The Sound of Grey

They slash your pension,
cut your wages,
pass massive handouts to the rich.
The contemporary poet's response:
sit at home, cogitate,
meditate, reminisce, contemplate,
celebrate the good in life.
This poet is so thankful,
bowing, scraping,
so grateful to authority.

Voluntary redundancies they call it
as they devour your livelihood, sack you,
deprive you of the means to life.
The poet then provides a solitary prayer;
of an individual alone and weak;
his godless prayer, comforting and pathetic.
Instructing you to rot in your miserable abode
contemplating a greater,
non-existent, experience.
All along inviting you to personify your misery.

They cut your social services,
slash your benefits,
condemn millions to the scrap heap before their time.
Then the poet is so safely defiant, so lofty,
all within such contrite bounds.
The mildest of a demure that challenges nothing.
Hoping both torturer and victim will both find comfort,
such solace in those useless words.
No matter, says the poet,
sit at home, read these lines of doggerel,
all jarring, phony,
overflowing with comfortless rhymes.

Don't personify:
rebel, resist, protest, organise,
above all organise – organise.