take a poor, fat, spiced chocolate kid
from its welfare house
put it in a program with rich kids,
tell it it can be just like that,
if it learns critical thinking,
logical reasoning, communication,
and problem solving.
can it?

[falls asleep in a dumpster]

this ******* thing came to this:
two brains, sever and split.
two pigs, top of the town,
made marquee marked on the ground!

punctuate!
i'm smothered, but
the fourth wall's
done getting scraped!

version one point one was nothing new,
these scrapes make room for version one point two.

n if you have a clue
pork who watches you move
will be taking notes
this ***** knows how it goes

n if you have a plan
pork who watches you move
will catch it, understand
this ***** is stealing souls

keep it under the knife
surgeon and patient
simultaneously
ship and astronaut
in E.V.A.

i know well the fear as it manifests
in the dampness come night
dollar bills burn hot in pocket
the reddened skin of my inner thighs
fights to fray the cloth, but i
i'm better off sleeping in my pants
and my shoes, as to evade
then this thing clicks and the misfit
cuts come to fall into plan
by design, without fail, buy and sell
then there's me, this thing replete
with confidence in its destruction
by its hand, or on demand, its a
matter of course                  lightbulb!

I was brought up in Western Leeds,
Almost two miles from the nearest cow or sheep.
In sprawling suburbs:
Row after row of smoke stained redbrick slums.
We had our fields:
Jungles of Rose Bay Willow Herb
(Fireweed to the Americans)
On former demolition sites.
Our childhood spears were honed
From fireweed spears.

Our house was in a terrace
On “School Street”,
Where we took baths in the sink
And crept to outside toilets
In the dark of the “back yard”.

Those days were punctuated
By the “Yie Yie” blare
From the local factory siren.
A deafening sound.
And by endless hammering
From the scrapyard nearby.

But we loved our dripping and bread,
And our walks to the sweet shop.
Playing hopscotch on those stone “flags”
Along the sides of the cobbled street
Under old Victorian gas lamps
Straight from Narnia.

I recall crying on our return from the coast
At a dismal scene
Of soot shrouded trains
On tortured railway lines.

But I also feel nostalgia
For those heady days
Of childhood innocence.
Wearing a cardboard box as a space suit,
And running around
During a “New Year’s Revolution”.
Happy Days.

Paul Butters

The girl from the slums
She was told she was dumb
That she'd never grow old to be anyone

The guy from the street
He was bullied and beat
Told to just shut up and sit in his seat

That's what they say
That's not what You say!

You say that she's loved
That You're more than enough
To get her through life even when it's tough

You say that You're proud
And You say it out loud
Whenever he's lost he will always be found

That's what You say!
And that's what counts.