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Edward Coles Jun 2016
We are a global society
When we want oranges in the fruit bowl,
When we want out of our rut
Just long enough
To brown in a patch of Spanish sun.
We are a global society
When the Japanese car breaks down
And we are in need of a cheap fix
To keep food on the table,
Some Latvian mechanic
Who helps us find our way home.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
When the zeroes run low
And there are spaces,
Foreign faces,
To which we can point
And blame.

We are a global society
With our sweat-shop chic,
American coffee chains
Selling Colombian ground beans,
Frappuccinos in plastic cups-
Made in China
And served by a Romanian barista
In Italian heels.
We are a global society
When the demand is high
And the payment is low.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
When hands reach out for help
And our pockets are too shallow,
Our time, too brief
To commit to a unity
We feel is dragging us down.

We are a global society
When the football is on,
When the lager is Belgian
And the supermodel, Greek.
When we cradle that bag of Cheetos
After smoking too much ****.
We are a global society
When oppression is overt,
Caricatured in bulletin posters,
Threatening to land
Upon our own front door.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
When poverty seems contagious,
When we have to clean up
Someone else’s mess,
Still we scar the Middle East
Only half-interested in an exit.

We are a global society
When we get sick,
When we borrow another doctor
For our ailing NHS.
When cities of white people burn,
We are a global society,
When Africa is divided,
We are nowhere to be seen.
Prime mover of the commonwealth
Yet we fall beneath the breadline
And living easy is so rare.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
Under the false flag
Of a golden age
We were conned to believe in.
Our nation, our island nation,
Lost amongst a sea of misinformation.
C
Steven Fortune Apr 2014
(Inspired by article below)

I.

Continuity
your filibuster egg of sand
dazzled curiosity
with creaky shell of hints
heaped upon the tedium
of knowledge's unfurl undeterred
by encyclopedic impatience

Assurances of rip(Van Winkl)ed
economics shooed paper strings of
revelation like anarchy-powered
taxes summoning a foreword
to anachronistic campaigns
of environmental friendliness

II.

Meanwhile years
have been filed down to flashes of
chronology for continuity's organic rebus

However long it took
the economic karma to fall into the
abodes of hedonistic pharaohs
it was instant

Skin that ruled behind the constitution
of allergic breath
bailed on the bones against their most
sublime intentions

Limbo-treading landlords
huddled in their mummified freeze
after breadline bashers scolded them
with the spoils of a new brand
of pyramid scheming

Robbers of the coffin palaces
stole the intimations of identity
theft from today

Immortality and freedom
were compelled to share a meaning
like estranged siblings
or bound dynasties

I(a).

Abydos
how you coyly toyed with us
with a diversion bordering on monolithic

04 23 14
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/news/valley-of-the-other-kings-lost-dynasty-found-in-egypt-9065551.html
Damian Murphy May 2015
Do we, as a people, deserve to be critised?
Have we as a nation become so desensitised
to the plight of those among us who are marginalised?
Do we care nothing for the less well off, the disenfranchised?
Rents and cost of living as high as we have ever known,
numbers on the breadline and homeless have consistently grown,
so many suicides because people feel so desperate and alone,
how can we stand by and let this happen to so many of our own?
So many families torn apart and utterly devastated,
Far too many of our young people reluctantly emigrated,
People losing their homes, heartbroken and humiliated,
There is not much about this country now to be celebrated!

It’s true that during the recession most people lost a lot
But was it the booming economy that really started the rot?
Did we start judging each other by how much each had got?
Was compassion for our fellow man something we forgot?
Though going through hard times we still give much to charity
many services only possible because people work voluntarily
but the government rub their hands together with unashamed glee
Are they right to think our actions absolve them of all responsibility?
Though all of us are struggling, each with so much on our plate  
Should we not come together, do something before it is too late?
Surely the plight of these our people should prompt a national debate?
to ensure our government meets the needs of every last citizen of our state.
The frightening thing is, it could so easily be you or I
left unemployed or homeless, or barely scraping by
we cannot just dismiss it, the signs are all there
and if the present is anything to go by, will anybody care?
Took a trip on the Belafonte,
Bound with Cuba to forgotten Sanz.
Dinning on tin canned Del Monte,
A glass of Suntory always in hands.

Lloyd Faversham gifted salacious devices by John Cleese.
Used as props in Mike’s next gin stained showpiece.

The drum-line seemed irksome to J. Jonah.
He’d heard Zach Hill before.
Given limited time, despite the persona.
Interstellar fault found in a **** metaphor.

A swift change to an even more marketable sound.
Sparks didn’t fly when trying to appear profound.

