A Short Report

It was a short report
on the third page
somewhere near the bottom
an elderly woman
living alone
no relatives
or at least none nearby
no friends
or at least none that cared.
She had some money
how much they didn't say.
She walked down the high street
giving it away.
The social services got involved
put her in a home
doped her with pills
found someone to manage her money.
She can live on it for years and years.
But if the money's hers
why shouldn't she give it away

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poem by Gillian Commerford
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Waiting To Be Eaten

I remember going with my mother
to the butcher
in the days when the naked carcasses
hung on hooks in the front of the shop
for all the customers to see
not hidden like a secret nobody must know.
The blood from the meat
slowly dripping onto the wood shavings below
filling my nostrils with a sickly-sweet scent
that made me sneeze
that made me feel sick
but also excited me somehow.
And how like headless, limbless
torsos the carcasses looked
so that I could imagine myself
hanging there
headless, limbless
waiting to be eaten.

poem by Gillian Commerford
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God Help The Children

the abused
the battered
the beaten
the molested
the raped
the murdered.
I see them daily
in the newspapers
on the tv screen
in the streets
innocent faced and pure
stained by the sins of their elders.
This is not what life promised them.

Cover their faces
place their tiny bodies
in tiny coffins
bury them in tiny graves
while their mothers weep.

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poem by Gillian Commerford
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Growing

I began in the beginning
in my mother's womb.
What was it like?
Like a warm happy room

But they soon squeezed me out of there.
They said she's cute but not much hair.

And I began to grow and grow.
There wasn't anything I didn't know
but they beat it out of me.
They didn't like what they could see
reflected in my eyes.
I was too young and yet too wise.

They tried to fill me up with lies
and yet somehow I knew.

Just what I knew
I do not know

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poem by Gillian Commerford
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