Puppy's Plums


from the ABC set Black Poems

I'm sorry I ate my puppy's plums.
He had no need of them
After the vet castrated him.
After all, I am on benefits,
What more can you expect?

I wrote this poem late one evening, several years ago, when listening to Poetry Corner on Radio 4. I'd been listening to politicians demonising the sick and the unemployed on Today In Parlament. It sounded ominously like Hitler and the Jews. Being on Incapacity Benefit and DLA I was pretty annoyed.
"Some soothing poetry." I thought.
Then this insufferable person came on and read this stupid poem about eating someone's frozen fruit from their freezer. Such banality!
The haves and the have nots divide had never been more illuminated.

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