He looked into his wallet and then into the face of his children.
Oliver looked out from their faces, thinned and paled by hunger,
Their sad eyes looked at him as they hugged each other for warmth.
—-
His eyes watered and his empty belly grumbled as he opened
the last dull can of beans, cut the crust of curling bread into two
and watched the food disappear into their mouths, every dry crumb.
—–
Not far away, plates were full with succulent salmon, rare steak,
beef, chicken vegetables, fried potatoes and mashed spuds, gravy
and there would be golden custard, pies, cakes, salted chocolate ices.
—-
She scraped the lot of the crumbs from her sons bowl and sucked
them from the plastic spoon. She would eat tomorrow when the meagre,
mean Universal credit arrived, just the once and search rancid bins to survive.
—-
Not far away, a kitchen door ajar, while out of date food is thrown away,
in the waste; while far away, somewhere they’re having a party at number 10,
half eaten food slipped into the trash, where its taken from the poor to give to the rich.
—–
Two cleanly washed children trying to sleep while hunger gnawed at their vitals,
too tired to cry, but holding onto the hope for tomorrow they’d go to the FoodBank,
bringing home food in plenty to be eked slowly to cover the schoolless free food weeks.
—-
A few miles away lives a rich man who can choose to give them enough or kill
them slowly by starvation. A rich woman minister who chooses to treat them as
alien pariahs has people shopping for her and ignores the cries. and has food to spare.
—–
Truth may come, but already the lies hold sway, the government culled the media.
So, how will the hungry children have their voices heard? The starving, weakened
oppressed, hidden from sight, are crying out. Their shouts trumpeted out by Tory press.
——
Yes, minister, the numbers in poverty are atrocious but we are doing what we can,
We’ve paid the rich and made them very wealthy and wait for it to trickle its way down,
‘It won’t.’ We made that lie up a long time ago. The poor will always be with us but they
don’t donate
to our
party.