The Bible According to Netto(Steven Cooke) In these isles of cheap illusion
the kids run free,
screaming for the sugar of childhood.
While their mother walks on
down wine bottle lane,
to escape life’s demons
for one more day.

The shells of beings look
but do not see.
Part time lives
in worn out trainers
minimum wage to stretch,
their withered faces
all smart price packed,
on another out of date trolley.

Buy one get one free,
a horse burger is a burger
a person is a person.
Each hiding themselves from the world,
Incognito in a world of poverty.

Tomorrow the kids will cry
each will find their jail.
The weight of despair
will sentence their lives
In these streets
You will find a different kind of humanity.

Where social security
hears the dunners knock
and boredom leads to exotic dreams,
wrapped up in foil of rainbow brown.
We all crave the womb
for the world cannot reach us there.

And behind the curtain
the detritus of existence survives.
Old men in young men’s clothes
with regret filled veins
counting the burglars sin
as the blue light of night closes in.

The child becomes a woman
and woman carries the pain.
Another babe born.
The hand of indifference
grabs another box
of powdered baby milk,
for family allowance is her work.
Life belongs to an electric token
and a chip pan of joy
her disfiguring pleasure in life.

These are the isles
where no one has a name
complete with a special offer of sadness.
Existence is a hangover for under a fiver.
For this is the sum of life,
and no one will take away
this credit on society
our triple (A) rating of poverty.

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