For just a dime or a penny,
they work tirelessly,
under the burning
suffocating
scorching
reality.
Sympathies expressed.
Thoughts depressed.
Sins confessed.
As realities come crashing,
dreams crippling
hopes diminishing
it only takes a button,
for all to be forgotten.

It's raining heavily in my laboreour's Germany
it is Sunday and foreigners are quietly resting
with some beer held in their large & full of scars hands

there in our improbable wonders
I come to talk to them
when a bumblebee lost and drenched
also comes on dry ground
marching through our feet

when one of us turns him on his back
he is buzzing he is drying his wings
and I say
"let him go man"

and afterall
"es ist nur ein Waser Probleme"

With torn clothes of poverty
Lasting days of hunger
The stomach remains empty
Locking yearn for education
Standing for a single penny
With a ***** face and bowl
Near academic opening
Sold to rich owners for
Retail Pay to their fathers
To Work for their mistress
Like a machine without salary
Crushing the buds before
They Bloom to become flowers
Forgetting their childhood
Making them a child labour
In houses, shops, hotels and
Making them a begger too
Why it happens in this world
Where children are
The God's greatest gifts !

You know you've been away for long when returning feels wrong
when the rough road you left's a beautiful tarmac
and the roadside lantana Kamara's someone's bed of lilacs
you know it's been ages when you feel nostalgia turning pages
when each bend you negotiate brings tears to your eyes
for the skyline's too storied to have a view of the ranges
so that in disappointment you take deep breaths and sighs
you know an eternity has gone by since you set foot there
when the hugs are a doubt for you wonder if folks still care
when the cute little puppy you left is a scabby old *****
and all you can see are graves at the stead to the alleged old witch
you realise time's past when every view matters
so much so that you open your teary eyes without a twitch
when the grass thatched homesteads are tatters
next to mansions trapped betwixt the so called rich
you tell the beautiful generation's gone when you ain't on foot
when soon as you set foot of what was such a lively place
tears of despondence cascade down your alien face
when you don't know where those who survived relocated
but can at least see tombstones in the distance suffocated
by growing bushes, you try to get close but every plant scratches
and you want a closer look much as every **** itches
you know it's been eons when many gather like a scene of crime
for they don't understand you're mourning for lost time
for those who visited the great beyond in your absence
young and the old attempting to speak English, renaissance
you know it's been a while for unlike the days of the old
only the youth show earnest concern, for they're the bold
they who'll try to explain for the elderly the stranger you're
for them old to realise you're one of their own back from a far
you know you've been away for so long when what was a domicile
is just a piece that couldn't be valued due to many a grave
the revelations hurt yet are given in bits for none's that brave
none's brave enough to relay your family's demise in chronology
and luckily someone has a number you can call thanks to technology,
your youngest sister, left a crying baby now married
realising it's you her feelings are an oxymoron
for she obviously sounds nonchalantly worried
and out of words cause you left her nothing but your stolen crayon
you know you've been away for so long when the moment
you so much prayed for turns into a biting torment
for soon as you walk out your car you become a shoulder to cry on
implying that so much has happened while you were away
yet you're too weakened by changes to keep at bay
where are the rest? you can't help but wonder
how a single decade could mean so much plunder
you know you've been away for so long when you have a novel of sorrow
one which reading could consume more than a tomorrow
when you realise you went to the wrong place or right
for you realise you're on your own childhood bed in the night
the then soft spots feeling so hard while you twist and turn
reminding you of the life you've endured whence you couldn't run
you know you've been  away for a while when you can hardly sleep
but you have room to contemplate the gone decade
laugh, wonder, remember but mostly weep
when you wish you had listened when they said
Arabian money wasn't the picture they painted
you know you've been absent when you wish you could rewind
to erase all those grotesque things they made you do
when you want to move the world back to the unwounded you
the one who wasn't sexually abused and ******* tainted
to save you the excruciating and ugly details
you only realise when deafening's the sound of hails
when you loathe rather than treasure the rain
because all it does is remind you of your pain
when you can't stop for yourself feeling sorry
wishing to speak out to the rest yet too ashamed to tell your story

It is very painful but also true,
The sea is not always clear and the sky not always blue,
The ones you love might not love you too,
The truth you hear are not always true;

The life you adore, you'll one day loose,
The freedom legends fought for, others will misuse,
Daughters properly raised, men will want to abuse,
the innocent and peace makers, courts will accuse;

A path might seem right but leads to destruction,
Many great men unborn expelled by abortion,
Poor and middle class molested by extortion,
possibility of earning little, though working oneself to exhaustion;

But i'll not be sad cause i believe in me,
i'll do what i can but what will be will be,
no matter the challenge, opportunity is an endless sea,
Except i die young, i will be what i want to be.

Labour clenses
I sweat pure evil.
Lifting freight, peddling souls

No thank you
Im not climbing the ranks.
But slowly i begin to grin


I know where i fit
Assosciated with happiness.
Only known by doubt


Through labour i lift my plight

There is a fascicle
Of anticipation in
Labour inside my
Brain – where
Hope can spurt
And spit through
Chance. Though
I see it I can no
Longer nurture
Matters of disgust.
There is a funeral
Inside of my eyes
Which sit like the lazy
Cup of tea on my
Table. And it whispers
To me in the warning
Of a night so coldly
Scarce of cheer.

On the mud flats of Padma Delta
where the mighty Ganges slides
into the Bay of Bengal
ships come to die.

Rusting oil tankers,
container ships from Panama
passenger liners,
and cargo ships from Zanzibar
North Sea fishing boats
research vessels and mother ships
anything that floats
each one has made its final trip.

Steel Leviathans
low tide beached
oil-slick stuck.

Metal monoliths
****** deep
into black sand.

The people of Sitakunda
come marching, ants
across the slippery surface
of diesel sand
to pick the carcasses apart.

Barefoot, with only blow torches
hammers and brute strength
wrenching rivets, nuts and bolts
breaching beams and deck
splitting welded seams
until the hulls are gutted
ribbed struts broken down
and torn from the edges of shape

Bit by bit
they scour and empty
right down to the core.

Bit by bit
they carry *****
to the waiting shore.

Where melting pots are kept boiling
giant stock pots stewing goodness
in a broth
but metallic flavours and oily spiced stench
hang in the misty bleakness of the bay

Skeleton hulks shift and ride
lurching, lifting with the tide
rolling, dangerous still
collapsing, with groaning creak
to maim, to crush and ****
the daring, the slow and the weak.

© M.L.Emmett