Letter to Santa

Dear Santa
I know I haven’t always been a good girl
But please give me a bleedin’ break
I don’t ask for much, but every woman has her desires
For goodness sake.
I run myself ragged, day in, day out
Autism mum first and foremost
Harassed bitchface, mardy cow
There are days when I don’t even know how
The women in Syria even survive
When I can’t even deal with a meltdown
When the depression dances and the anxiety thrives.
But I have been good most of the time
Even if I have overdone the chocolate treats.
My ass would plead to be freed from the deed
Of ride a cock horse and demolish your steed
And my belly which rhymes with jelly and looks like
A sugar laden simile.
I know I am not the smallest
But Santa, let’s be having none of that bloody
Weight loss guilt trip stuff on the telly.

And don’t be bringing me
Sex toys
Toy boys
Boy toys
Vibrators made of metal alloys.
Or tinsel nipple tassles
As the latter will be more like toenail ticklers
And it’s not even worth the hassle.
And let’s leave the pretentious cook books out of the picture
The only things getting cooked around here
Are microwave chips, ready meals from Iceland
And pie in the sky dreams of winning the lotto and getting richer.
Mary Berry’s probably a nice lady
But baking Tirimasu isn’t part of my criteria
So she can piss right off and peddle her fancy treats in fucking Siberia.
Maybe the polar bears have a penchant for pavlova
And maybe the Great British Bake Off’s just a load of middle class hysteria.

Santa, I don’t get much time to myself
So if you have a supernanny in your sack
Not your sack in a nanny
Then please release my lack of peace
And grant me the odd night with my fabulosa friends
To feast, to go ‘on the piste’
To be a woman on a mission with a glass full of brandy
And a nice plate of veggie curry would come in handy
And a bit of pissed up karaoke would be fine and dandy.
I like a bit of mic
I like to hog the limelight.

And I don’t want to be a selfish bitch, Santa
But I don’t suppose you have a spare MacBook or iPhone?
I know I shouldn’t ask
But when you’re a single mum and on your own
And you spend the nights surfing the web
Drinking in the likes on Facebook
Like a hungry dog licks on a bone.
Nights dripping in poetry, weaving wise words,
Reaching out to the world yet feeling fucking alone
You like to fiddle and twiddle and let your fingers skadiddle
You like to build with your words a metaphoric home

So, Santa,
I’ll leave it up to decide if I’ve made your good girl list.
But
Leave out the mistletoe or you’ll be kissed with my fist!

©2019 Sarah Drury

'Am I a Poet' & 'Working Tax Credits' live performance

Here is my live performance of my poems ‘Am I a Poet?’ and ‘Working Tax Credit’, at Away With Words open mic night, November 21st, Off the Road Live Lounge, Hull.

The Last Moment

Your hand in my hand
Like a reticent child putting on
Winter mittens
Made of old, weathered parchment.
Sitting here
Dying here
In this soulless intensive care department
As the sorrow cries
And tears so hot they’re dry
And fragile remnants of hope die
And like a bird
I want to fly
Far away
From here.
From here.

Is that your heart I hear?
Or is it some medical mechanism
I don’t know what’s louder
the life support technology
or the sterile lack of humanism.
But your hand is in my hand
You are mine
This cameo moment in time
This desperation on a lifeline
All those times I thought we’d be fine.
All those times
And we’re not, now.

But here we are
Saying our last goodbyes
The windows to your soul
Are sleeping, peaceful, closed
The eyes so blue
That used to shine in a brilliant, sapphire hue.
Do you dream, my darling?
Is your world filled with timeless memories?
Fleeting whispers of the things we used to do.
Or am I dreaming?
Am i holding onto you
When I know your soul is ready
drifting down the final avenue
drifting
drifting

So goodbye darling
I will let you go
Goodbye darling
Its time now
I know
I know
I know.

