Poem: Lies, damned lies and...

Make your way in silence to the edge of our cities
and hide yourself there, behind the newest addition
of multi million showcasing we call art.
Keep your eyes downcast, do not cry out
or we will find you and bundle you off to anonymous elsewhere
to muffle your voice, fearing the human story.

You are 22 per cent that falls through the cracks of policy.
The other 78 do not want to bear witness,
as you peer through the double glazing,
flattening the flowerbeds and rosebushes
and mucking suburban content
with the detritus of a broken life.

Poem: Safety

It is the right thing to be kind, from a safe distance,
if you let it the terrible weight of others need will consume you
and you become a parody of compassion, trampled and used up,
pathetic in your bruised black acquiescence. Mortified martyr
to the consuming greed of your own capitulation.

Lost in subservience you cease as an entity onto yourself,
a perversified puppet to another’s damage, you are nothing
but a willing victim, revelling in the depth of your terrible sacrifice,
waiting for the world to take notice. Ridiculous distortion
of the notion of empathic intervention.

Take yourself to one side and be alone, you are damaged,
unable to connect without making yourself a casualty to
the human tendency to take advantage, inspired by your submission
and masochistic kindness. Beautifully broken
you will be safe at last in isolation.