Grist To The Mill

to suggest surviving the tempest means
natural selection afoot is hog wash; in a
scene of annihilation’s appalling waste it
could hardly seem less – a shitty end of
the stick one might say, and without the
coup de grâce decency, but it’s not even
near Centrelink’s ballpark as a mangling
from their bureaucratic torture machine

you may well survive the indignity yet a
proportion of your sense of self-worth is
appropriated as grist-to-the-mill shame
your dignity can’t afford; truthfully you’ll
say you don’t need this poo – but they
won’t agree as they patently do
© 7 December 2012, I. D. Carswell

CentreLink; Australian Government
Department of Human Services