©2019 Sarah Drury

'Twas the Night Before Christmas 2019

‘Twas the night before Christmas
And all round the house
The children were freezing
The gas had run out
They’re huddled in blankets
And second hand coats
With bad chest infections
And painful, sore throats.
There is no electric
They’ve run out of money
They’re scared and they’re frightened
They’re crying for mummy.
But mummy is down
to her last tearful nerve
Universal credit’s been
A steep learning curve.
And the children are hungry
And the cupboards are bare
They’re living off foodbanks
A bloody nightmare.
And it’s Christmas tomorrow
And what will they do?
They’re living off tatties
And vegetable stew.
No turkey bedecking
their rickety table
a fine Christmas dinner’s
a middle class fable.
No fat Christmas pudding
To feast, feast, feast, feast
For that sort of thing
Is a wealthy assed beast.
Santa is taking
a break for the night
for they can’t afford presents
their purse is too tight,
and the children will cry
and their hearts will be broken
they’ll think they’ve been bad
and no words that are spoken
will sooth their sad hearts
will bring back the magic
for poverty is sin
and their little lives tragic.
And benefits are sanctioned
And the poor they go hungry
And the wealthy don’t care
And the tories are angry
And people get poorer
And children get sadder
And the system gets fucked up
The money gets tighter.
The homeless get shit on
The sick are a burden
The mothers are chastised
Their futures uncertain.
How did our poor country
Get in this crap mess?
How did our ‘fine’ leaders
Be heartless, care less?
How did our poor children
Become casualties?
Hungry, tired, sorrowful
Tory fatalities.
‘Twas the night before Christmas
And some lives were shit
We need things to change
Put an end to it.

©2019 Sarah Drury

Britain's Breadline Kids

Britain’s Breadline Kids

We are breeding the next generation
Of Britain’s breadline kids.
Kids who have nothing but low expectations
Kids who know no, they know low, they know how low life goes
They know they are the empty at the bottom of their piggybank
They know they are the broken Barbie with butchered hair
They know they are the Aldi Rich Tea biscuit, not the McVities Digestive
They know
They know

Breadline kids
Eating from the shelves of the local foodbank
Cupboards as bare as the aisles in the shops of Chernobyl
Fridges only cold for the splash of milk that kisses the coffee
That tempers the mum
That needs the caffeine
That keeps away the deadening grey, the grey that sucks the life out of her day
That keeps that last bit of death away
A coffee and let’s pray.
Let’s pray.

Breadline kids
Huddled in dirty quilts and sleeping in duvets of charity coats
No money for heating, no money for gas, no pennies for leccy
The kids they like Frozen, they dream of the Movie
And they fantasise that life’s an adventure
In the lands of Olaf and Elsa
and that they don’t cry like newborns in the night
when Jack Frost’s tapping at that icy window
and blue is the colour of their cyanosis lips
and not just the politics that put them here.

Breadline kids
Fun is something that always comes free
No x box, no laptop, no new fangled gadgets
Nothing of value exists in their homes bar the value of love
And of family
And that’s running thin
With the stress and the strain and the strife and the pain
And the pain and the pain and the pain.
And what can we give you today Cash Convertors?
Will you perhaps take my soul that’s a huge aching hole
If I sold you my children would I still get parole
You know everything on your shelves
Has paid for empty stomachs and breadline birthdays
And maybe the odd line of coke.
Maybe the odd beer and extravagant smoke.

Breadline Kids
We have no decadent parties here
Don’t flaunt your fancy balloons or your pink tutu skirts
Or your partybags filled with cheap plastic tat
Or your musical statues or pass the parcels
For the only parcels we have here are the foodbank variety
And the only musical statues are our poor, broken bodies
Stiff with the curse of a freezing winter’s morning.
Save your parties for the piss poor politics
And remember that blue is the colour
of impoverished lips, lying Tories and capitalism.

Breadline kids
You have always been here.
With your castoffs and hunger, your bravery and sadness
But in an era when people become millionaires from posting shit on YouTube
And celebrities are liabilities and the famous are talentless
And the government say Universal Credit is a success
As the Prime Minister’s wife sports her Gucci dress
And our politics are fucked like a cancerous abscess
You should be kids
Not casualties.

Kids.

©2019 Sarah Drury

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