Helen Scadding

Minority

Listen with owl ears.
Can you hear the worn words?

we stand for the law abiding majority

We forgot they kept them stored
in loops on broken cassettes

the mob needs to be stopped

now they unfurl themselves
opening like unwelcome flags

we will keep putting them behind bars

bristling with a cacophony
of incomprehension on repeat cycle

the time is ours, the time is now

they crack in the dry wind
as chairs flap up

we need to take back control

 

leaving the floor littered with threats
waiting to be picked up

it’s time for common sense*

threaded like a necklace rattling with teeth.

 

*(Braverman October 4 2022)

 

 

Helen Scadding‘s poetry has been published in Artemis, Orbis, South, Reach, The Guardian, Tears in the Fence and several anthologies. This year she was placed fourth in the Kent and Sussex Poetry Competition, and shortlisted by Indigo Dreams and Paper Swans, and has been chosen for the SW Literature Works’ emerging writers’ scheme.