Dear Elizabeth
I am leaving town
on my own
for the first time since

I became one of those
long term sick,
and the cafe at the end 
of our road
was all I could manage.

I'm on an actual train,
Cardiff to Manchester,
rain-laced cities both,

but today,
late October,
cracks of bright blue
are breaking up the muddy sky

and by the time the Welsh hills
become English fields,
everything whizzing by
glows amber and green.

I'm all set up, Elizabeth,
window seat,
half decent coffee,
sticky pastry.
and no one next to me.


I pull a copy of Mary Barton
from my yellow rucksack
and find John,
a union man, 
railing against
industrialists
mounting up their riches
from the toil of the poor
who in return,
get squalor,
desperation
and early deaths.

I look up
to sit right in the purity
of his outrage.

I glance around the carriage:
everyone is doing their thing,
scrolling, mostly,
which is what we do these days.

It is nigh on two centuries
since you wrote the novel I have in my hands,
but Oh Elizabeth,
You should see what's going down.

Food banks are the new norm,
People are scared to put the heating on.

There’s billionaires in charge now
inhabiting their wealth guilt-free
while more than four million children
live in poverty.

They say
We must prepare for tough decisions
without a hint of irony.

Cos you can guess who they mean by We.
It’s safe to say, isn't it, Elizabeth,
that their houses will stay warm,
their cupboards full,
their children safe.

That they won’t be troubled
by the soundtrack
of brutalised
lives
playing out
through thin, damp
walls.

I’m not stupid Elizabeth,
I know that sorrow
some time or other
comes for us all.
The privileged 
are not immune from 
Tragedy.
I heard you started writing 
to distract from the pain 
of a lost child.


But few who don’t have to,
care to notice
the deep-in-your-cells
relentless cruelty
of living in a daily space
where your most basic 
animal needs
will never be met.

You saw, Elizabeth,
that such agony
is indefensible.
And where governments
refuse to tread,
a writer must.

I put away your novel,
before my train
reaches its destination,
I take out my pen.

(Dear Elizabeth original version published in ‘Rewriting Manchester’ 2022) (This Revised version 2024)

Please see previous blog post for how I came to write this poem.

Also – please note that depending on the device you read this on, the line breaks might not match my intention!

For more on Poverty Rates in The UK see: https://www.jrf.org.uk/child-poverty