DAY 3: SEVEN SHADES OF SH… OCK

NaPoWriMo Day 3

For Read Write Poem


Write about something that scares you.
It could be tarantulas or your significant other cheating on you
or an existential fear of the unknown so long as it unsettles you.
Describe it in the most vivid language possible!
Sometimes by articulating our fears, we strip them of their power.
(But don’t go too far! A little fear is good to have.)

Here's a thought that scares me to death...

CAUSE, EFFECT, CONSEQUENCE

Sad
pattern
emerging.
What used to be
a happy household
becomes a battleground,
where a war of words is waged.
Children caught up in the crossfire;
angry outbursts replaced by violence,
and a ‘Conflict Culture’ is established.

Time
adjusts
attitudes.
‘A’ grade students;
week-end warriors.
Grievances germinate.
Gang chants; ‘Come and have a go
if you think you’re hard enough’, but
bedtime foils these part-time pugilists.
Homework to hand in at school on Monday.

Three
o’clock
Saturday.
Time to kick off.
Suited and booted;
tee-shirts, jeans, Doc Martens.
They’re not there for the football.
If you’re wearing the wrong colours,
you’re the subject of their battle-cry;
‘You’re gonna get what Man United got.’

Pub;
drinking.
Can’t take it.
Aggression builds,
transforms to violence.

What starts as a scuffle,
spills over onto the streets.
Bell for last orders ends round one,
then three fall flat in the free-for-all.
Public telephones dialling nine-nine-nine.

Cause
carnage
country-wide.
Damage Devon.
Beach-brawl in Blackpool.

Hatred in Halifax.
More mayhem in Manchester,
Bristol, Bradford and Birmingham.
Armed with killer kisses from Salford
and seven inch long shafts from Sheffield.

Flash,
blue light;
ambulance.
Paramedics;
hospital crisis.
Domestic incident;
battered wife puts the knife in.
Intensive care; blood transfusion.
Remorse; forgiveness reunites them.
Thrust, stab; bedtime fun – morning; punch and slap.

Kids
witness
the abuse.
Keep their mouths shut;
know what’s best for them.
They’ve felt their father’s fire;
shared their mother’s misfortune.
Thought this time it might be different.
‘When we’re older we’ll take our revenge.’
Troubled family tradition preserved.