To heat or to eat
that will be the question
whether to shiver with a gut full
of cold, cheap beans
or to yank the belt tight against the pangs
but at least feel your fingertips,
some will die, many not sleep
apart from those happy,
******* few

Mary Beard’s on TV
discussing which art
could be suppressed,
never seen and placed
in secretum

The brash *******,
raw ****** ******,
Roman Charity
and priapic rampancy
does, I suppose, provoke thought.

My submission:
anything etched
by class 9Y,  Period 5 on a Friday

We trusted you with what we love
and you broke it

jammed a fat stick in its spokes,
overwound the mechanism,
twisted the arm at a funny angle
til it snapped

haphazardly snatched at the parts
applied inappropriate glue,
pointed to one or two others, then skulked away
pretending to have never touched it,
or even been there that day

even broken its worth can still be seen
with eyes that choose to,
heard with ears not deaf from
formless brays of sycophants
who may or may not be in the mirror

we will stickle it
every little bit of it
we will fix it like new new new

Counterpoint:
I love you lot.

You colleagues and loves who despise this
alongside me
so when my foot slips or knee gives
you are at my shoulder, my elbow

with a Kit-Kat or quick jab
about being old and ****
so giggles lift the misery
of ignorant, blind and fruitless bosses

while our loss seems their gain for now
I am bound to remember this refrain:
We’re not gonna take it

So, my brothers and twisted sisters
get those pitchforks ready,
sharpen in the dark,
keep being artisans

for when the time comes,
the spreadsheets won’t even be worth
the cold nothing they’re typed on
but your healing hands will

You’ll look close for all its feints,
its lies of needing you
being lost without
while the fingers on your windpipe tighten
and those tears come in place of shouting

loud, steady, drip-drip mention
of blissed futures,
dispatched, ***** pasts,
the present full
of passive aggression
where passivity is too nuanced

you’ll still be there with open arms
and a heart dark with hope,
but that tickle-whisper in your skull
is not just the concussion
not just

I breathed deep
as my fingers curled on the wheel
and gripped leather,

my memory clutched at vinyl

the engine was running,
number plates grinning yellow
as the utter ******* torrent of thoughts
ignored the exhaust

the exhausting

I could drive out forward or reverse
well rehearsed either way

these wheels just don’t know

If you had diarrhoea
got caught short, took a ****
in that drawer where you keep all your cables
and bits tangled vociferously
then later discovered you needed
a spare micro usb,
so you had no choice
but to roll up your sleeves,
that would be this Monday