She’s a rough sleeper by Lisa Goodwin

She’s a rough sleeper ….. or, She doesn’t have a fucking home you wazzock! Inspired by some of the comments following this article.

She never sees the story
shared on your computer,
witnessed by rush hour
traffic and commuters.
She lies on that blanket
offered with kindness,
takes the child to her breast,
her baby born homeless.

And you brand her
migrant without knowing
the colour of her skin.
Suckled by the racist media spin.
She doesn’t know how
you are fed by media lies,
she doesn’t understand
the hatred in your eyes
and she doesn’t know why.

Origin unknown;
you shout,
“Send them home!”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-officers-deliver-a-rough-sleepers-baby-on-the-streets-of-central-london-during-rush-hour-10394027.html

A common disorder by Lisa Goodwin

The Educational Psychologist puts it in context
to a room full of teachers. He defines the complex
problem of children, disordered and unruly.
I raise my hand, ‘Please Sir –
would you have judged me so shrewdly?’

What would you have seen in that kooky, choosy,
screwy, fruity, moody, loony teen?
What would I have been if you put me in a box
and tried to unlock the paradox
of this disruptive chatterbox?

A genius with Aspergers, or ADHD,
oppositional defiant, with a conduct disability.
A strong willed drama diva,
with ‘how to behave’ amnesia?

Each day I went home with
a general adaptation syndrome
and a touch of hyper-mania.
It gets even more insania ….
Little impulse control.
Malingering manic episodes.
Post traumatic embitterment.
Rationally belligerent.
Seasonal adjustment.
Rebellion deliberate.

And transient global amnesia to boot.
When I was fifteen I wasn’t that cute.

Would you have had the time
or inclination to define
the child who wouldn’t conform
to society, conditioning norm?

Would you create a box to put me in?
Chuck me in the water to sink or swim?
Would you write my statistics down
whilst I drown or clown around?

Would I get a bitter pill to still the stress
of not being what you expected;
the kind of child selected
to be the perfect prefect,
Too numb to be anything
but an invisible defect.

Sitting still in class – ification
hiding my irrepressible rebellion
just in case you try to kill
my spirit with a regularly taken pill.

And would your pill find me
somewhere to be real,
or someone to see beneath the skin?
Would it keep the pain in?
So it don’t spill in the halls
and run down the walls
soaking my playground fears
in tears of public rain.
Can a pill kill that pain?

Please, assess and test me again.

Would I think you were wise
as the spark leaves my eyes
and my genius dies
while you sit in your suit and itemise
my disorder that’s leaving
every cell in my being
screaming ‘Im sorry!’

I’m me.
I felt free!
I thought I could be
who I wanted to be.

I was too unconventional;
did things unmentionable,
I was too objectionable,
and not at all ‘Sit on that bench!’ able,

Would you make me broken
or cordon me in,
take the credit for fixing me,
and boxing me in with Ritalin?

Kids too fast,
kids too slow,
those who don’t know
where to go,
Kids too cheeky,
kids too sneaky,
those too challenging,
or just a bit peaky.
Kids too truthful,
kids too rue-full,
those too ‘won’t follow what you do!’ full
Kids too contentious,
kids too rebellious,
those opting out of the prospectus of correctness.

Is it right to dull the zealous and impetuous,
rhe marvellous and rebellious, miscontented,
disaffected, yet connected?
How do you decide
who’s respected or rejected?

Kids in chaos.
A common disorder,
not being what society thinks you oughta.
Have we nothing to learn from them at all?
Children empowered, feeling ten feet tall!
Really? Will we just drug them all?

https://wizardnews.wordpress.com/