It’s a bad time for charities, this lockdown, and there seem to be even more good causes than usual needing help. One feels one should be doing something, and of course many people are. My daughter recently finished a sponsored ascent of her stairs 3204 times in 22 hours to equal the height of Everest, my son-in-law has done a sponsored half-marathon in his back garden. All a bit energetic for me now. I wondered if I could perhaps get people to sponsor me to write a poem, but it was put to me that I would probably have more luck getting people to sponsor me not to write a poem. So I have contented myself with at least digging out this one that I wrote years ago, but which now has sadly gained fresh relevance.

Note: I am aware that the term ‘spastics’ is no longer considered correct, but back when I wrote the poem it was simply the normal word for the condition: one made out cheques to The Spastics Society, which did not change its name to Scope until 1994. I don’t know how far poets can reasonably be expected to revise their work when the rug of language is pulled from under them – it’s a tricky one!

Appeals

Almost daily the world
Bleeds through my letter-box. On the mat each morning
I find fresh gouts: blind babies, orphans, spastics,
The deaf, the lonely old, ill-treated pets,
Blue whales, otters, donkeys. . . Donkeys? Well,
Why not; in indiscriminate despair
I scribble out the breakfast cheques, each careful
Conscience-minimum. Now world, will you
Leave me alone today? Will someone else
Apply these scraps of dressing? But the blood
Seeps through, it stains my fingers, sometimes at night
Becomes a bright unlaunderable flood.
Can’t someone tell them I’ve a life to lead?
Just so, they murmur, drawing off, and bleed.

David Sutton