Hear the MP opening another foodbank: 
the declamatory style, self-congratulating to the full-house.   
Listen to him spinning half-truths, lies. 
Turn off the sound, watch his yawning mouth.

Now see our sad show where body language changes,
heads turn upstage, ignoring me, the audience of one.
A woman exits not, ‘pursued by a bear’ 
but with hunger to her empty house.

Tom Kelly’s most recent collection of poems and prose Walking My Streets is his thirteenth book published by Red Squirrel Press and explores Kelly’s life and changing face of his native north-east of England.
www.tomkelly.org.u