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22 May 2025

The NS Poem: Help Yourself

A new poem by Simon Armitage.

By Simon Armitage

We invited the world’s richest man for supper.
He was visiting town, and in the local paper

he looked so lost and lonely. He brought
a mid-price bottle of Chilean Merlot, cat nip

for the dog, and an action figure of himself
dressed as a pharaoh. At the dining table

he kept checking his phone – I could see
the reflection of numbers and bodies

in his cool shades, I could hear the clicks and moans.
When we told him there was no more pudding

he wiped his mouth on the front room curtains
and ordered a driverless cab, which arrived

in minus three seconds. He said, “I could
shaft this country with my little finger.

You nobody people are a big problem.”
He stole our bread-knife and one of our children.

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This article appears in the 21 May 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Britain’s Child Poverty Epidemic