He hobbled along in staggering pain

He’d seen the look of the man’s disdain

With the stroke of a pen

His benefit was stopped

So he walked past the store

Where he once would have shopped.

The simple truth was

He couldn’t find work

It wasn’t that he

Was trying to shirk.

Yet the fact

He’d lost one leg

Wasn’t reason enough

He couldn’t just yet

Bring himself down to beg.

And his skill levels weren’t

Really up to the snuff

So he’d wanted the money

While he studied such stuff.

But life is a minefield

For the slow and the weak

Where young men look down

As if you’ve got a cheek

And they don’t count their blessings

‘cause they’ve got a job

As they look at the new lost

Like they were a slob.

So once more he hobbled

To get Citizen’s Advice

Lost pride for the visit

A hard to bear price.

For nothing is free

There’s no pre-paid lunch

And that swift and sure

Knowledge

Is a hard

Sucker-punch!

And just as surely, the long days draw out into weeks, and the poor and needy start to lose hope in a society where just getting seen on television seems to guarantee a future kind of stardom and wealth.

He wanted to vomit, ironically he was now so emaciated he couldn’t.

He’d started to cough up some blood quite recently

Into a tissue or a cloth quite decently

But for him it seemed there was no one to care

As slowly obscurity pulled him to its lair.

©Joe Wilson – Mercy Street 3…2017