Tiny teen dreams tending to tiny skirts.
Fidgeting with the hem-line.
Their just unintelligible flirts.
Stripping to avoid the breadline.

Dystopian fiction led to dissolution of fact
Can’t seem to see their world isn’t intact.

Atwood to Collins, Collins to a stupid ******* maze.
Alternate choice being a criminal thrill.
Simplistic fantasy whose only benefit is praise.
Popular opinion seems to be well over the hill.
Winnalynn Wood Apr 2021
My dear friend please show me
How to act like I know these

Bumbling facades running this place
They’re all fakes that take up the space

Stuck in a whirling fantasy of power and fame
Tucked in a twirling travesty of towers of blame  

That they could never take for themselves
Lingering at the top takes a lot of help

They have gluttonous accounts, that makes all the headlines  
Without the money around it’d be an endless breadline
dan hinton Oct 2017
60,3913  N, 5,3221 E, Bergen, 22.05.17

The Germans wear you down spiritually. They look through you with eyes of ice. It hurts when you see your friends turn their back on you. When you see the girl you loved, kissed in the canteen by a *****.  Your heart burns. What has he got that I haven’t? Apart from the muscle that pads out his boiler suit. No-one wants an intelligent man. I sit here sipping coffee in a fishing village café in Bergen. The coffee is hot and my heart aches. Soon we will be making our way up through the fjords to Geiranger. The beautiful fjords that embrace you. There is not so much to bear witness to here. The Gravlax is poor and overrated. Everything is shut. The dreary rain comes down on * A colleague drove me all the way to Hardanger Bridge. The bridge that connects Oslo and Bergen is truly breath-taking. I have seen the Milau Bridge in the South of France, the Somerset Bridge, Clifton Suspension Bridge. However, this is really the highlight of Bergen; unless you are drunk.
17.00 - we leave for G.
62,1008 N, 72059, E, Geiranger, 23.05.17

I wrote to Nan last night. I asked for her guidance. I want everything to be okay with Aline. 05.00 hours I got up to see the Geiranger fjords. They were breathtaking; we passed the Rock God in the cliff face. Or rather; he let us pass. Norway is really a paradise. I think how people only think with their bellies. Helen the nurse abandons us half way up the waterfall. I turn back. The Germans have an acute interest only in themselves. One wonders where love lies. I have found Ole’s café – at the base camp of the waterfall. It is here I feel at home. At this coffee shop I must remember everything properly. I must also forget Helen and how angry she makes me feel.  Mr. Edin said: “It’s the system that makes them so. Everyone is born the same.”

62,0861, N, 6,8687 E, Hellesylt, 23.05.17

I hate my life. I hate my inability to fall in love with anyone and anyone to fall in love with me. These days I can’t stand to look at the face that I see in the mirror. Parts of me crumble away to dust. I feel more and more bitterness, in port, towards couples that have found love – to the point of absurdity. Ice-skating; I drift slowly around the rink. It is the only real time I feel complete when I am alone. I see a couple kissing and happy in love. I feel anger and a bitterness burning up within me.  Why can’t I find someone that loves me simply? Why do I have to do all this **** – the garbage of personal relationships. Hellesylt is truly beautiful. At least I feel at one with nature; even if I don’t fit in anywhere else.

59,4136 N, 5,2680, E, Haugesund, 24.05.17

The war against fat, like finding love, is ongoing. I always feel I am the loser. I am a loser. I am sat in a coffee shop overlooking the red and yellow houses. I try and chat up the waitress;  a beautiful Norwegian blonde. I try and embody the image of a sailor. It works to some extent, but actually only reflects back on myself as a person. The aching has grown less. The coffee helps to balm the dissatisfaction I feel with life; as does the view across the river. There is an English couple opposite. How can you complain with that view out across the river? Twenty-five degrees, surely we must be able to leave our pain behind? I feel myself become more and more alive; back to life. The wounds are healing again. The pain passes.

5,89700 N, 57331, E, Stavanger, 25.05.17
We are going to sit and hammer this out. This book, this journal, bears witness to life. That is its meaning.  Why is it so hard to find love and to be loved? I am only an anatomical structure – corruptible, breakable flesh. Stavanger is quite simply a boring town. You can walk from one end to the other in thirty minutes. There is a church; a freedom monument and slated, wooden houses. Yuliana the Belarusian pushes her body onto mine, beneath the Northern Lights like a teddy bear; she hugs me again and again, never letting me go. I kiss her delicately on the ear. She giggles. I can still hear her voice now and the smell of her sweet perfume. Oh, how I burn inside. How many thoughts and feelings wheel in an instant. How capricious this heart is. I must drink another coffee.

