Tag Archives: privilege

Tom Vaughan, ‘One of Us’

4 Replies

A starter British passport,
now with a French one too,
I can vote in both and put down roots
in either, and stroll through

eGates and customs checks
head high, as one of us,
legitimately pukkah, blessed
by birth/life/luck, and thus 

with paperwork in order
should copper or gendarme
ask me who on earth I am:
I smile and keep my calm

and my right to an annual break
upon a sunlit beach
where seas digesting some who yearned
my paradise to reach

lap peacefully as though
the summer days could last
as far into the future as
they failed to in the past . . .

*****

Tom Vaughan writes: “The older I get, the more I ask myself the question: ‘Where would we be without our (double) standards?’.”

‘One of Us’ was first published in Snakeskin.

Tom Vaughan is not the real name of a poet whose previous publications include a novel and three poetry pamphlets (A Sampler, 2010, and Envoy, 2013, both published by HappenStance; and Just a Minute, 2024, from Cyberwit). His poems have been published in a range of poetry magazines, including several of the Potcake Chapbooks and frequently in Snakeskin and Lighten Up Online. He currently lives in Brittany.
https://tomvaughan.website

Illustration: RHL and ChatGPT

RHL, ‘Privelitch’

1 Reply

Some suffer from a travel itch
but I call that a snivel glitch
I only want to travel rich
and love it: it’s my privelitch.
O privelitch, o privelitch!

I only go to schools most rich,
(and only eat foods superrich),
then college has to be Oxbritch,
for that’s my privelitch.
I love you, love you, bitch!

I wear the robes and coronitch,
I swear by God I’ve found my nitch,
for, be I tubby, tall or titch,
I’ve got my privelitch.
O privelitch, o privelitch,
I love you, love you, bitch!

I never on my class would snitch
(or if I do, it’s just a smitch);
I’m faithful – cept for those I ditch,
for that’s my privelitch.
O privelitch, o privelitch!

I down it nail, I up it stitch,
call me a wizard or a witch,
I’ve got it all, with perfect pitch,
for that’s my privelitch.
I love you, love you, bitch!

My life with none I’d ever switch,
I’m over all, no slightest twitch,
and even when I’m in Death’s ditch
my tomb shouts Privelitch!
O privelitch, o privelitch,
I love you, love you, bitch!

*****

Don’t think I’m unaware of my own privilege: white males with above-average education are a privileged minority in any country. But also you reading this, whoever you are, you are privileged to not be a child in Gaza or any of the other hells that humans make for each other on an otherwise beautiful planet; you are privileged to be alive during this affluent and pivotal time in human history. And of course those who in addition have cultivated a taste for poetry… is there maybe a hint of privilege there?

This poem, like Buccaneer, was recently published in Magma.

Photo: “General Election Bullingdon Club Members in 1987, including Boris Johnson and David Cameron” by Diego Sideburns is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.