The Hand Biter
I read this, mourning, morning’s missive
Promise to daybreak scribbler
In his capture of the fading image
Underneath him patronage
And scything saker air
How he hung on the wistful words of a whim in blind ignorance
Then drop, dropped down and broke beaked
Flushed clean as a turd round the U-bend
The glass descending stoops low to stick him,
His part unending, click boxed and ticked,
A disabled and a crippled thing
Mute poetry and candour retract, oh, flair, flight, flame, here
Griddled! AND the unsung stories not penned, a million
Still-birthed characters, are lost to us. So unequal here!
No wonder of it: click tick box makes funds go further -
Fine - and disabled writers, ah poor dears,
Stall, see themselves as trash, ash, black ordure.
An offering for National Poetry Day. This came to me after Literature Wales gave me the Disabled Person's Support Grant (with the words "we wish you'd applied for more") but, despite being shortlisted for the third time, not an actual writer's bursary. So they're happy to pay non disabled people to support me, just not disabled people to write... It is also, of course, for lovers of Gerard Manley Hopkins and falcons in flight everywhere
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