In February 2013, homeless man Daniel Gauntlett died of hypothermia on the doorstep of an empty bungalow in Aylesford, Kent.
Homeless man dies frozen on steps of empty bungalow
Man named Daniel Gauntlett
Headline of Kent local paper
Just words
But real death, real tragedy, real outrage
Homeless man dies frozen on steps of empty bungalow
Boards on windows and lock on door
Standing between him
And the meagre shelter that could have saved him
No bed, no luxury, no comfort
But at least a barrier between him and the murderous cold
Homeless man dies frozen on steps of empty bungalow
A person without a home
Dies on the steps of
A home without a person
In what sort of irrational system does that happen?
Someone ‘owned’ the empty home
And possession is not just nine-tenths of the law
But the iron law that says you can’t come in
Even if it makes the difference between life and death
Homeless man dies frozen on steps of empty bungalow
It was not just the temperature that killed Daniel
It was the system
Property is not just theft
It is also murder
Daniel deserved to survive
But this system does not
Capitalism kills
Homeless man dies frozen on steps of empty bungalow
Daily news poetry website Poetry 24 published this poem on 7 March 2013, and wrote it in that week’s Sunday Review that the poem ‘reminded us that cruelty and culpability are alive and well in the affluent West. Like the children of Syria, ‘Daniel deserved to survive’. The system, however, does not, because ‘Capitalism kills’.
