Kippers
How defeated we are.
To be caught and strung
out like so many kippers
parched by a snarling sun.
Someone someplace
persuaded us that victory
lies in popularity
and material wealth.
And without it,
we are to be social pariahs.
So we work beyond burnout,
play less, wake early, and go on
feeling inadequate anyway.
Despite designer
nails and handbags.
Despite designer
suits and watches.
How defeated we are.
To be the respiring dead,
wilting in shallow graves
lying at the denouement
of our shovels.
How defeated we are.
To hang to hopelessness
like it’s the handrails
on hell’s rickety
roller coaster.
How defeated we are.
But still,
there remains
an untamed resilience
in us.
I have seen it
in an unemployed,
seven-stone woman
raising three children
alone.
I have seen it
in a muscle-bound behemoth
holding back tears of childhood
abuse until he thinks no one
is around
to hear him cry.
I have seen it
in a fifty-six-year-old warehouse
workhorse with arthritic joints
and two minor strokes
under his belt.
I have seen it
in a jolly pensioner
living in a care home
with metastatic
lung cancer.
How defeated we are.
But still,
there remains
an untamed resilience
in us.
Something cash and celebrity
can’t buy.
And it speaks
in a quiet voice,
intoxicated
with a demigod’s thunder.
Telling us,
go on,
go on,
go on,
for one more day.
.
Stink Eye Magazine 