I went down to see the majority in action gathering in the square the surging crowd the chanting voice of many people was there yet I missed the referring whisper of others from the crowd the minority of a democracy was absent / quiet as a shroud and whither was their point of view drowned by slogans and revile the future of inclusiveness dominated by slurs that defile I looked for the different colours here the different sounds and where I found such difference I did recoil at its oppressed nature there then cans were rattled the songs were long about victory and strength but for those lost and weak who did not belong there was to be no defence as push came to shove and drama spilled onto this public stage the large protest became a test of where the power is really laid how it would be used to push a point of view not clear to absolutely everyone unless to power they were already connected or held the butt of a gun there is apparently no place for everyone under our glowing democratic sun for those left out it was time to think and maybe time to run
Half an hour one forty eighth of each day should be consistently allocated to the following practice should be consistently adhered to at the expense of all other things the undertaking of regular exercise no matter what your age this is a good use of your time such that the time that is left to you may well be longer
Tonight I accepted this Award for the Walking and Rolling Together Project I led for Victoria Walks. It has been a privilege working with the awesome Victoria Walks team and recently retired EO Ben Rossiter. It has been a privilege to co-design and co-audit with so many people living with disability, their families and carers. Collaborating with Scope Australia, DSRV, RSV, RSAs GippSport, Sport North East and Valley Sport made all the necessary statewide connections possible. To the State Government of Victoria and Department of Sport and Recreation thank you for recognising our vision and funding it not once, but twice.
A closing statement: there are still many good people out there doing many very good things. Join them.
I am going to tell you a story about what began, thus .,,,, our underused garage became a room for rumpus. Little did we anticipate the rowdiness it would encompass, when rowdy young children began to rumpus plus plus! Discuss the matter further we must.
This week Kim challenged we poets to craft a quadrille around the word “rumpus”. This is an almost true story. Only the children have changed. https://dversepoets.com/2025/08/25/quadrille-230-lets-kick-up-a-rumpus/
In a world where unprotected justice is just another manipulative tool those who believe in blind justice look increasingly like naive fools
where chaos replaces transparency with the purpose of obscuring truth evidence based learning falls from aspiration, to work fragmented and moot
when lies are an accepted part of political discussion for misuse the power lies with those who societal values they readily abuse
if public denigration of dissent is a routine weapon of discourse then know ye that they will come for you too by threat as well as force
if wealth and appearance are the only currency around the majority may well end up in position genuflecting from the ground
if deceit tricks and hacks are permitted to taint the heart of democracy then notional democracy becomes yet another self defeating fallacy and the corrupt, malign and unread will rule over every land empowered by the inevitable sycophants and their militarised bully bands
The poetics prompt for we dVerse poets https://dversepoets.com/2025/08/12/dverse-poetics-tuesday-power/ comes from the deep thinking Lisa this week. It is topical, omnipresent and scary – as it has been throughout history. Is it worse today than in past eras? I am not sure I can make an absolute statement about that. However, with the likes of social media and AI now available as part of the dissembling and propaganda mix I suspect it is to become so.
I cannot resist a more personal comment about two principled men from Australia’s political history who I believe represented the antithesis to the forms of abuse of power described in my poem above. Two men whose democratic modelling, and leading of social justice and cultural reforms could be learned from by many leadership figures engaged in the power plays of today. My father Race Mathews with his friend, colleague & mentor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
poetography.ink 