59,9139 N, 10,7522,E, Oslo, 26.05.17
I am on the hunt for a Durian fruit in Oslo. My hunt for Hardanger Beer with the appropriate label also continues. We dock right in the centre of Oslo. The sun warms me. Trust me to fall in love with the only lesbian on board. In Oslo’s most popular café, Kaffebereint,  I think how I get myself into such situations. Maybe it’s because I love long nails on a woman. She has forgotten her scarf. I should really do more sit up and visit the gym. My feet are too busy wandering. Sauna Night takes place onboard – a reward for all those who helped out at the party below the mooring deck. I serve punch and party the night away. For a while I forget the disappointment of people and the strangeness of my body. Oslo is beautifully serene. I walk in the footsteps of Ibsen. I try and make my writing smaller and smaller so that it is almost like Chinese ideograms. I close the gap. I try to be neater; to be better. I walk along the boulevards of coffee shops, wondering how I can be better.
53,35 N, 8,35 E, Bremerhaven, 28.05.17
I am back home (in home port) from the Nordic Voyage. I need to rest up in Hamburg before embarking on the next adventure to the Northern Cape. 21.06.17 at 1700 hours – Bergen. What else is there to report on as we approach the quaint fishing port of Bremerhaven? Home. Only that my ex-girlfriend from Algiers has given birth to a baby girl; she wrote to me. Two years old. Name: Eline. Letters are wonderful. The waves lap gently at the boat. If you ever thinking about writing a letter, you should; we haven’t spoken for two years and she writes to me, out of the blue, because of a Christmas card she picked up in Dar Es Salaam. That is life; life on a boat; life at sea; life on the breadline. A sailor’s life is a funny thing; full of unpredictability.  Even as an enthusiastic merchant sailor I can see the draw of this life. – as tough as I am, what else is there to say? Only that another adventure waits me in Hamburg –

The rest of this transcript, as subsequent potential voyages is lost.
excerpts from my latest book
Gigi Tiji Jan 2015
water glass
shatter
sun scatter
sun kissed blue sky
blue love white mists form
god's ****** cloud fists and
rumble tumble fumble
dipper dapper dilly dally
rainbow mumble
splatter thunder
shimmer

bright light
dial dimmer
turn it down
let it simmer
turn it around
and stop

look around, listen
see if you hear the trees glisten
try to taste the motion of the ocean
and love the motion
love the motion

spin too softly trip on gravity
feels like a dandy
drilled cavity,
pulled tooth
waiting in the breadline
feeling forced like a punch line

I need to be here.

water drop

__

this morning I watched '
I watched the memories of my dreams
fade in real time
real time
almost like a fault line
building pressure where it's
cracked the surface, it's a circus
ready to spring up
buttercups
like us, at any moment '
earthquake blossom, paradigm shift
jazzy blues guitar riff
crescendo climbing, climbing, and
diving off a tall cliff
splash! '
can't miss
glass water shatter
sun kissed blue mist
rainbow shimmer
water drop
splatter
driptip
tap
Ryan O'Leary Jul 2019
In this case, it does not
refer to the poorest state
in which it is acceptable
to live.

A breadline can also be
a poetic metaphor, one
would use, if perchance,
your baker was your muse.
A W Bullen Aug 2022
The form
the flux,
the constant
becomings

the duty,
distraction,
the running
of motors,

the quotas,
the breadline,
the rising
and shining

the hiding
a stupefied look
in your eyes
Gigi Tiji Jan 2015
water glass
shatter
sun scatter
sun kissed blue sky
blue love white mists form
god's ****** cloud fists and
rumble tumble fumble
dipper dapper dilly dally
rainbow mumble
splatter thunder
shimmer

bright light
dial dimmer
turn it down
let it simmer
turn it around
and stop

look around, listen
see if you hear the trees glisten
try to taste the motion of the ocean
and love the motion
love the motion

spin too softly trip on gravity
if feels like a dandy
drilled cavity
pulled tooth
waiting in
the breadline
feeling forced
like a punch line

I need to be here.

water drop
Personal columns do not support
glass ceilings
newspaper headlines sometimes take
more out of time than the time we put
in
to read them.

As you can see I'm waiting for coffee
my brain's running sluggish and slow
if you throw me a tow line and
make it a headline which
takes me back to the breadline
wasting more of my own time and
isn't it time the coffee was done?

