Britain – Sarah Drury

‘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.

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.

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