What kind of world
Will you inhabit
Once we are gone?
Will it be one
Of your own choosing?
New landscapes built
To youthful specifications,
A virtual world, or
Precarious solidity shaped
From the concentration
Of old-fashioned
Children’s toys – perhaps even
Those blue-and-red-stained
Wooden blocks
Of my infancy?
Will our groaning,
Grown-up legacy
Of piecemeal policies,
Poor housing, health,
And knee-jerk reactions
To old threats,
Half-remembered
Leave you with
Too little freedom
And too much responsibility?
However our teachings
Soak into your bones
It will be your turn
To roll the dice
And seek advancement
Or oblivion.
I hope we leave you
Prepared
And with sufficient
Tools to survive
What is
And what is yet
To come.
Poverty
Leadership Training
Welcome dear, to the asylum
Where the grown-ups are not in control
Mummy’s out chasing a rainbow
Daddy is home but not whole
So what do we do with our brother
Who needs to be petted and fed?
Just sisters supporting each other
When parents don’t get out of bed
If you grab a hold by one ankle
Then I’ll take the other and try
To tease out the worst of the tangle
Then soap, rinse and powder him dry
I’m sorry your tummy is grumbly
There isn’t the money for S’mores
I’ll find what I can if you’re hungry
And we’ll have a picnic indoors
I guess we’re not going out playing
While youngest’s a hole in her shoe
I’ve mended the bits that were fraying
But darning the rubber won’t do
Besides which it’s no longer summer
And coats are too short in the sleeve
So even the common’s a bummer
With chilblains it’s better to leave
The exercise video’s starting
We’ll all sit together to stretch
Now reach for your toes if you’re hurting
And think of the rich and the wretch
If we can just keep it together
As family’s good for the soul
There’s almost no storm we can’t weather
To pursue an impossible goal
So try not to pick up your plimsolls
Don’t want anybody to know
If they catch a glimpse of the cardboard
When walking along in the snow
Then mummy and daddy are over
They’d ship us all out to a home
And though there’d be food there forever
We’re better off here on our own
Hedgehog
I once moved country
With a sleeping bag
A dictionary
Two dresses
A blue t-shirt
One pair of jeans
And a change of underwear
To live in a nine foot
Square box with no
Toilet or fridge
I cooked ravioli
In the tin over
A five euro
Electric kettle
And washed both
Food and clothing
In the bidet
Entertaining friends
One at a time
As I acquired
A single mug
With no handle
Singing songs
With strangers
Who were also
Far from home
So do not dare
To presume
That I will permit
Myself to acknowledge
The inconvenience
Of personal growth
There are other things
Upon this Earth
That chafe
The Reckoning
In these fractions I seek solace
That infarction is no menace
To my own unknown condition
Though my colleague lies on trollies
As they fill her veins with serum
Hoping vasos are dilated
I’m surrounded by the vision
Such careers are overrated
In my secretary’s costume
I must take on further duties
Try to prop up one more rostrum
And ignore last rites for loot. He’s
Working from his home computer
While I ride the bus to nowhere
In the misty morning chatter
That’s conceived to make me go there
How much more am I allotted?
This existence, mere survival
Will I too go out, garotted
By a heart attack unrivalled?
As my logic fails, convince me;
I’ve decisions that are burning
Every inch would rather lynch me
Than continue painful earning.
Although I rarely explain my scribblings, as I prefer to let the reader interpret them at will, this poem, and the one that follows are written in response to a recent event. The woman with whom I share a desk at my day job suffered a heart attack this week. The events on that occasion and which have followed have caused me to question our place in the universe with perhaps more focused ferocity than usual.
Untitled
This is the place we come to die
We secretaries, in our rows
Two frozen stiffs, a living lie
Few care to note, and no one knows.
While patient, we sit out our time
In managing capricious men
Whose fruitless whims, though not malign
Wear lines on brows and fray each hem.
One more may chew on dust this hour
No more to block electric space
In diary; a heart lacks power
To beat a path through empty wastes.
We are not dumb, and yet, we wait
Preparing meeting rooms, hot drinks
Awaiting proof; appreciate
A mind, unheeded, soul that shrinks
And though the autopsy infers
What killed her was nobody’s fault
That one can prove, (except for hers)
With such a sedentary vault
Of memories of closet, desk,
A filing cabinet to store
The means of murder – this slow death
Made up of tedium and chore.
A secular paradigm
Let me not feel more than may be borne
For others’ troubles, cares and strife.
I am too young to be thus forlorn,
Too old to hope; to love; to wife.
Give me but coin, my span on Earth
And lend me not another’s fear;
(I’ve precious little left of worth
Still less to broker bargains here).
I promise, but to do my best
And nothing more may take from me
Those greedy souls, whose “Fie!” on rest
Would wrest what time I, false, term ‘free’.