Wake me up on Wednesday
let's say around about four,
I'm
going back to be
a ship in a bottle
afloat on the sea
to be
found on
some
distant shore
Olivia Kent Feb 2017
Breathing's carcinogenic, when breathing the wrong things.
Smoking cigarettes.
Laying smog,
Hit the chest like an old dog.
Pollution overload.
Drink and drugs are killing you,
Life's problems, induced by man's behaviour.
Fatty foods and alcohol sure ain't nobody's saviour.
They say that Joan's got a big heart,
It's loaded up with body mass.
And it's the vessel full of poison punch, that John drank from,
That made his liver bigger.
A mass collection of varices float around his swollen belly,
Much the same for Julia.
As if they didn't realise,
It's all over the telly.
Jenny had ****** relations with far too many men,
All the children that she's left with, flock to their mother hen.
A life full of demanding,
With little reprimanding.
But then,
They're living on the breadline,
Mother must be careful, not to burn their toast,
Another ****** carcinogen,
Most people love a cuddle, but no one wants a stroke !
(c)LIVVI
Edward Coles Feb 2014
The staircase creaks, the horns will blow,
the old shepherd joins the unemployment line,
claiming he has nothing left to show.

The poet weeps, the squeeze-box moans,
there's a reflected face pleading to be mine;
he sits and he sighs in heavy groans.

The cathedral stands, the tears fall,
percolating misery of stale breadline;
I return to you, cradle and all.

The reason's weak, the will is slow,
still I offer my hands and declare 'I'm fine',
before falling to ash and to woe.

The reaper reaps, the boy atones,
the new shepherds are turning water to wine,
they're selling their souls for pay-day loans.

The empire stands, the heroes fall,
they turn to sound-bites and faded sign,
to infant orphan – cradle and all.

This poet weeps, these tears will glow,
I will walk this police state and toe the line,
until I have nothing left to show.
c
The breadline is the punchline
and the joke he tells falls flat.

Santa's back in Lapland
isolating for ten days
the elves are having none of that
and go their separate ways.

Christmas full of omicron
is like a pizza with no base,
the taste's still in the topping
as it drips slowly down your face.
Harry Roberts Dec 2018
It's sad that the unseen are left to wither,
Cold & hungry they're left out to shiver,
Welfare is corrupt & the Government is morally bankrupt,
The system is fixed & not for the people,
Some people are predators propagating evil.

It's bitterly disgusting how people don't care,
It's a joke beyond proportions there's plenty to share,
But if they cannot charge them then assets left spare,
Human misery and the  disproportion is laid bare,
People bogged down in the depths of despair,
There's no accountability like they should stay there.

It's a game for these vultures,
It's just life for the rest,
Stress induced ulcers,
There's a press on our chests,
They sell this as culture,
Where work is the best.

But wages have fallen we're slaves to our debt,
Chemical inebriation just anything to forget,
It's survival of the richest while poverty grows,
A decline in intellect so nobody knows,
A deadline of people living on the breadline
But just read the headlines misinformation shows.
Harry Roberts - Poverty
TOD HOWARD HAWKS Jul 2020
I saw the spirit of Dorthea Lange as I looked out my window two days ago.
It was not an accident. It was not an apparition. It is time for her spirit to
come again to the great American wasteland. It is time for Dorthea to prepare for another dispiriting, but at once brutal and honest, recording of the anguish and torment and crushing poverty that awaits so many of us in the near future. No, she will not be taking portraits of Bezos and Buffett and Gates and the other other American billionaires;  rather, her spirit will see again the homeless, the jobless, the hopeless, the hungry. the utterly forlorn and forsaken of millions of us in interminably long soup lines and fellow citizens lying on folded cardboard boxes on cold cement sidewalks of virtually every city
and town in our great America. Perhaps Dorthea will create another photographic classic like "The White Angel Breadline."  No doubt, the spirit of Dorthea will be joined by the spirits of the other photographers who chronicled the American misery of the Great Depression for the Farm Bureau Administration:  Walker Evans;  Gordon Parks;  Jack Delano;  Russell Lee;  Carl Mydans;  Arthur Rostein;  John Vachon;  Theo Jung;  Ben Shahn;  John Collier;  Marion Post Wolcott. The spirits of Dorthea and her colleagues will document again the scourge of rural poverty and the exploitation of sharecroppers and migrant workers.  Dorthea Lange's iconic "Migrant Mother" is the photographic equivalent of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath." Steinbeck won a Nobel Prize for his literay canon. Dorthea Lange should have won a Nobel Prize for her photographic portfolio. Shortly, we all shall feel the presence of Dorthea and her fellow photograpers, for soon our fellow Americans will be without jobs, without homes, without food, without hope. In fact, the beginning of this abject disaster is aleady behind us, but we are blind to what is to become.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
A graduate of Andover and Columbia College, Columbia University, Tod Howard hawks has been a poet, a novelist, and a human-rights advocate his entire adult life.

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