{"id":14247,"date":"2021-11-20T12:32:57","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T12:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/they-want-all-our-teeth-to-be-theirs\/"},"modified":"2021-11-20T12:32:57","modified_gmt":"2021-11-20T12:32:57","slug":"they-want-all-our-teeth-to-be-theirs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/they-want-all-our-teeth-to-be-theirs\/","title":{"rendered":"they want all our teeth to be theirs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-full wp-image-14245\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/c0150f00c2f926c45bf05ed02276a896.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"506\" height=\"626\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/c0150f00c2f926c45bf05ed02276a896.jpg 506w, http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/c0150f00c2f926c45bf05ed02276a896-242x300.jpg 242w, http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/c0150f00c2f926c45bf05ed02276a896-356x441.jpg 356w, http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/c0150f00c2f926c45bf05ed02276a896-1x1.jpg 1w, http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/c0150f00c2f926c45bf05ed02276a896-8x10.jpg 8w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 506px) 100vw, 506px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>they want all our teeth to be theirs<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><\/span><em>by Martin Hayes<\/em><\/p>\n<p>they want from us total commitment<br \/>they want from us our blood and our hunger<br \/>they want from us our flesh<br \/>inked with the company&#8217;s logo on our chest<br \/>they want our knuckles to our brains<br \/>and all the nerve-ends in between<br \/>switched off<br \/>they want our sinews and our muscles sewn together with steel thread<br \/>so that we can only move when they pull their levers<br \/>they want all of our teeth to be theirs<br \/>so that we can only chew when they chew<br \/>ache when they ache<br \/>they want us to show them where we keep our guts<br \/>so that they can sneak in under the radar<br \/>and pull them apart<br \/>angry thread by angry thread<br \/>until nothing is held<br \/>or stitched together anymore<\/p>\n<p>and what do we want?<\/p>\n<p>we want to be able to walk through the park on a Saturday afternoon<br \/>without feeling anxious<br \/>we want to be able to lay out on the grass<br \/>drinking ice cold beer while looking up into the sky<br \/>without worrying about office politics<br \/>we want to swim in the ocean once a year<br \/>and know how we are going to pay for it<br \/>we want a mouth full of teeth<br \/>that we know we can afford to get fixed or capped<br \/>if ever they should go rotten<br \/>we want to be able to enjoy the laughter and song<br \/>that comes from having food in the fridge the electricity bill paid<br \/>a car taxed and full of diesel<br \/>a medicine cabinet filled with floss sticks and Sudocrem<br \/>paracetamol and hand cream<br \/>Bonjela hair-bands Diazepam and Ansol<\/p>\n<p>we want to be able to live in our block<br \/>without the fear of being redistributed<br \/>hanging like thick drool dripping from a councillor&#8217;s panting mouth<br \/>because an entrepreneur took him for a \u00a3500 dinner<br \/>and promised him a place for his kid in the prep school<br \/>that will take our council flats place<br \/>alongside the \u00a365-a-month gym business units<br \/>and 1.5 million-pound lofts<\/p>\n<p>we want to feel<br \/>be able to say to ourselves<br \/>that we are human<br \/>and not have to give everything of that away<br \/>just so we are allowed to work<br \/>just so we are allowed<br \/>to exist<\/p>\n<p><em>This poem is one of the winners of the 2021 Bread and Roses Poetry Award, sponsored by Unite, and\u00a0<\/em><strong>they want all our teeth to be theirs<\/strong><em> is the title of the forthcoming anthology.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>they want all our teeth to be theirs by Martin Hayes they want from us total commitmentthey want from us our blood and our hungerthey want from&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":14245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1660],"tags":[2509],"class_list":["post-14247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-2","tag-bread-and-roses-poetry-award"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/484"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}