Sharp edge of poverty

We grew up on the sharp edge of poverty
rebel with a cause of our own
repelling authority, society, reality
followed a path of wildness sown.
They said, we had perfect hips
Was good for nothing but having kids
One dad, two, three, maybe four
Poverty cycle, repeating the poor.
We succeeded at failing, came top of our class,
Sipped on cider from our childhood flasks.
No need to worry, no need to fret,
At sixteen we become part of Britain’s great debt.
Teachers never bothered, the head didn’t care,
No one even noticed when we stopped going there.
We wore indifference across our lips
prostitute red, layer on layer, glossy and slick.
And when time suddenly came, exams taken,
Sixteen went past, future forsaken
Some of us fell, hips wide and bearing,
New life created in a career of caring.
Some of us paused in a psychedelic dream
Locked between worlds with adulthood to fear.

Me? I had failure at hand, expectations to break,
So I picked up the books and read by the lake.
They said I couldn’t, I was all hips and blue eyes, that’s all,
I accepted their words, I’d most probably fall.
I didn’t aim for the top, just a life with a view,
A place where I’d happily dream skies of blue.
They said “You’ll work in a shop, and not a thing more”
And soon I was a manager, they were right for sure…
But I kept going forward had stereotypes to destroy,
Whispered through days kept my dreams coy.
I climbed and rose, walked on painted tippy toes,
No place for the poor done good, I wrote my own life show.

There’s a glass roof for women unbreakable you see,
An etched line for the men, a reality,
not a battle of wits, wisdom or intelligence,
No, its a line that demands female defiance…

But poverty has no glass, just hips
and glossy red lips,
No succeeding, just expectations of failing,
You either fail at school and fight for a life,
Or fail at babies and become no-ones wife.
My roots are seeped in the stench of poverty,
Skyscrapers, someone else’s reality,
They set a standard, the poor girls target,
dreams are only for the rich they say
use the gifts God gave you that day…

They said I was good for nothing
all blue eyes and hips for kids to bring…

My Dad said, girl, do you see that star?
No I said, we ain’t taught to look that far…
He said, keep walking till you have that in sight,
That my girl, is your glass ceiling, that, is your light…

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Grandmother Beldam

#wordprompt#beldam

Rot mutating at the very core
churning entitlement disease
an epidemic of waste, as eyes
die and skin becomes mottled.
Souls decaying between the
silent beats of a ravaged war
whilst ancient wisdom falls
from the page one letter at a
time. The conceptualisation
of ideology lost in the sphere
of thought. I am, I must,
I therefore… We have become
the beldam of humanity,
with blind eyes, scarred
hearts and jars of pickled
morals aside our broken values
left to soak in the bitter tincture
of ego blessed in whispered
incantations of pride.
Yes. Humanity is this worlds
Beldam.

They’re Catholic, does it matter?

They’re Catholic, does that matter? I say it like it does, like the cross in their window bears their souls, but where was God when she fell? Some people spill love from their pores in caring smiles and mindful nods. Her twinkle near most left that day, and for a moment I saw doubt in his eyes. He looks like St Nicholas, smiles like an old pirate and looks at his wife as though he has found the grail, I suspect he has. I suspect unbeknown to him, them, all of us, he has found that which is more holy, more powerful and more beautiful than any other earthly matter. Their love is different. The passion comes in his early morning jolts to the allotment, the way he stops at the corner looks back and waves like a mad man drowning at sea, anything to see that twinkle in his gals eye. She aged, over night, but her beauty never faded and her belief never drained. She smiles now with those sparkly blue eyes lined with tears as she hobbles past on his arm, him in cut of shorts, a baggy shirt buttoned up high and white spangly legs… They’re catholic, devout, they go to my church that I pretend to forget to attend and as I sit beneath the muted blues of an evening sky and watch him wander by I wonder. They’re Catholic. Does it matter?

And when the children cried
the world silenced their
tears in the bitter kisses
of politics, embraced their
fear in the suffocating
Grasp of greed, nourished
their empty bellies
on yesteryear fears.
And when the children
cried the enemy soothed
their tears with the groomed
thoughts of revenge,
lined their innocence
with the intrinsic webbings
of hate, they took away
dolls and gave back guns.
We took away hope
and gave them darkness.
They sculpted the
darkness into worth
Worth that we had squashed
in the grand parliament
of riches
When the children cried
we wiped their tears
with disdain, branded
them so the enemy
could learn their names.

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The tempted tale of grid lock

The matrix island
of communication
wires, wired, wirelessly.
Welcome to
concept central, driving
the red hues of raging
rage, a slave to the angst
suffocating the exhaust
of a poisonous hum
of toxicity revving
between thoughts
of escape drifting
away on the back roads
of petrol pleated plumes
on carbonmonoxide
dreams of serenity…

…oh those dreams
that drive the mind
numbing beat of an
alternative reality,
catastrophic candy
for the herd bred
on societies
incestual insanity.

