I do not write.
Not nearly enough.
Too busy, too many
things to do.
I have let it go, lost
the thing I had that made me write.
Haven’t the disciplines,
the determination to push it through.
I have been courted by
big publishing houses.
Literary agents rub their
chins and email me for more.
I’m popular then not.
Minimum wage forcing my
hand, £5.50 per hour for this grown man to protect.
No prospects beyond the
next wage packet.
I am paid five days
late. Often.
Don’t make the
threshold to pay tax to the man.
He has no need of my
trifling small pennies.
Late nights that become
day.
Remnants of cancer ping
with pain.
It wants to join me in
my mire.
Year in. year out.
Perhaps too comfortable
in my weaned poverty.
Comfort in the decrepit
familiarity.
Need the misery of
never enough.
Memories of mum begging
down the lane.
Need the pain of no
gain.
Always work hard, callous
your skin hard.
Reward never came. Capitalist
fodder for life.
I dragged riches for
others from the sludge.
My dotage, damn it, my dotage
is near.
One last push, one last
big breath in.
Who wins. Literary or
my labour?
Cancel the Sun life monthly
funeral payments. Five pounds saved.
Greys of a hard knock life.
Thinned grey papery
skin and hair.
Faded to grey.
