THE FIVE GIANTS
Walking down Renshaw Street from ‘Rumpelstiltskin’
at the Unity then along Bold Street,
with its strolling crowds and varied eateries,
to Central Station, thinking of spinning gold
from straw, we pass beggars in doorways.
‘What are they doing?’ our granddaughter asks.
We explain. ‘Why don’t they get jobs?’ We explain.
My mother would tell me how, when she moved
to London before the war to be a nurse,
she was appalled by the rough sleepers
on the benches along the Thames Embankment.
In the depressed provinces presumably
there were enough workhouses to hide them.
There being no workhouses under Thatcher
and too few shelters they were everywhere
from twilight onwards, androgynous bundles
in the world’s fifth largest economy.
Now they have returned exactly like
their forebears in the largest empire since Rome’s.
They are dragon’s teeth. Where is our shame, our fear?
The gusts of wind, that fling the scattered rain
against the panes and flail the apple tree –
which jerks as if a frantic, shaken doll –
are lowing in the chimney like an owl.
I draw the blinds as the twilight goes,
switch on the laptop and begin to write,
thinking of those who are without – homeless,
hungry, thirsty – no more than a mile
let alone a continent away.
Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, Idleness –
Beveridge’s gargantua – are alive,
well, and stalking in our city centres,
in run down estates with abandoned gardens,
in bed-and-breakfasts in cul-de-sac towns
with shut-up shops and rusting factories.
Spin as we may, stamp as we might, marvels
and wonders outsmart facts. ‘The needy
and the poor have only themselves to blame,’
say the sassy and the rich. Our consciences
have fallen among thieves.
Clive Watkins
October 25, 2019This rings very true, David, alarmingly so. From my own experience and that of my immediate family (in teaching and medicine) I could readily adduce many examples of the continuing presence of the Five Giants and their baleful influence on the lives of our fellows – and on the quality and honesty of our civic discourse about such matters. (And as you know, I have a long family history in this field, going back two hundred years.) It would be misguided to comment on ‘The Five Giants’ from a technical point of view as a poem, but as a political and human document it has its own particular power. Bravo!
By the way, it’s decades now since I last walked down Bold Street – or Renshaw Street, or Leece Street, or Hardman Street. But what changes those thoroughfares have seen!
Ian Craine
October 25, 2019Magnificent!
John Huddart
October 25, 2019Back to the first stanza where the pantomime just seen evokes a world of magic and gold – and the very real streets of a city whose wealth and poverty have always run a parallel course – so how appropriate to produce a meditation on history, family and responsibility. I say bravo to the poem’s technical cleverness, as well is its many hearts!
Keith Johnson
October 27, 2019Stunning! Now self-respect has been fully monetized, no price can be put on decency.
Alex Cox
November 1, 2019A wonderful poem. Thank you.