Panem et circenses still work
to stump us – Fed on loaves &
lies thrown as confetti [spread
until faded & trodden-in] – We
sit in sunlight’s scrub of heat –
warming after winter’s rub &
tease – Juvenal [long-dead] is
laughing in Rome – Our orders
in coffee shops dull a request
to pay more for [basic] needs –
sour lectern-gripped masters
let us know things’ll get better
[for others] – Spring will return
a short-lived fling in our hearts
& ambitions’ll rise [for a while]
Libraries’ hours will reduce,
their lending overdue:
Google will then charge us all
for e-book content view.
Our library is all knowledge,
day-long care and quiet reads,
our vast bookmark will be lost
if all we do is cede:
Loved tomes will not open,
nor the library’s oft locked-doors,
no free church for free readers,
we have to fight for more.
Less bookworm-work for staff,
all that knowledge has been sacked,
they may find jobs in Tesco’s,
where books aren’t freely stacked.
‘The sepia tone of November’ has gone,
wrote Harry Smith, aged ninety-one:
Seeing worn-out, blood-red, poppies as lies:
Pinned politic medals for cut-back lives.
Dignity: for aged, infirm, unwell,
should not be hacked down, so this state can sell
the last shards of a now-curtailed reward,
gained fair, in blood dried, post-war, accord.
‘A too-weighty burden’, ‘a fat cash cow’,
‘needs to be slaughtered, put it down, right now.’
War-won promises of a better world:
Instead they insist that respect is culled.
On Harry Smith’s lapel no poppy spun:
For him the Old Wars are still to be won.
