Street Vets

As two more vets die on the streets of the UK (One an SAS hero of the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980) I cry enough.  The only Terrorist survivor of the siege now lives in comfortable free accommodation on welfare handouts. Again, I cry enough.  
   
He sits ensconced in sleeping bag doorway    
   
Hostel of the streets    
   
Wage slave workers hurry, scurry past    
   
Eager for home    
   
He has none    
   
Used to be a soldier, bold, now too old    
   
Three tours of Afghan, destroyed the man    
   
Now he sleeps, weeps for friends long dead    
   
Relived in dreams, he screams    
   
Embarrassed, we don’t want him near    
   
Don’t want to hear his gory story      
   
The dealer comes, kicks him to attention    
   
Skunk? Spice?    
   
He stares with blank eyes    
   
Is this the angel of death he longs for?    
   
No, just a junky dealer, future stealer    
   
Shakes his head ‘no bread’    
   
Dealer rifles his pockets while uncaring eyes    
   
Mind their own business    
   
Drops package on lap    
   
Pay tomorrow man, or you’ll get a kickin’    
   
Five quid, right?    
   
He nods ‘yer, right’ drugged all night    
   
O death, where the fuck are you?    
   
He sits up coffee cup    
   
Extended, life expended, a quid here, ten pence there, he doesn’t care    
   
Lays down, cold, quivers, shivers    
   
Drunken youths, twelve o’clock shock    
   
‘Gerrup yer lazy bastard, gerra fuckin’ job, tosser    
   
They prod him, kick his guts    
   
He wretches,  the pale puddled street light    
   
The only witness    
   
Head kicked, sleeping bag pissed on, laughing walk away,    
   
Lazy wanker, fair prey.    
   
Dawn light pigeons only see his plight,    
   
As life ebbs away    
   
His last thought, thank you god