Tag: Number 10

Budgets Kill

Blue eyes sunk in a worried face,

dim with the ache of hunger,

closing to hide the horror of

cruelty in power and control.

——

Brown ones too in the faces

of children understanding 

that they are voiceless and

that loving adults voted for

—–

this annihilation, bold policies

that take their food, warmth,

their schools, jobs and hope

and create fat cats, and pigs

—–

that grunt and snuffle in the

decaying detritus of their 

lost lives,  painting with

their blood an enthralling

—–

idyllic picture of a trickling

stream of quickening money 

but block it, subvert it, to sell 

the oppressed for a fevered

—-

obsession with giving money, 

and more money, and misery 

money, for fancy, future jobs 

to their backers and bankers;

——-

who invite them to parties where

the poor are absent, the climate

crisis is chalked over and the

opposition groans and fights

——-

each other, while the despot

in Number 10 has easy days,

creating her queenly kingdom

where only the elite live well. 

The NHS and Number 10

He stood by me disrupted bed and gentle voiced,

he spoke my name, He checked the bleeping, 

life saving equipment and then my plethora of 

pipes and plastic tubes that will keep me from

being the next statistic of those dying from covid.

—-

Do they see – feel the woe?

Do they care to even  know?

Or is this the way they want it?

—

He smiled through his mask and I could see it

echoed in in dark eyes. Easing my distress he

spoke kindly and encouragingly that the figures

were improving and that if it stays that way then

the team will come to remove the paraphernalia.

—-

Do they see – feel the woe?

Do they care to even  know?

Or is this the way they want it?

—-

I lay looking at the same slightly cracked white 

tile above my bed and wondered how my child

was coping without me. Would her flustered father 

fix her hair, hold her, whisper encouragement, 

pack up her school bag, remember her gym kit?

——-

Do they see – feel the woe?

Do they care to even  know?

Or is this the way they want it?

—-

I saw him on the screen last night and would’ve

wept if I’d the energy. Proudly shows a wonderful,

pinman picture of me in a hospital bed and tears 

rolling down drawn cheeks as he realised that 

I was alive and animated and coming home. 

—–

Do they see – feel the woe?

Do they care to even  know?

Or is this the way they want it?

—–

The gentleman in the pristine bed by me is

gently gone this morning, wheeled down to 

the miserable morgue where he’ll wait for his

wife to weep at his funeral. And today I find

a single tear for him or was it pity for me?

——

Do they see – feel the woe?

Do they care to even  know?

Or is this the way they want it?

——

Sorrow for him and me  and the emergency, 

exhausted staff look at the news in horror, 

as Johnson and his staff ease the rules so

more and more sick and dying will be on

their lists. And is I wept. Each salty drop,

a patient, those caring people, who have just

saved my life and lovingly helped another

to depart theirs, are so pressed and hurt,

forced to choose between their vocations

their faithful families, their mental health.

=====

Still, at number 10 that means nothing as

they play at politics and give money to

their friends, and no one investigates and

no one has stopped their tossing aside the

rules and fragile folk everywhere mourn.

—–

Did they see – feel the woe

Did they care to even  know?

Or is this the way they want it?

The Box he Carried

The box he carried weighed in at

tons of right wing rhetoric, and 

pounds of destruction of democracy,

and stones of self interest, and

gallons of lies and manipulation.

=========

Left behind was hundredweights of

destructive control and bushels of abuse 

of the power of a potted parliament. 

===============

The lining of his pockets, pushed 

the poor past the margins of just

managing, the immigrant forced

to face fear and famine. And the

hope of a healthy future, flushed 

down 

the 

toilet.