Capable (for Jacqueline Harris)

Am I capable of what?
Of catching what?
A bus?
I'm sorry. I'm not sure I understand you.
Haven't I just told you of the pain I am in daily,
how I have to school myself to bear it,
how it eats away at the edges of my life
while my courage shrinks smaller every day?
I have such pain in my back,
and in these poor hands of mine;
and my eyesight, too, is failing.
A bus, you say.
I do not understand you.
What is it you would have me do?
Work? Yes I used to work.
Until my body was pressed
past all enduring.
I was a nurse. Yes.
There was a fall. At work.
My life was much altered that day.
Now you come at me with questions
I do not understand.
Have you not heard what I have told you?
Am I capable of catching a bus?
Are you capable of feeling compassion?
Are you capable of human kindness?
Are you capable of love?

Abigail Ottley Wyatt, June, 2015

http://rt.com/uk/209731-suicide-woman-benefit-axed/#.VXv-lifDZzA.facebook

I Am Not Charlie

I am not Charlie so my name means nothing.
I can never hope, in the current climate,
to become that kind of cause célèbre.
A buzz of curiosity is all the notice I attract
through a series of whispered exchanges;
there is early morning drama, something to see:
the shrugging of a pair of sleepy shoulders;

a question asked by a pair of arched eyebrows,

answered by the down-turned corners of a mouth,

the slow and solemn shaking of a head.

Last night I made my bed, as, lately, I’ve been forced

to by curling up tight  against the darkness:
I brought my knees up high, so, used the crook

of my arm to make a kind of cushion for my head.
Now, well into June, this sharp cold is unseasonal.
Still, in summer, most people do not think of us.
Only afterwards it strikes them:

'Oh, yes,’ they say, ‘I think I saw him.

In the underpass, going into town?’

Now, in the morning, they recollect some detail

that betrays how they knew all the time.

‘He didn’t have a dog like some of them do.’

‘His sleeping bag, wasn’t it blue?’

‘I saw him there a week ago, just before dark.’

‘He wore jeans and his eyes were like hollows.’

But I am not Charlie and, if you knew my name,

I am afraid it would mean not much to you.

Abigail Wyatt, 11th June, 2015

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/rough_sleeper_dies_in_norwich_underpass_this_morning_1_4106082

The Nudge Unit

I forgot to pay my car tax.
It isn’t the first time,
but with one thing and another,
well, you know how it is.
The letter they sent me,
well, it looked like any other,
addressed to me, Joe Bloggs.
A polite reminder.

But it slipped my mind again.
Buried under a pile of stuff,
it was out of sight.
You know how it happens.
But then they wrote to me again,
this time, with a big headline,
you couldn’t miss it,
‘Pay your tax or lose your Ford Fiesta.’

And there was a photo of my car,
my old car that I love,
underneath the headline.
Well, as you can imagine,
I kind of took notice.
I mean, that letter talked to me.
Not just anybody. Me.
It was addressed directly to me . . .

So I paid up. Went straight
to the Post Office and paid up.
And I wasn’t sure why.
But I kind of felt uncomfortable
about the letter.
It kind of felt, I don’t know,
intrusive? Weird? I mean,
who took the photo of my car?
When? What was I doing?
I felt a bit uneasy about it.

So I went on driving.
Tax disc all sorted. All alright.
And I put to the back of my mind
that strange letter they sent
with my photo in it.
It was only, well, months later,
that I was in the pub,
and I got chatting to somebody.
They used to work for the DVLA,
that kind of thing.

They said that, in my area,
at the time I forgot to pay my car tax,
the government, I don’t know,
some scientist it was,
did a kind of experiment
with the way they wrote the letters,
trying to get us to pay up.
Especially people like me who,
well, forgot more than once.

The person I was speaking to,
said they’re called the ‘Nudge Unit.’
You know, they kind of
give you a nudge
if you don’t pay things.
Saves the government millions.
Apparently, they text people who
don’t pay court fines.
Works better than a letter . . .
Well, it worked on me.
I’m not breaking the law now . . .

© Cath Davies 2015

Cath Davies lives and writes in North Wales. She has worked in social care for many years. Currently, she is currently studying creative writing at degree level at the Open College of the Arts where she has been a student since 2008.

Scrap Heap Austerity Blues

Austerity, you got me down, 

you got me on the floor:
no rainbows shining through my storms, 
no buds or flowers any more.
Not much money in my wallet;
I got little cause to smile;
got a lot of cause to worry though;
got debts that stretch for miles.
Got my children going hungry,
got my landlord getting mean;
got no way of moving forward;
got a bunch of broken dreams.
Got no man to rub my shoulders
or to wake me with a kiss;
got no faith in prayers or fairy tales;
seems life goes on and on like this:
buying cheap and counting coppers
so as not to break that ten pound note;
thinking always who needs uniform,
who’s outgrown their winter coat;
who has a birthday looming,
who has wrecked their good school shoes?
It’s no wonder how I cry at nights

when all I got to lose

is those going-downhill-and-run-down,

down-at-the-heel-and-can’t-feel,
kids-aint-having-no-fun-cos-there’s-eff-all-left-to-live-on,

can’t-stop-my-crying, feels-like-I’m-dying.

who-would-be-a-single-mother blues.

Austerity, you got me, too.

Just can’t seem to get ahead.

I’m young. I should be full of life.

but I am full of fear instead:

afraid they’ll stop my money

if I don’t go here or show up there;

afraid I’ll never find a job,

or get a flat, have cash to spare.

