A Southerly Change

A young man simple decent lad Unemployed never had a job Only wanted to work  Earn a decent wage Settle down have some kids And a holiday once a year Young man working class lad Unemployed never had a job With a load of mates Placards and blisters Fallen arches and media disinterest Went marching down to London town To tell them how it is to be unemployed Young man northern lad Unemployed never had a job Scared of emotions Though has them right enough Just keeps them in their place Right about where his stomach is Daren't let them out to heart or head Where he knows they’ll cause him pain Young man quiet unassuming lad Unemployed never had a job On the way to London town Met an old woman Who he thinks about a lot Years later over his one pint A night in the local pub where He and his mates go sometimes Young man official statistic Unemployed never had a job Marched through a town Somewhere north of here Cam

Written  as a creative writing exercise in response to a photograph of a statue of a horse's head.   In his lovely eyes,  Sorrow has closed into a circle   For the road has no ending And he must drag behind him  The whole world   These words once fell from the pen of a poet  In whose mind were etched  Reflections of the wretched  Refugees  Persons  Displaced by war-mongering madness Snaking their sad-faced ways  Toward some semblance of peace and reason   And among them Weighted down With loss and pitiful belongings Ears pinned  Head low Neck gaunt  Haunches hollow Were those in whose mouth  Man had long since come to dwell And upon whose willing dorsum Man had been able to swell His numbers and his dominion   What we owe this stoic single toed entity  Whose entire existence is motion  Who is happy only in association Cannot be measured by imaginations That run solely on calculations of utility