See it, Say it, Sort it

Dirt riddled cages bustle the almost blind

through dirt encrusted tunnels

to stations where the dirt still can’t be seen.

Changing lines

walking through shiny tunnels

tannoys at every turn blurt out

See it, Say it, Sort it

as I mutter 

Look to yourself

You dirty old git

but I know they’ll never clean up their act.

Then on another dirt riddled cage

I’m greeted by little black and red posters

warning about staring and touching 

and as I lower my eyes once again

I see two young ladies gawp in disgust

at the dirt on my working jeans.

Victoria to Brixton is the most pitiful of rides

poor folk and hipsters low in the order of things

and as ancient iron screams the call of a maddened siren against ancient iron

through those dirt encrusted tunnels

I can actually taste the dirt!

And only when I climb those steps to the street

does the sun show the wind 

shower its dirt and dust

back down the tube

back down the gullet

my journey away from the dirt 

far from over and only at an end

when I’ve walked up the hill 

and away from the buses

to sit with the rats and the foxes.

Leaders have gone underground too

men and women eating away at integrity 

like termites under a hardwood window sill

the proof of their work only visible

when a knife is plunged at its joints

and the rot is removed from its core. 

But what do you do to replace the rot

when for all the problems of the world

the termites blame the lice

and the lice blame the termites? 

Putty takes too long to cure

and fools will be drawn to poke it

or even etch their own names into it

but if we got a good chippy in

he could ease out that rotten old sill

without smashing the window

then shape and fit a good old piece of oak

and announce with pride

See it, Say it, Sort it.