A cold February poem

The Future.

Is there a future for someone like me?
Am I just a number in a black book
Kept by a minion
In an government office
And poured over at intervals whilst
Someone
Decides if it is my turn to be hounded
To find work.

Is there a future for someone like me?
Am I simply a diagnosis
In a doctor's records
A hospital statistic
To be quoted when a politician
Needs
To prove that the latest cuts to the NHS
Means it works.

Is there a future for someone like me?
Or am I written off
A worthless casualty
In the war of life
Who can be ignored and condemned
By others
Who think that identity is established
Only through work.

There is no future for someone like me.
No hope, no horizon,
No lone ray of light
At the end of the tunnel.
Just forget the inconvenient ones
And ignore
Those who do not fit the wooden box
Of daily work.

(C) CP Brooks 02/02/08