I cannot speak, but as I find
All else would be as empty air
What use, my hand, my heart, or mind
When weighed against such meaty fare?
And fair or foul as all may be
At moments suited to their mood
I can no more deceive than see
Through blackest darkness; I’ll be good.
The Trade
Where is this freedom
Promised me
When first they told me
Work makes free?
I look around
And know I’m lost –
What’s free I buy
At such a cost
No youth, enjoyment
Holidays
Solid employment
Only pays
In minted coin
As all are robbed
Of our free time
We’re bobbed and jobbed
And pensioned off
Freely to freeze
As Winter brings us
To our knees
A lifetime spent
In servitude
While taking care
To save on food
Essentials only
Frugal thrift
Is hardly free
To those who drift
Through twilit streets
And shopping malls
In suits and boots
Or overalls
No longer knowing
Why they strive
For Freedom finds
Few left alive
Jacob’s Ladder
Poverty is hard to see
While growing up on toast and tea
I barely noticed its effect
We just got on with duties set
By those so practised to command
Unquestioning of task in hand
Until completed, so to bed
To rest our weary hearts and head
Yet catching toes on higher rung
While hearing others’ praises sung
I somehow over trod my groove
And moorings slipped, my mind did move
No longer cowed by sleight of birth
Unbending under weight and girth
I grasped this hook and pulled to see
What might be made with dignity
But not too far the ladder scaled
Before another turned and wailed
Unfairness at disparity
From what expectant they did see
As unbecoming in my stance
Though well-deserving of such chance
They wanted none with conscience there
Though they complained of life, unfair
With unchecked rage did rant and rave
Until they slipped, unseated save
For what was caught upon a nail
Until seams ripped and with a flail
Of arms and legs undignified
The other fell and so, he died
Unsettled, I, to see all eyes
So arid at this man’s surprise
I dared not breathe too long, nor loud
For fear they’d pick me from the crowd
Yet someone noted, by my air
I must have learned somehow to share
Instinctive camaraderie
Betrayed by actions that were ‘me’
Compassion at another’s fate
Too great my mercy, theirs too late
So shoved and pushed to halt my course
I stayed astride the ladder, worse
To know that I was caught, stuck fast
Between those who’d be first and last
In mind and stomach more than sick
To know such wealth might kill me quick
For feeling what they could not taste
Another’s worth and common waste
The Giving of Thanks
What profit the meek that they gain the earth
Without the wherewithal to plough
And sow the seeds of distant mirth
So jollity may bloom and grow
To render fruitful gifted sod
Takes time that none so meek may hold
Unless in changing nature’s clod
He steels himself to make so bold
And doing thusly, loses all
The bounty he had earned in deep
Humility and careful crawl
To build the empires he did seek
With these two hands undo the deeds
Upon which founder grew so tall
All loftiness and blessed greed
No longer fearful at the call
When other men have stood and shook
From head to toe to hear such voice
Proclaiming what had been forsook
By liberty and foolish choice
What meek men did, they do no more
As others shuffle in their place
And turn their cheek and fear the poor
Whose habits keep them clothed in lace
Where now is earth? What saltiness
Has dripped upon the failing crops
From little more than cowardice
The planet from mean axis, stops
No longer crouching ‘cross the sky
But stalling in such attitude
With what was learned from you and I
When treated harshly, men are rude
Mechanicals at best and worst
Who may not see their actions’ swell
But recognise their face is cursed
And know the reason all too well
Aspire, respire, perspire
Searching for beauty
In the crumbling pavements
The chickweed shoots
Bringing colour to each crack
Fishing for rainbows
In gutters pooled with oil
The water slick and dirty
As an inner-city fast-track
Squinting in sunlight
Huddled in a cheap coat
Thin layers for protection
Against the chill of springtime
Doze in back of buses
To dream up something better
Than another year of hardship
And a terminal decline
Trusted
If cuts are made to NHS
As government will do, I guess
What may become of services
That great and good have seen as theirs?
We’ll pay the same, and more I’d bet
But fewer beds and longer yet
May grow the lists of those who wait
On tender butcheries of State
And leashed upon a marketplace
Already flooded, with no space
For those whose qualities are such
We can’t afford to give too much
As nurses, doctors seek the dole
When cast out of their former role
We’ll pay them not to cut and stitch
Not staunch a wound, nor soothe an itch
But tell their tales to DSS
Who can’t assist those in distress
Where platitudes are rarely bought
And sympathy unknown, if sought
Those managers of life and limb
For them, the outlook will be grim
With reputation poor at best
We’re subsidising workless rest
And gaining nothing, paying twice
For healthcare that we’ve put on ice
While skills hard-earned are left to rust
The NHS ends in mis-Trust.
