After crashing banks spat
people out of jobs into gutters
austerity normalised dissent.
People in poverty lost hope.
Distant and unreachable,
the wealthy found too easily that
responsibility means nothing.
Blame burns on the streets.
See him the man in a dress,
his son took my job.
He takes my money.
My State, my money, my country.
Nordic cold bites, but he doesn’t feel.
He doesn’t see the snowflakes fall
like the dust that didn’t settle.
A mound of sand sticky with blood,
rings attached to a finger, detached.
Explosions rock the ceiling, a hand in his bag.
His eyes close on his father’s head rolling away.
Father, my father, his heart contracts
cries pain all over the floor.
Snow falls, hope is lost
to the young men who lear.
He’d go but his son has a job,
he’d go but his daughter is young.
The Far Right rises against him,
and fallen snow flies.
© Emma Woodford
Emma Woodford is a social activist and poet living in the Belgian countryside with her family and many animals.
