(The poem’s title is a nod towards Jonathan Swift’s satirical essay of 1729, A Modest Proposal, where he suggests that the starving Irish might improve their situation by selling their children as food to the rich. Published in Prole 18, Prolebooks, 2015)
There are too many people in the world, we should cull them like badgers or deer. A simple test to show who's best and who don't deserve to be here. Felons would go first, followed by the unemployed. Then the homeless and poor and, if we need more, humane traps could be deployed. The old and the sick would be easy prey, young thugs wouldn't fare much better. You could clear half the slums in Brum with some anthrax dust in a letter. Immigrants of course would be high on the list, we don't want their sort here. Single mums, junkies, bums, all could be disappeared. Just think what a world would await us, the space, the ease, the freedom, without anyone to spoil our fun in our own little corner of Eden. In fact why not go further and start the whole sorry business anew? We could arrange to leave just Adam and Eve and concealed in the grass you-know-who. Not that it would make much difference. A leopard can't change its spots now, can it? We humans, it seems, are little more than machines programmed to fuck up the planet.
Robert Grossmith 