Portfolio of Hope

Women standing on street corners
trying to earn enough
just to get by 
the sound of pounding footsteps,
‘I’m gonna rape you’
by boys in alleyways
who can’t be much older than
five bottles of bud lined up on park benches,
next to the homeless men who may or may not be dead
‘But we’ll leave them anyway
coz they’re probably just off their head’-
s turning by old people who give ’em the eye
cos,
‘It wasn’t like this back in our day
with every other shop closing down.’
When ‘This Dirty Old Town’ was just a song
played at O’Donegans,
before any sense of Yorkshire pride had been drowned out
by vodka-guzzling alchies
and junkies shooting lines,
we’re all being let down by the system
coz unless you’re from ‘daan saaf’
they don’t wanna listen
to the woes
of the North/South divide.
So keep covering your eyes
and then act surprised
when you see the figures in the paper,
‘I never knew there was such a divide.’
Don’t wait for them to tell you,
OPEN YOUR EYES.
Far from being ‘just another stereotype’,
from which side of the UK you are born
has the power to determine
the rest of your life.