Every person who I passed

stood stiff with their eyes downcast.

In their step there was no pride;

they talked as if they tried to hide.

To be seen there was their great fear;

the wrath of God ever hovered near.

This is the terror of the poor

who grovel there but get no more.

Instead they live in growing fear

as their name calling comes near.

The fear some bureaucratic twit

will cut them off or give them shit.

A single stroke of some pricks pen

can cut them off both there and then.

With future’s never being known,

how can we hope their spirit’s grown

since last they faced the Inquisition

that sent them on their pointless mission

to get a job that does not exist;

but still we say they must persist.

But business needs the jobless throng

kept in the place where they belong.

They give a fear to those employed

that we too could be ‘dedeployed’

to face our time upon the queue

while they bring in a victim new

to walk a while with eyes of fear;

of threats the bosses keep quite near.

The pen, the whip of choice today;

a weapon with which they can play

on all our needs and all our fears

as the man with the red pen nears.