Laughing Hangman

The executioner does not relish their subject's end.
The art is to give dignity, some sorrowful respect.
Tread gently on the killer's grave while snuffing out that life,
Pierrepoint himself would never crow at his vengeful task.

Why then backslapping and cheering, giddy and triumphal
as if they'd just seen a try scored in the Varsity Match?
This is a sombre occasion for those beneath the noose.
The bell announces division; But it only tolls for some.

The lever is pulled, the trap falls! They file into the lobbies.
Disenfranchised first on the rope, unopposed, they're dangled:
Free labour, working for nothing, or lose their little lot.
And if it proves the law's broken; just change it, make it suit.

Subsistence benefits reduced; the only way to prove
you're incapacitated is to die while you're at work.
Will less food do for the hungry? Houses can be colder?
No shirkers, scroungers tale here just poorer, sicker, older.

I suppose they're all still laughing? Here's some jokes for jokers:
When is a house not someone's home? When underoccupied.
What's black and blue, and kicked all over? You and me, never them.
Two men walk into power, Ouch! It was all a mistake.

© Mark Brophy

IDS' emergency jobseeker law sparks civil liberties outrage

Why did so many Labour MPs accept this brutal, unforgivable attack on vulnerable people?

Mark is a seething ball of resentment towards inequality and injustice, but rather than do anything concrete he writes about it on his blog http://markbrophy.blogspot.co.uk and on twitter @mark_brophy

The Pilate State

In the shadow of a woman
he aches to emulate,
to bask in her dull glory he
revives the Pilate State.

Her baleful influence persists,
unstressed but not laid low,
privileged power wash their hands
of those they cannot know.

Compassion in a rictus mask
to fool the poor and frail,
behind the new facade of care
old certainties prevail:

"Deserving poor do not exist.
Preserve the class divide.
Protect those who don't need the help.
Cast those who do aside."

The gambler's purse was guaranteed,
no gamble then at all.
A lucky few had jackpot wins ,
the house absorbs the fall.

These moneylenders felled the walls
insisting on repair,
so that they can destroy again -
is that what they call fair?

The patients blamed for the disease,
their tonic is the cause,
the undertrained physician must
not run his course, but pause.

© Mark Brophy

UK economy in double-dip recession
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Mark is a seething ball of resentment towards inequality and injustice, but rather than do anything concrete he writes about it, on his blog (http://markbrophy.blogspot.co.uk) and on twitter (@mark_brophy).