Townie corner boys
(a synonym for a**holes)
won't leave me alone...
bully me, hit me, hurt me,
leave me there filled with...relief
Each day at boys school
I am told I don't belong...
(I'm not an athlete)
so I am treated with scorn
by my peers AND my teachers
"You are retarded!"
Can't tell you how many times
I heard that insult
(my own academic prowess
be damned, be cursed, be ignored)
And so I’m searching,
always searching for something
I can be good at;
and, please Lord, if I can find it,
maybe the contempt will pass
Years - decades - later
a former tormentor calls;
"A school reunion!
Won't you come? Will you join us?"
But the memories still haunt
A consistently poor wage
Licenses rage:
An ugly fight against the cage,
Steady enveloping of stagnant wage,
A temper warning every wedge,
Rising while lowered with vintage.
Hirers open a sterile page,
Not a complimenting line for a sage:
Reflections of his usage,
Not a half paragraph for his adage…
The low income earner won’t this manage,
Nor life in his fatiguing village:
The vast hum drums sight,
Of farm-tools tauntingly bright,
For all their promises of fast tillage,
Putting The Townie at a disadvantage.
Any hopelessly downsized wage,
Is cash that the teeth sets on edge,
The Hired white with shock
Over Hirer’s heart of steely lock.
Once were badgers in leafy dale,
once were rabbits and foxes too,
once were pheasants in shining copse where cuckoopint and coltsfoot grew.
Once were songbirds in privet hedges,
once were bluebells for mile upon mile,
once were dark woods cool and shading hiding squirrels and foxes guile.
Once were home fed pigs and poultry,
once were food with proper taste,
once were marls with mirrored water, but now they only hold our waste.
Once were farmers in umber meadow,
once were colliers in village pit,
once were taverns for quenching thirst where now the townie and tourist sit.
Once were fens and fields and down-lands,
once were moorhen and curlews call,
once were stewards of Gods own country, where now there is but urban sprawl.
Once were leaders of Albion's masses,
once were statesmen of unbending word,
once was a land that was fit for heroes, where now only spin and deceit are heard.
I cannot lie. A townie’s legs are kind of atrophied.
Too much couch sitting for our tummies to get taunt.
Unfit, unhealthy, unresponsive, unable to hide,
we sit and wait for our food to arrive by aunt.
Our country cousins’ legs are muscular and trim.
They are in the field with corn, haying and picking.
We townie cousins almost always join a gym,
But do not go, our subconscious we are tricking.
Our country cousins get up at five and start working.
We prefer to sleep ‘til ten, some of us do twerking.
Our country cousins go to church, passé’ for us.
They are creepily polite, defer to God, and rarely cuss.
The big muscles in their arms we notice now and again.
We do not make a big deal of it or the muscles in their shin.
They are fit from head to toe, from all the chores they do.
Townies are inside lumps, and it makes us a little blue.
Country cousins are outside most of their day,
we townies use an I-pad or I-pod to do our play.
Country cousins, some of us are envious of you.
Try to get our kicks with buying, which will rarely ever do.
Written 9-8-2019
Contest: Town Children
Sponsor: Julia Ward
Eye strain from computer
forced me out, alone,
into the inky blackness.
No-one about.
A townie by birth
I felt vulnerable but
twinkling stars above me
enthralled the one-time city girl.
I walked by the loch
made invisible by night's
cloak and dagger.
Just the gentle lapping
betrayed its whereabouts.
Stags bellowed into the night air
making me look round,
just in case, of course,
ready to run back to the cottage.
Stars twinkled reassuringly.
The Scottish village prepared for bed
as I timidly walked under the starlit sky
The fresh air soothed tired eyes
and the stags bellowed on into the night.
Floating on a restless sea,
my mind, it wanders far.
Mental ecstasy.
Brilliant thoughts led astray;
ink, of which reads sub par.
Storming on a summer’s day,
ink is no good when the mind draws blank;
emotions stuck to the inside of a honey jar.
A step from the edge of the plank;
soul dive into the deep blue.
Left and right collide in a mental spar,
fills my head with thoughts anew.
Rolling down the steepest side of a hand-made clay bowl,
wrestles the wall ajar,
bringing new light to the soul.
Take a walk with me, on an imagination spree;
who’d ever think I’d be knocked off the block,
by a homeless townie named K.P.?
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