Poetry

By Karen Margolis

credit crunch

these days money matters
are tougher, harder & fraught with pitfalls:
I buried the envelope marked EasyCredit
in the dump bin for unsolicited mail
under the letterboxes in the dingy hall

we are the people Barclays batters
with harassment tactics
(homeworking wife has to take the calls)

we are the breadline trekkers
light years from the market,
next-to-nil budget artists
fallen from the middle class
dodging the poverty trap
ever wary of the grabbing claws
of the monster of the conjuncture

they used to call it a squeeze
(at least the comfort of a boa embrace
before submersion in the mire of debt)

now it's come to the crunch
you can feel teeth chewing
on human gristle, bones
cracking in anguish, broken homes.

Hungry to blow up bonds
in the tunnel of conformity
thirsting after talk of liquidity
searching desperately for a bolt hole
& ignoring the stars warning me
not to live beyond my means
I snatch my future
from the jaws of the credit crunch
abandon the servile life in Berlin
and pawn my rotten pension
for a sunshine studio rented virtually

a room I don't own, red rooftops and gulls
waves on the doorstep, shells underfoot,
at last a lone track by water


Stillborn Poem

                 for Ruth


Sat down to write a poem

a man came into the room
to use the telephone

the title flew out of the open door

a boy came into the room
to tell me why Russia is cold

the first line fell into an ice hole

a postwoman came up the stairs
to hand over a registered letter

the rhythm fled with her departing footsteps

my mobile rang twice
the display was blank

a harsh voice shattered my rhyme.

The poem came out unripe
shrivelled and aged before its time.

Grieving, I cut the cord
to my botched creation

and gasped for breathing space
until the next interruption.


When you live with children, you live with sand


From the playground the beach the sports field
they bring it home as a seasonal offering
sand caked to mud or soft and slushy
cold and gritty mixed with salt
or sunbaked fine and powdery

sand knocked out of shoes on doorsteps
fallen from pockets turned inside out
strewn over carpets, pillows and towels
settling in corners behind cupboards
and clogging up washing machines

Fresh from building castles and winning trophies
for picture book families
the children return with a bounty of sand
enough to fill a lifetime of hourglasses
ebbing away in a trickle of dry grains
to be sucked up in the connubial vacuum.

Out there in the virtual world
pundits discuss hedge funds & capital gains
and politicians deplore toxic debt & meltdown
while here on the home front
legions of female warriors
equipped from the household arsenal
battle ceaselessly against that inflationary menace
sand, the encroaching desert of domestic life

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Karen Margolis is a British citizen living in Berlin, Germany. She has published several books of nonfiction and poetry in numerous anthologies and magazines in Germany and UK.