Poetry

Vampire Limousine

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Steve McAuliffe

 

We are people of the world you and I

Literally we are of this world

Though the makers of this world despise us

-We eat unremarkable food and agonise from time to time over the price of a piece of fillet steak

Or some of us learn to content ourselves with non-nutritious chemical substitutes

Whilst others among us scrabble around for scraps to eat

Or simply starve

In alley-ways not yet designated prime real-estate by they who hate us all

See, this is this common thread that links us all

We are all

All of us, despite our perceived statuses

Despised by people who never have to choose, who never have to surrender indulgence, who hate the sight of those who starve, yet are conversely reassured by their ongoing existence

Economic vampires

Deathly white, sat in the back of black limousines tour the slums and hellish corners

Of our hijacked cities after dark

Hissing at the remaining ever-dwindling social housing

Hungrily clawing at the leather seats

Barely containing their blood-lust for the scattered remnants of the working-classes

Social cleansing is the sucking dry of the lifeblood of this city

And the corporate vampire shall not be sated

Not till the uninhibited sound of childhood laughter

Is driven once and for all from these few remaining streets

And as for us, during this calm before the scheduled storm

Our lives are barely tolerated

Providing we do not sit atop some precious minerals

Or our meagre dwellings do not interrupt the path of so-called progress

Tolerated, for now, at least until the next engineered clearance is okayed by a compliant government – or a corrupt council

Or a judiciary hired to legitimise the perpetuation of wealthy expansionism

Until then

They look upon us with hungry scorn

Unaware that many among us long ago prepared our pointed wooden stakes

Ready for their inevitable descent from out of a dark sky dimly lit by a blood-red moon

And on the date and time of their inevitable appearances

We shall be waiting outside our meagre homes

To conduct long-awaited and way-overdue clearances of our very own

A battle-cry goes up to match their werewolf call

And the corporate vampire who aimed to blind us

To eternally bind us

shall find us

Powerful stake-holders after all

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