This is the last article you can read this month
You can read more article this month
You can read more articles this month
Sorry your limit is up for this month
Reset on:
Please help support the Morning Star by subscribing here
William’s relationship with Harry “hanging by a thread,”
Daily Mail, 2 January 2023
Hanging by a thread? What’s hanging?
Foodbanks which may have to shut
Because donors can’t keep on giving and
Whose energy bills for freezers and lights
Are going through the roof?
Hanging by a thread? What is? Let me guess.
Headteachers desperate to retire early
Badgered by stressed-out parents,
Or trying to provide breakfast for kids
But lacking all social support?
Hanging by a thread? Okay let me try again.
Nurses at breaking point
Burnt out by fatigue and guilt
Watching patients suffer on corridor trolleys
Short-staffed by quarter of a million?
Hanging by a thread? Am I getting warm?
The ambulance service on its knees,
Stuck outside hospitals — no room at the inn,
Sitting there waiting — doing their best but
Unable to answer the next emergency?
Hanging by a thread? Have you got it yet?
It’s not the foodbanks at risk of closing,
Or the head teachers desperate to retire
Nor the nurses at breaking point
Nor the ambulance service on its knees.
Simon Haines is a language teacher, textbook writer and folk musician. He lives in Suffolk. 21st-century Poetry is edited by Andy Croft, email [email protected].