Modern Bedtime Story…

(Photoprompt)

Do not judge without pause…

Our twilight hours are illuminated by blue screens

and chuckles of delight,

for you see…

my body does not know day nor night.

Atypical regulation is absent

my mind does not close at the dimming of light.

So I ask of you please,

stop and look…at our daily fight.

A pillow for one with two joyous heads

because I don’t like going to bed.

When I close my eyes what happens then?

And are certain our dreams are just pretend?

There’s no song my Mum can happily hum

that doesn’t hurt my ears,

No classic tale she can tell

that will settle down my tears.

I need her here, but, she must not touch,

Oh, I love my Mummy so very much!

Beneath the covers I feel her warmth

she does not move…for that can cause a storm!

I watch a vid and another too

but none of them are ever new!

That would be too scary

far,

too SCARY.

I like to know exactly what comes after

this ensures the echos of my laughter.

It calms the beating of my heart

my tablet, you see, plays an integral part.

I went to bed at seven and now the clock says twelve,

My Mum, she is reading, facts in which she’ll delve.

I know that she is tired I see it in her eyes

and all throughout the night she dreams of starless skies.

I know when time has come, she tells me one, two, three

then pulls the covers up and we cuddle…but just our feet.

And now i’m feeling safe and now I’m feeling tired

and contrary to belief I do not wake feeling wired!

My Mum, she does not hum a song or tell me of a tale

instead, she falls asleep each night, with the world

telling her she failed.

Image used via photoprompt (Maricris Cabrera)

It’s because they weren’t spanked.

Poetic rant.

It’s because kids are no longer spanked, lack of discipline, education, poverty Kids having bloody kids. It’s lack of respect, additives, bad diet, stale air, fluoride, inpesticides and the latest fashion trend. Lack of veg, a stern role, divorce rates and single moms. It’s easy money and light work, generation x and bad teaching. It’s the mother’s fault the father’s debt, duties voice so fucking set….
Or maybe the reason our kids disrespect, is that all around them, everyday they see adults breaking rules…Suggesting it’s okay. From crossing the road when the man is red to the rudeness that should never be said. It’s the thank you’s missed and the doors slammed shut. Maybe less, one rule you and another for me and screams of abuse out there on the street. It’s the fucks and the cunts they hear being said, from the old guy sitting at the bus shelter shed. The shop keepers turning up their snobbish head at the food in the asked for kids to be fed.
So easy we judge but never we look, parenting is not found in an old dusty book. Takes you and takes me when out on the street, to show our dear children to act like a treat. They follow and learn, watch and they earn…So before opening your mouth, before speaking a word, ask yourself first…Are your own morals blurred. Are you perfect and pure or just keeping score. Did you wait and then cross or did you ignore the cost? Did you moan and groan whilst waiting in line, believing you are the only one worthy of time. Did you stamp and strop, kick and fucking hop, expecting your right and willing to fight….

Is it really the mother, the father sister and brother, or is ignorance an illness you fucking suffer.

The good ole days…

I remember a time when I was young

When us kids went outside for fun.

Our mums drank tea, had a natter

Their laughs echoing over the kids chatter.

The men earned honest money, with hard graft

They were the days, but they didn’t last.

Daffodils breaking through the warming earth,

As the promise of spring filled the street with mirth.

We wore hand me down clothes and real leather shoes,

Played in the growing corn, had lunch on the kerb.

We played kerby and footy bulldog and chase

Everything we did was always a race

Summer days in the summer haze

The field of corn lined with trees, no hint of a breeze

Daisy chain ropes that reached to the skies,

Dandelion clocks, oh how time flies.

Purple fingers, tell tale lips,

Blackberry pies with apple bits

Bonfire night, the woolies are out,

In before dark the mothers did shout.

Sparklers, fireworks, penny for the guy,

Halloween sweeties an endless supply.

We play on the cornfield, so empty and bare,

Its hard to remember what they grew there.

Snowmen so big we stood in awe, then

took turns aiming for the highest score.

One in each garden, some on the path,

A pile of wet socks, gloves, hats and scarves.

In the cornfield trenches were dug, ammo created

The older ones always dominated.

I remember the cornfield swaying in the breeze

Before they laid brick, took away the trees

Everyone got busy, the air grew stale

And nobody noticed when the kids grew pale.

Through the valley of death

teeth bared, pound of flesh.

Howling screams

apocalyptic horizon gleams.

Futures morality burning

Walk of shame.

6am Saturday morning and I watch the Waif’s and strays wandering the vomit filled streets of shame. White shirt man checks his watch and stares at the concrete whilst plunging his other hand deep into his left pocket. Anything to avoid eye contact with the arguing homeless couple. She cries, her screams tired and lost he silently takes something from them and they continue up the road laden down with coats and bags, everything they are is right there with them, they hide nothing they are everything. I wonder who’s bed white shirt man has just left as he walks, the walk of shame, his shoes tapping the concrete calling to the devil.