Daughter of the Sewer Rat

This poem is in response to K. McGee‘s blog about Ae Freslighe, a highly structured Irish poem format. It remains a challenge and I’ll continue to mull it over … fascinating form …

Daughter urchin snivelling
In alleys dark and smelly
Whining voice a’grizzling
With no food in her belly

Beneath the road, thundering
Slow sewers, deep, dank, darkly
Reach the child a’blundering
She stares at bleak walls starkly

Nightmare journey, quivering
Trembling in waste water
Cold with fright a’shivering
Sewer rat’s own daughter

Polly Robinson © 2012

Spilt Milk

He scrabbles in muck,
down on his luck,
a sorrowful sight,
with eyes swollen, tight
from crying
over milk
that was spilt
long ago.

He scrabbles in bins
for his things,
searches for food
in places you’d
rather avoid;
get’s annoyed
when offered help
he doesn’t want.

He scrabbles in brick dust,
crushed, flushed, stuffed
between lath
and plaster,
amongst jaws of
wood that splinters
against a darkening sky,
searching, always searching.

He scrabbles through days,
endless days,
tasteless days,
empty days,
and lays
his head down
at night
in a box,

with eyes swollen, tight
from crying
over milk
spilt.

Polly Robinson © 2012

 

He scrabbles …
Polly Robinson © 2012