Sorry for your loss

Hoodlums - follow the money…

…take you prisoner, that’s OK,
turn you out like a pocket,
penniless on the sidewalk.

Desperados - smiles, masks…

… it’s the economy, dumbass,
we are on different sides;
heads I win, sorry for your loss.

Frequent flyers - suitcases, currency…

… walk into a city like they own it,
make you want to mug them to fuck,
roll them for a buck.

Some men - left behind…

… losers in the dollar race,
last shreds of manhood stripped away,
they take the money, leave you damaged.

Ordinary guys - dolls or women?

…expect too much and steal it just the same;
you know you want to, gimme, gimme, gimme,
mine by right, not so bad, sorry for your loss.

© BH, 2024

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When Imogen Wade won the National Poetry Competition with The Time I Was Mugged In New York City, I saw some critical responses that said it was too much of a prose piece and not really poetry.

That’s a point of view. I did find it a bit prosy, to be honest. Presumably, for others, that was it. It didn’t sing. It made its point, sublimed into wider issues; let’s face it, a fair win. Though some critics writing, expressed a view (not of the work itself) that judges these days look for more concrete context than lyricism.

I’ve not won a poetry competition (well, not a major one) in my puff.

So, at the time, I tried to encapsulate what I thought Imogen’s piece was about in lines of my own. These are they. For whatever it’s worth - let’s call it an inspiration. That is what poets are meant to do for each other, right?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/25/poem-inspired-by-new-york-mugging-wins-top-prize-in-national-poetry-competition