https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEiBdU0tFB0
The music draws my attention
From across the fence
The beat is relentless
Designed to drown out
The yelling the screaming,
The crying the hope.
The woman emerges from the laundry
A cane-washing basket sits on her hip
Her head covered with a tired scarf
Her feet dragging a pair of worn out sandals,
She approaches the ragged clothesline
Hangs out the greying wash
The result of not caring, no future.
She thrusts weathered wooden pegs
Onto the creases of washed out clothing
Kept clean as the price of sanity.
The baby in filled nappy crawls to the door
She frantically calls to the next one to grab him
No response she drops her wash
Bolts up the stairs to collect baby
Goes inside and there’s once again
The frenzy of voices
As no one accepts responsibility.
‘I did it yesterday,’ I hear one say
And the sounds die down as the music grows in volume.
She stands at the door, exasperated by the indifference
To life, to love, to anything.
At the clothesline she wipes her face on her sleeve.
A man appears at the door
In singlet, cigarette hanging from one corner of his mouth
He watches her, snarls,
‘These kids of yours are fuckin’ driving me crazy.
You gonna get me breakfast or not?’
She glances up at him, pegs a shirt to the line.
Resigned to her fate, poverty, mediocrity,
Surviving day to day
Clinging to any useless man who hints at loving her.
She looks in my direction and turns in shame
Realising she looks a mess, a shambles
Her self esteem rock bottom.
In public she hides all she can
The humiliation of being a no body in a somebody world.
She often dreams of the glamour that could have been hers
Of the days past where opportunity was there
But thinking she knew everything
Settled for the immediate pleasure
And babies later she finds herself
Penniless, a piece of poor white trash.
But she has ambitions for her kids
But they possess the aimless genes
Of their respective fathers.
She knows she has an uphill battle.
From inside she hears that
Beat pounding from the speakers
Ones she bought at the op shop.
Like so much of the music they play
Her days are the same old same old.
Them things she thinks,
Who’d believe her?
Who’d be interested?
Them things she thinks
Who’d see her pain?
Who’d be bothered with her?
Then things she thinks
If only they knew
If only they cared.
Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/music-prompt-9-the-beigeness-performed-by-kate-tempest/
Morpethroad 
Hangs out the greying wash
This line right here conveyed the desperation, the defeat, the devastation that has become her existence. Powerful and vivid images throughout.
I’ll be putting mine up tomorrow morning.
Thanks Yves the lyrics and song gave me so much of that feeling.
You can really feel the desperate hurt of the daily grind and setbacks she feels.
a quick side-question: is your username read “summers tommy too” or “summer stommy two” or some other variation?
Summerstommy2 but call me Michael.
Thanks so much for your comment.
Very powerful, Michael 😀 I can feel the urgency laced with fear and rage in your poem.
Thank you so much, great song to write too, so thanks for that.
🙂
Vivid imagery, Michael. Held hostage by circumstance- the tale of so many lives…
Yes indeed Mandy, thanks for stopping by…
Such a sad life and story you have created here my friend, so many that would suffer as she does. Well written ~ enjoyed.
Thank you so much Jenny you are very kind.
Your poem unfolds like the opening scenes of a movie. You’re written the sad script of so many lives. “If only they knew/If only they cared.” Hard to be in a life so bleak.
Thank you friend, there is an Australian writer in the early part of last century who wrote about the plight of the bush women and I had his lines in mind when I was writing the opening. I like your comment and as has been said before there are so many who experience this life on a daily basis. Happy Sunday to you…
It’s so sad when the choices we make as foolish young people determine the course of our whole lives.