Times is hard, mate

fags or food?

Times is hard, mate—
fags or food? Big decisions.
Tin o’ beans or a drag in the alley,
heat on or blanket, coffee or no sleep,
holdin' the mug like it’s holy,
like it’s life, in cracked hands, chipped teeth.

Bog roll, bin liners, washing up liquid—
these are the choices now,
in a cashless world where you stand alone,
sovereign by necessity, outside the machine.

I ask the whispering grass, quiet counsel in a loud place,
and they oblige, bless them,
for both ablutions and weaving liners,
old ways bent to survive the new.

If I had got water, I could get by,
just a cup and a plate, bare as stone,
washing each one careful in the riverbank’s murk,
the cold earth in my hands, sovereign and clean.

How much for this gold tooth, mate?
I grin, wide as I dare.
The pawn man tells me it’s fake but offers a tenner,
if he can watch me pull it out.
So I pry, twist, grit,
fags and food today. Salt’s good on chips
and burns on mouth ulcers, like truth in a place like this.

Could burn a protest flag, keep warm for a minute,
watch the colors twist, curl up to the dark,
all fire, no ash to hold.
What’s it worth, mate? Just to feel it—the warmth,
like loyalty sold for a buck,
or a fiver, if it’s good quality,
who’s to say what’s real in the cold?

Wonder if it’s warmer in prison—
three squares, a cot, no bills to pay,
pick your crime, roll the dice,
5 Gs on a tower burns nice, they say,
“Free your humans from gettin’ fried.”

Times is hard, and the choice is yours—
Stay in the cold, scrape a life from dust,
beg for pride, cash in the cashless chips,
while the truth fades like smoke in the streetlights,
and we trade it all for a little heat.

Sovereign and small, with a cup and a plate,
and the whispering grass for company,
just enough to stay outside the grid’s steel jaws,
freer than I ever knew,
with my cracked hands, my tin of beans,
and the whispering earth.

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