The Hard Kids

Here come the hard kids,
A slovenly gang on the way down -
So much status at school!
But no one told them that school’s an illusion,
That out in the real world no one gives a damn,
That the power-swagger and the gob,
The lead-weight resistance and the bullying count for nothing.
Set in concrete from too much practice, their mean and angry faces are losing it,
Uncertainty like a glimmer creeping in -
You can see it in their eyes,
The slowly dawning surprise,
The future fading, no jobs, no hope, no money;
And all they have left to cling to is their yobbery.
Factory-doomed, if they’re lucky,
The group will split in ones and twos over the coming years
As reality settles home,
And this one marries, this one moves house,
This one attempts escape and this one dies;
But for now, chunky and forlorn in their base certainty
They pose in their washed-out clothes outside the school gates
And try and recapture their authority.