Salted Caramels
Garthwaite, K. (2014) ‘Fear of the brown envelope: exploring welfare reform
with long-term sickness benefits recipients.’
Over 91,000 incapacitated claimants died between 2011 and 2014
The DWP –Department for War on the Poor –
Deploys a plethora of paper weapons on the unemployed,
Origami games galore down at jobcentrepluses these days,
Administrative harassment of claimants, “disrupt and upset”
Is the sport, managers cutting out cardboard sheriff badges
To pin on employees’ lapels who manage to hit their targets
Of sanctioning sundry jobseekers for missing post-dated
Appointments too prompt for the post –but there’s no
Excuse for poor clairvoyance among the “scrounging” classes,
It’s just another type of avoidance of work or looking
For work (even if most posts advertised are fictitious!),
Or taking up unpaid placements; there’s Customer
Compliance appointments elliptically phrased in
Sterile-looking letters that leave much space for doubt
And worry for recipients as to what to expect on turning
Up to ‘tape-recorded’ interviews – Piano wires?
Thumbscrews…? Nothing so three-dimensional,
For it’s a game of malignant origami the DWP plays,
It prefers paper weapons –O, ink can kill as well:
An average letter from this Department can work
A pretty lethal spell of unsympathetic magic,
Like black spots to Black Dogs! But of all the paper
Weapons deployed none can compare to the terror
Of brown envelopes, ubiquitous brown envelopes,
Lying in baiting wait on doormats of a morning
Like paper moths or flattened praying mantises
To greet indigents’ lockjawed yawning; and these
Brown envelopes can paralyse on sight, as soon as
Claimants spy them in hallways they get dreadful frights,
Muscles tighten, throats turn dry, hands go clammy,
Brows perspire, hearts start thumping, pulses racing –
Such symptoms these simple shapes inspire, mere
Brown rectangular envelopes with windows of glaring
White sitting on lumpenproletariat doormats,
Simply petrify, sealed and pressed with spite, vituperative
Envelopes, primed paper weapons, packets of seeds
To excite nervous dispositions, hypersensitivities,
Trigger anxieties, panic attacks, fight-or-flights,
Make grown men quake over cornflakes – there’s no
Escape from brown envelopes for recipients (except,
Perhaps, suicide -how many more suicides swept
Aside by tampered DWP statistics, while particular
Cases still come to light, like Reekie, Clapson, Salter…?),
As long as one’s unemployed or incapacitated, day
And night they’ll be stalked by these vicious missives,
Razor-sharp verdicts, tan fiends, buff furies, beige
Pugilists, brown plebiscites, salted caramels,
Interminable brown Robins with stark black and white
Insides of menacing implicatures paving the way
To disinfecting sunlight like shards of burnt glass,
To snip at and grate away fragile minds; and some
May choose to eat them, so pretend they haven’t
Received them, but those who do will taste manila
Gum on gluey tongues and the bite of sodium chloride,
For these are spiked repasts, unjust desserts laced with darnels –
The DWP slowly poisons claimants with salted caramels.