I did everything they told me:

went to college - and I tried my best;

but now it seems they lied to me;

my CV don’t impress.

Now they give me ‘work experience’

when what I need’s a chance:

a chance to work for proper pay,

a chance to play, a chance to dance.

Coz Mr C, you see, I’m young;

I got the legs, I got the shoes;

aint got no opportunity –

and me, well I don’t get to choose.

Coz, well, you guys get the choices

while the likes of us we lose.

We got those no-dough-oh-no

sanctioned-if-we-don’t-show,

hard-luck-mucked-up-isn’t-this-a-fuck-up,

what’s-the-point-of-growing-up blues.

And, Austerity, you’ve done for me.

I’ve got a disability.

My life’s been hard enough without

the extra stress you’ve given me.

I didn’t choose to be this way

and, whatever you might like to think,

your targets are unethical;

and your methods simply stink.

Austerity, you’ve dragged me down

so low some days I don’t get dressed.

I know I should; sometimes I try;

but, mostly, I am too depressed.

These days, you see, I can’t get out

(and I do so miss my little car)

my Care Plan doesn’t care at all

but they say that’s just the way things are.

Austerity, I’m on my knees

with precious little left to lose.

If I could walk a mile I’d say

you should walk a long mile in my shoes.

But, as things are, all I can say

is, when the Great Assessment’s made,

I hope you get what you deserve

and you are left alone, afraid,

to feel the utter hopelessness

that weighs like a monstrous stone

and to try to live as best you can

until the final trumpet’s blown.

Because, then you’ll see, Austerity,

what it is to have nothing to lose

except those low-down-don’t-forget-me,

please-let-me-live-and-let-me-be-as-happy-as-I-can-be-

scrap-heap, austerity blues.

Abigail Wyatt, May, 2015

Coming Soon

Late night TV on the BBC,

more scary than the latest horror movie:

three shiny presenters, glib, well-fed,

none of them much over thirty,

exchange smart remarks

and laugh and laugh

to think that people might die.

But wait. It's ok.

These are not real people.

They are only, after all, 'the elderly';

they are not, what is more,

the elderly well-off

but the sad and shambling poor.

'If they die,' so goes the argument,

'that's a good thing, isn't it?

It will help us solve the problem

of their pensions.'

'There are too many of them.'

More high-pitched laughter.

Laugh? I could have

laughed till I cried.

I did cry this morning.

It weighed all through the night,

this wondering what end might await me:

to be 'passed over', not to be treated

in favour of the young and the fit;

of course, lightly sedated,

I might simply slip away

just a kiss in the pale crook of my elbow.

No pain, perhaps, but not to be mourned,

no evil-smelling, difficult good-byes.

You are never old inside,

my grandmother said;

and she lived to be cosseted and wept for.

Surely, I have given as much

and yet  it's all such a laugh.

Abigail Wyatt

Conquest

In his Wolf Hall, Hugh d’Avranches is brooding,

Leaning upon his rough-hewn window sill.

From his tower, his stronghold, stranglehold,

He surveys his newly won domain.

The motte and bailey rear up proud

Out of the soft land like a fist.

The mound of bare earth is red as blood;

Ah, but this Welsh hill was won hard enough.

The peasant farmers spilled their guts in vain.

The magpies are still feeding, he notices.

Entrails smeared down the sides of the hill

Where the fair flowers of spring were trampled

By war horse and mailed feet.

He shifts his gaze to the hazy horizon.

These are his lands. His.

Centuries of certain dominion unfurl before him,

Dominance built in stone and glass arise.

The coffers overflow, replenished by that lovely stream

Of taxes, levied upon the poor.

His kind will divide and rule,

Setting communities against each other,

Suspicious of the immigrant, the vagrant and the rebel.

Finally, as vanquished bow their knees and heads,

He sees how his superior race

Will lord over serfs, the sick, the poor.

But today there will be hunting a-plenty,

Crops in those fair fields already

Hoarded for his hall.

After all, the villages have less mouths to feed now.

Yet hungrier still is the heart of Hugh.

He knows what they call him,

“Hugh Le Gros”, grown fat on conquest.

His banner borne before him in procession

To cathedrals built to keep this land

Under the Norman heel,

Proclaiming God, Freedom and the Law,

Conserving the Rights of the noble ones.

The silver wolf, its mouth agape,

Is argent on azure.

He grins, seeing instead

A bloody Wolf’s Head, gore and gold.

© Lisa Rossetti 2015

Click here for more about Lisa Rossetti

Now I'm 64 (sing along, folks...)

(taken from David Cameron's got no heart club band)

Now I am older and done my fair share

Worked over forty years back from now

You still want to send me back to work again

Nil hours contract, from eight till ten.

I'll still be working past sixty three

Because you locked the door

I had no prevention, you took all my pension,

And you still want more.

You'll be older too

And in a few simple words

I blame it all on you

It would be better, employing the youth

They need things to do

I have worked for decades and you treat me like

I'm a pin, and out in a strike

It is so cold now, food is all gone now

And you still want more

I had no prevention, you took all my pension,

And you still want more.

Every day you stand and shout about austerity

Still you take from me

Who has scrimped and saved

I won't let you send me

To an early grave

You've had it all now, all but my pride

Though I am standing, still.

I will rise against you every single day

Despite your preference that I waste away

I wish you'd listen, and sad you are blind

I expected so much more

For you to hear me, for you to see me

And a million more

But NO!

Marie Antoinette, May, 2015