This story is about residents objecting to a care home for autistic adults in their street. I wanted to write a poem expressing my upset that people could take a stance like this, and finally settled on a poetic form called the Villanelle:
No autistics in our neighbourhood
We just don’t want those weirdo freaks around
We’d stop them moving in here if we could
We’re normal folk, don’t tell us to do good
We pay our rates of several thousand pound
For no autistics in our neighbourhood
You’d say the same in our shoes, yes you would
Our need to circle wagons is profound
We’d stop them moving in here if we could
We want our so-called reasons understood
We’ll think of some; we’re sure they will be sound
For no autistics in our neighbourhood
Small minds are made up, hostile ground is stood
Our empathy is lost, our coldness found
We’d stop them moving in here if we could
Perhaps we’ll don a white robe and a hood
Let loose the NIMBYs and their baying hound
Bark no autistics in our neighbourhood
We stopped them moving in because we could
