By Roy Duffield
The traitor
I.
I’m special.
I was born to change the world.
II.
I’m supposed to be burning down
everything that’s wrong with this world.
Instead
I’m the hero
of the deaf
the illiterate—
a famous cock
-tail bartender
speciality:
molotovs
in plastic
glasses
of water
Health and Safety
-approved
for the slaughter
of
everything that’s right with this world.
III.
I’m special.
I was born to change the world.
I didn’t.
No-one noticed.
Did I betray them all? Or just myself?
Bitter
after Scott Storch
I know I shouldn’t be bitter
but
I won’t waste more time
buttering you
up.
Yourself,
you can buy
whatever I want
with your smile, tastefully flashed
your Oxford dictionary and
your bottomless pit—
your bank
of other people’s cash
but you don’t even need to pay
your friends will give it all to you for free
on exclusive mountain-top retreats
a Rooftop Empire
Stately buildings
and penthouse suits.
I didn’t used to be bitter.
I used to be a fighter,
stronger,
faster,
fitter,
but a lifetime later
and I’m still standing
down on my knees
and up to my elbows
in the shitter
so, if you’ll excuse me
you’re allowed all you have
but, please
allow me
to be bitter.
Roy Duffield was honoured to be picked to perform at last year’s Beat Poetry Festival in Barcelona. He only writes when angry, when something in the world needs to change. (He is unlikely to stop writing anytime soon.) This year his work has appeared in The Journal of Wild Culture, Anti-Heroin Chic,The Medley,Harpy Hybrid Review, Jalada Africa, Failed Haiku;the Pure Slush anthology Wrong Way, Go Back and the world’s oldest and most prestigious publication – his personal Instagram: @drinking_traveller.
