Fit for work

Fit for work

A brown envelope comes through the door

It’s painfully picked up off the floor

By a sad old man more dead than alive

Fit for work at sixty five

The cancer treatment was a success

He’s had two weeks to convalesce

Now sickness pay will no longer arrive

Fit for work at sixty five  

A morning appointment next Monday

In a Job centre plus ten miles away

He’ll have to get a taxi: he can’t drive

Fit for work at sixty five

They found him a job TWENTY miles away!

Packing boxes for minimum pay

Barely enough for a mouse to survive

Fit for work at sixty five

One year later, he’s still there

Like a worn out motor in need of repair

But nothing that a hard days graft can’t fix

Fit for work at sixty six

He’s working treble shifts, week in week out

His sleep pattern’s truly up the spout

Aching joints  thrown into the mix

Fit for work at sixty six

This wasn’t the life that he desired

And many of his friends are long retired

He’s an old dog tired of learning new tricks

Fit for work at sixty six

He stayed with a firm nearly fifty years

But his pension plans ended up in tears

When the boss sold up and bought a yacht for kicks

Fit for work at sixty six

Ten years later he’s past spent

But the government pension doesn’t cover the rent

And a diet of Pot Noodles and Weetabix

Still at work at seventy six

The prostate cancer didn’t come back

But he suffered a massive heart attack

And the medics couldn’t resuscitate

Died at work, aged seventy eight

And so ends this tale of misery

This working man’s obituary

From the day he was born till his final breath

The sum of his life?

Birth, school, work, death