote

now the taxes cut his throat

and dreams rot a while

egos fight for supremacy

the power of the intellect of man

is being controlled by the gluttonous ones

who decorate their babel towers

with the brains they have devoured

in their quest for human destruction

Reality

dis is reality

Ah time we tek a stack a de reality,

reality, reality

dis is reality.