- makeswordswork
The Broken Nosed Boy
Updated: Jun 11, 2021

The broken-nosed boy
doesn’t own many books.
He does scan the papers
about budgetary cuts
but they don’t mean very much
when you cannot even breathe.
He just wonders if the cameras
parked up and down his street
might put faces to the feet
that stamped on his face
but the nice policeman
dealing with his case
is now on holiday
so he’ll just have to wait.
And the size 9 waiting list
to rebuild his crumpled sinus
is totally unaffected by
the figures in the ‘minus’
column of its NHS Trust
so he’ll have to trust to hope
but if I were him,
I wouldn’t hold my breath.
He doesn’t know his attackers
but they clearly know him
from his turned-up tight jeans.
His shoes and his self-care
made him fairgame to kick
from here to God knows where.
England’s new engineers,
these men of no letters
are blowing up bridges
and anything else
that brings people together.
They are taking back their land
hand over fist. Top of their list
are the different. Wild-eyed,
pissed on power, their acrid shower
has become an ocean
sloshing at the shores
of a very small island
marooned in the jaws
of a present in which Boz
would shake his dear old head.
So the broken-nosed boy
goes back to his flat,
pays his bills as best he can,
re-checks his windows,
locks his doors against the world
that wee bit tighter
and paints his walls a bright colour
as they close in around him.
Written by HARRY GALLAGHER
Artwork ‘Stamped’ by CLAIRE TULPPO