How is this free verse poem.
Perfumef handkerchifs
Hiding thete smells
SEND THEM TO THE WORKHOUSE THEY ARE SPOILING MY MEAL
Urchins and vagabonds
Scavaging for food
SEND THEM TO THE WORKHOUSE THEY ARE SPOILING MY MEAL
The starving scrambling
Food from the bins
SEND THEM TO THE WORKHOUSE THEY ARE SPOILING MY MEAL
Pickpockets stealing
Stealing my bread
SEND THEM TO THE GALLOWS THEY ARE SPOILING MY MEAL
Christmas is coming
Give them some gruel
THE WORKHOUSE IS WAITING THE GALLOWS CAN WAIT
The sweep boy is crying
The chimney neefs sweeping
WHIP HIM AND BEAT HIM THE CHIMNEY NEEDS SWEEPING
Chestnuts roasting
Carol singers caroling
MERRY CHRISTMAS URCHINS AND ALL
Brittle and broken, the eucalyptus snaps loudest.
Pulverized by constant wear
of boots on dusty trails.
Debris of lifeless memories
detached from vital source,
scattered broken on apathetic earth,
pummeled by the passerby.
A lifetime of transforming sunlight obliterated
in the spiraling downward dance of fall,
to publicly mourn its own demise
at the foot of the future,
blooming green and leafy in the sun.
Life starts and bursts so young and eager.
And so the workhouse of servitude begins its tasks.
Fully ripened and heavy in the heat of maturity
then snapping, sailing in the autumnal chill.
Yet in death, oh my, the scent returns,
a citrusy, mint, rosemary-like eulogy.
Eucalyptus snaps the loudest in refrain
to a singular journey at its end.
Work is the twin of rest;
Work represses me from tasting the sugar of the day,
Represses me from witnessing the launch of the moon,
Represses me from fun, from the chaff, wraps me in grief,
Even when my gait is breaking like the beak of a red-haired hen from the endless stress, & tears stroll the streets of my face,
work appears in the company of a rainstorm,
This is not because I like it,
but because the choice of freedom is a melting mirage,
because freedom is far like an endless sea,
What do you do when poverty blinds the love of your parents,
and push them to throw you an uncle's place,
a place work is the twin of rest?
I swear, workhouse chores, errands,... — lace me inside, scripts sadness into my skin even when my mates are in school,
But I won't wail in this feeling crawling into my lips,
I won't. I won't. I won't.
August 12th, 2022
FOR DR HAROLD SHIPMAN POETRY CONTEST
BY : JOE MAVERICK
Oh, don’t flatter me with presents from the Ghost of Christmas Past.
Tis the season for nostalgia, but those feelings never last.
It’s a gift-wrapped empty promise not worth tuppence on the street,
Or a ticket to the opera when you’ve nothing left to eat.
Oh, don’t weary me with visions from the Ghost of Christmas Gone.
It’s a fairy tale for paupers who’ll be just as poor come dawn.
I’ve no sympathy for indolence, nor ignorance and want.
If you’re looking for compassion, find another bank to haunt.
Oh, don’t bother me with worries from the Ghost of Christmas Done.
Send those children of the gutter to the workhouse, every one!
Put their noses to the grindstone in a more productive game;
Earning porridge making bootstraps for the barefoot and the lame.
Oh, don’t humbug me with pleadings from the Ghost of Christmas Lost.
Sir, the figures on my balance sheet won’t justify the cost.
So, our business is concluded and I’m free to wash my hands.
Tell the Sisters of St. Alban’s, the eviction notice stands!
It's hard to stay focused
If your mind is never still
You'll never find your inner peace
If you don't meditate on your will
The will to practice with your whole being
You will never find the balance
To be authentic in your living
You'll just be living by the domesticated rules
That from you were carefully conditioned within you
That offer up your compliance
Simply to follow and not to be
The potential individual, amazingly unique
Achieving all your hopes
And living out your dreams
You will simply end up another zombie of this illusory society
Fodder for the workhouse
Fodder for their wars
Living by the trickle down theory
Eating the scraps discarded onto the floor
Of the table from which the rich eat
And where we sit begging for more
Break out of this conditioning and live by your own laws
And existential being that defines your own cause.
It’s Christmas day in the workhouse
Just another grey day to endure
We are being treated to pot noodle
So Oliver won’t be asking for more
It’s Christmas day in the workhouse
Just another grey day to endure
We have been promised nouvelle cuisine
So Oliver will be asking for more
Children of darkness do not play under the Bluebird sky
nor do they feel the sunshine of a summer's morning
on little backs and faces..
instead they toil from dawn to dusk in rooms of
darkness with dirt floors and grey walls..
barefoot urchins from six to ten
hollow eyes that stare at sewing machines
where tiny fingers thread and weave garments
for rich ladies and gentlemen who buy the cloth of silk..
spun by little folk who had the misfortune to be born paupers..
An orphaned Victorian child
On the streets,running wild
Fated to share a workhouse cot
Asked for a second helping from the pot-
A life of crime becoming his lot.