For Iain Duncan Smith (Ode to the Death of another Benefit Scrounger), by Louise M. Hart

I read the news, today
Glasgow writer killed
By the hand
That did not feed him
A suicide statistic
Soon to be forgotten
Like the books
He laboured hard to write
Which no one ever reads

And sitting outside Wetherspoons
Alongside my companionable
Cigarettes and alcohol
I contemplate
The minister of The State
Who one day
Will withdraw
My disability living allowance from me

Because I can crawl
More than 2 metres
And write
Bloody awful poetry
I am the common word
More Smith
Than Plath
Pretentious enough
To be proud
To be working class

And, suddenly, life seems…
…like perpetual misery
And I become the future statistic
I do not want to be

Meanwhile…
Occupying his inflaming
Twin towers of ivory over-privilege
And prosthetic political power
The star player
In May’s corrupted cabinet
Of party members
Porn players, all
And secretarial back (side)
Slappers
A stabber
Of the foulest form
Opens his whoring mouth
And laughs

Like Lucifer on crack
His Machiavellian throat
Issues sound that even Tony
Bastard bliar, bliar
After dinner speaker tones for hire
Cannot rival

Like a converse Jon Snow
Turned to Tory slush
He is the illegitimate
Legitimate bastard
In an ideological game
Of thrones
And human slaughter

United Kingdom
Lock up your sick and disabled
Sons and daughters
Iain Duncan Smith
Is on the hunt
Pheasant is so last season
New labour’s elected Sunday lunch
Human flesh
Is more appetising
These post-imperialistic
McSalad and fries days

So, with I.D.S. on my mind
I board the bus home
Grateful to still have money
In my pocket
And no student payday loan

But when I arrive home
I open the door
And staring back at me
On a crimson mat
Is a letter
Marked
DWP

I take out a blade
And with a frenzied slash
The faecal brown envelope
Bleeds ink
Dark as the gash
Adorning my wrist

I tear myself to pieces
Then I light a cigarette
Between
Slices
Of my orange peel fingers tips

Ode to the death of another
Benefit scrounger
Homage to the demise
Of a seated disco dancer
And an inverted snob
Who thought she knew the answers