Joe Corrie Poems

'Eat more fruit!' the slogans say,
' More fish, more beef, more bread!'
But I'm on Unemployment pay
My third year now, and wed.
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I am the Common Man.
I am the brute and the slave,
I am the fool, the despised
From the cradle to the grave.
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How few there are with unsoiled hands,
And educated tongues,
Who'll stand by us, my working friends,
And help to right our wrongs.
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We have borne good sons to broken men,
Nurtured them on our hungry breast,
And given them to our masters when
Their day of life was at its best.
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God! how I've wearied for the Spring,
To hear the birds above me sing;
And see the blue within the sky,
For there were times I thought I'd die.
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It's little I can tell o' classic things,
Homer an Dante strangers are to me,
That Troy an Tyre wis places ower the sea
Is a' I ken. Sae when my thochts tak wings
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Standin' in Hunter's Bar ae nicht, gey fu',
A man crushed through the crood and searched my face,
'Guid Christ! '‘he stammered oot,' and is it you?'
I shook his hand, but him I couldna trace.
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It's fine when ye stand in a queue
at the door o' the ‘Dole'
on a snawy day,
To ken that ye leive in the bonniest
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Crawlin about like a snail in the mud,
Covered wi clammy blae,
ME, made after the image o' God -
Jings! but it's laughable, tae.
...