northern poet – Sarah Drury

When I was a teen, I worked in a home for the elderly. One of the old ladies had dementia…

Fourteen years old
And radiating a future
Of fruitful tomorrows
In this graveyard for
The not yet dead
With the old bones
Rattling around in this
Old people’s home
One ear on the
Monotonous drone
Of dead eyed visitors
And one eye on
The steady tock
Of the analogue clock
As death permits
A last cup of tea

They had memories – Once
But these were stolen
And minds were broken
Words come tumbling
Out like retrospective
Dramas spoken
Wartime lovers
Dancing with hope
This hopeless dance
With feet that may not
March next week
As they savour
The last of their rations

I was Alice’s aunty once
As I led her to her
Favourite chair
Skin so parchment thin
Her story was written
In the spiderlike veins
And downy hair
Eyes trusting as a child
That thinks it’s going
To Paris
But is cruelly going
Nowhere decent
Nowhere they could feast
On warm croissants

I wondered
Was this aunt
Loved
And hoped that
I could share a bit
Of my naïve heart
I prayed I could lovingly play
A nurturing movie star
In her world of
Broken dolls and
Tattered teddy bears
Where she was now
The child
And I, the child
Was now
Very grown up
Indeed.

Working tax credit

My working tax credit, my working tax credit
They’re taking away my working tax credit!
They say I am working, that I am a poet
That poetry pays well and don’t they just know it.
I‘m earning too much and that I am a big hit
Don’t they know that they’ve put me right in the fat pig shit.
Money don’t grow on trees, you can’t fake it or grow it
And with Brexit a coming we all will be poor Brits
And being a poet, the tax scapegoat coat fits
I’ll be selling my body to pilots in cockpits
If the tossers don’t sort it out.

My working tax credit, my working tax credit
They’re taking away my working tax credit
And soon I’ll be living on bacon and beans
With a side dish of spam for I won’t afford greens
And a glass of tap water for lager is pricy
And the men at the foodbank are rugged and spicy
And the chips at the chippy are soggy and dicey
And the price of a haddock makes it highly unlikely
That I will eat a decent meal
If the tossers don’t sort it out.

My working tax credit, my working tax credit
They’re taking away my working tax credit
And soon I’ll be wearing the bones of me arse
So it looks like Primark cos my knickers are sparse
And buying from Oxfam is a bleedin farce
Cos they’ve got no fat trousers to cover me arse.
And the blouses don’t cover my ample tits
And I feel suicidal when nothing good fits.
So a naked poet I will be
if the tossers don’t sort it out.

My working tax credit, my working tax credit
They’re going to stop my working tax credit
Boris, I bet you don’t have to sign on
With your arse on your chair in your capitalist lair
and your tory possie pushing more into poverty
You’re all heartless bastards, you really don’t care
and the children are starving and benefits are sanctioned
and the country is fucked and the system’s not fair.
So get off your arses you idle pen pushers
And sort out my money – NOW!

Tag: northern poet

I was Alice’s Aunty Once

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