THE MILLER

By the Urban Poet

Children and women with child awake from flee infested beds of rags on putrid floor

As they struggle to scrub out sleep from itchy eyes, the loud shriek of the foreman echoes and resonates through waxed ear as they gather in packs of trembling fear

 

Not a sentence of death but a daily trek down mud track eroded by torrential rain at six o'clock on the dot again

Till eight at night fingers work to bone and flesh does creep with the stench of the Overlooker's breath and feet as boots are released to atmosphere of Mill so bleak

 

Gruel is slapped in hands first off

devoured in one go this disgusting mix

like oats and glue but the only chance of sustenance right now before scraps may be possible later for the chosen few

 

Deafening noise of loom so huge will drown out silent complaints, crying and rumbling stomachs screaming out for food

Fibres floating like a swarm of white locusts waiting to settle on chests already stricken with deathly symptoms a many

Coughing and wheezing being ten a penny

In the murky world of the cotton mill

 

It's eight, late and time for bed and the desperate cycle will start all over again

no food to be had just water that's bad, rendering illness, disease, weakness and worse

The Miller calls with Foreman in step to see who in the night has lapsed into death

Children and women with child awake from flee infested beds of rags on putrid floor...

From ‘Poetry Gold’ Rick’ Varden