Children stalk the State's estates

With the benefit schemes and the stillborn dreams and

The pregnant teens by the eight-till-late.

Tell me, how's it going to end?  Beseech the Lord his strength to lend?

'Cos this is going on right now, it's in the city streets and how

Have we got so permissive that we plain refuse to care?

Or are we so deluded that we go on unaware?

Dead-eyed,

Stupefied

Children stalk the State's estates.

Children spend the week off sick

With the headlouse scratch and the scabies patch and

The doorlatch up for the tin foil fix.

Spare room used by prostitute who'll fuck a truckload for a toot.

Social worker twenty-one and lives out rural with her mum;

Never touched the common man or had a babe or stole a meal

Or understood that life is pain and Harry Potter isn't real.

Snot-nosed,

Grot-clothed

Children spend the week off sick.

Children live in lino rooms

With the bulbs unshaded and the units jaded and

The space invaded by the burning spoon.

Underweight, conceived on smack and Valium and Scrumpy Jack.

Parents on the heroin deceive and thieve to push it in;

Never take their babies out or cut their nails or clean their teeth

Or sing them into bed at night or tuck them into laundered sheets.

Spittle-vested,

Rattle-chested

Children die in lino rooms.