This is not a protest poem

But it is an angry poem.

Having had a look at the poems the other brilliant poetry bus poets had to offer this week, I decided I'm being a bit cowardly.

Rachel Fox's post in particular was really inspiring (www.crowd-pleasers.blogspot.com/), and it's made me think a bit more about the way that I write poetry.

Having said that, this poem is not a protest poem.
Buuuttt TFE did ask for vitriol and venom and anger, and this is possibly the meanest, angriest poem I've ever written.


Barren thoughts

Look at you there with your bovine stare
and that thing in your arms you’re carrying as
though you’re not quite sure who put it there.
Oh please . . . . Don’t you dare look so wan.
If you hadn’t opened your legs like you did then those kids
you’re so dazed by wouldn’t even have been born.

Besides, do you think I’m a fool?
Don’t you think I can see your pride too?
Oh I see it alright, gleaming in there,
in your dumbstruck eyes and your unadorned face
that smugly tells all you don’t need any help
from my kind of war paint any more.

You’re a mother. A breeder. A queen.
You’re a sow with her suckling pigs.
Bowed by the weight of your new-born child . . . Well
at least I still walk straight and tall.
See? Look at me! Back unbent, chin held high. No years of weight-lifting
great platter faced children like yours.

I’d hate to think what you must look like inside
after pushing each one of those out.
Did you manage a break between birth
and concept? Or was there just no time to spare?
No failures for you, then - no clots of bright blood
lost down the loo of some A&E ward.

Just children, their small mouths like slaps in my face,
as you walk past, your bright brood in tow.