Poetry

Matt Brown photo

By

Mark A. Murphy

Gentrification

These are no ordinary days, certainly –

they seem to appear, as if from a nightmare

from which there can be no escape.

No one is exempt, in the face of the torturer

there is no doubt who and what is to blame,

the collective mindset won’t settle.

The collective heart has been broken, not just

by fire, but by inhumane policy making

and four decades of greedy government.

And though we can’t readily identify

our flesh and blood, we would do well

to let their charred remains speak the loudest.

You can’t build streets in the sky, a sense

of community isn’t built with the ‘vertical village’

because the poor will always suffer the most.

This is no longer a question of tragedy –

first we must ask, who dare question the torturer?

Then we must kill the golden goose,

before any more die in the flames.

Chips with Bits Paradox and 2 Lessons

Never ignore the boy, out front of shop,

existentially hating.

The idea of ‘chips with bits’ is always

Superior

to the

Reality

of ‘chips with bits’,

even to our anti-hero

who swears by the ‘fishy goodness’ in the ‘bits’.

Lesson 1: One must never hate poverty, only the system

that perpetuates and sanctions it.

Lesson 2: One must eat the ‘batter bits’ up to the last ‘bit’

if one is to remain strong and healthy.

Mark A. Murphy

Mark A. Murphy was born in West Yorkshire in 1969. He has been published in over 180 Journals and Ezines. His first collection, Tin Cat Alley was published in 1996. His next collection, Night Wanderer’s Plea is due out this September from Waterloo Press in the UK.