My Comfort Zone - Janet

It’s safe here in my cocoon.
No reason to fear
the great unknown.
No need to drown
in the sea of doubt.
No locked door
to keep me out.
Won’t put my head
above the parapet.
There’s nothing here
I will forget.
No challenge for me
that I might fail.
Nothing to make me
weep or wail.
I’m safe in here
but, so alone.
Hidden away in
my comfort zone.

Janet

Street Man - John E Blaise

He’s stretched out amongst broken bin sacks
Waiting for early morning collection.
Lost, dazed, incoherent, vomit on his mac,
Fumbling round his makeshift bed with some affection
You could plant seeds under his dirty finger nails,
Never been manicured just torn and split
Ragged trousers smothered in shit.
A spiritual man in more ways than one
Waiting for the next drink to come
Broken home, abused as a child,
Smashed windows, always wild
Borstal care, corrective institutions
Prison punishment, no method in the madness
Whole life filled with utter sadness.
At last he waits with a tinder dry throat
Steals his first drink from a passing milk float
Stretches, staggers, belches and gives a yawn
City street cleaners tell him it’s dawn,
Walks past every hostel, way past salvation
Heads towards warmth, the underground station
Sits in a corner away from public eyes,
Eats from a discarded bag of French fries
Searches for cardboard to build his new home
In the crowded city, he’s always alone.

John E Blaise

Bring Down The Pyramid - Fred Williamson

Come on BLEEP BLEEP
Wake up you ba ba sheep
Come out of your blinkered sleep
Protest march the street
Stop listening to the lies and old blarney
Start a barney
Start the fight, it is your right
Come out of the den
Escape from the pen
Follow the wise men
Too long we have been salt and peppered
Turn away from the shepherd
Join the like minded
Who are awake and not blinded
Stop being suppressed
Under house arrest
Instead of being manhandled
Slowly strangled
Mangle the triangle
Let’s not allow ourselves to be fleeced
Let’s share the golden fleece
Bring down the pyramid and live in peace

Fred Williamson

Travellers - Chris Hudson

Time bends
Around a miniscule finger
Dimensions bend, for the clock is round
Here we are outside time
It passes us by, a cold, hard strip, interspersed with cat’s eyes
To think is to progress, travel is relative to your state of mind
They pass us by, here by the road side
But the road was only in your mind
You overlooked the most important thing
We are here, we always have been
To travel is to live
Here we are living
By the side of the road.

Christopher J. Hudson

Lament Of The Farmhand (1937) - Vic Gamble

forever the coffin passes by,
cheap oak through the penumbra of the pantry,
my only child, cold as slab,
coiled just out of foetus,
cramped in this unworkable well
of unweaned wood……

in the wheat field the pay-man pays the wages
& seed-shot girls giggle,
all as high as kites
on poor money, dreaming
cheap reams of cloth and ribbons.

I know the cider will be stream chilled,
will be roughly poured
& bread as speckled as wild egg, eaten:
gossip will rise, retouched, above the low grass of ground,
but not a pinch of them will see
her coffin passing by….

these endless summer days
leave me cold
as fisherman’s prodded bait….
and where is child, where is laughter
and daughter
in this fashioned seam
of hosanna, of human patching.

Vic Gamble