And today’s Writing101 Poetry’s prompt is Graffiti by Andy Townend. You can see his poetry here.

My poetry of today has sweat and tears, as I attempted to practice the sonnet form. I wrote about Amsterdam squatters, and tried to write from their viewpoint.

I shot the featured image in an abandoned house in Amsterdam. Some of them were occupied by squatters. They occupy abandoned or unoccupied area of land and/or a building – usually residential – that they don’t own, rent or have lawful permission to use.

There are many residential squats in Dutch cities. We call it ‘Kraken’ in Dutch. Dutch squatters use the term krakers to refer to people who squat houses with the aim of living in them (as opposed to people who break into buildings for the purpose of vandalism or theft).

You can read the squatters story here that I posted back in June.

Et voilà, here is my take on the prompt.

We have no money, no affluence

You put your euros on real state

We have no roof, no fireplace

You have a ghost house to lay waste

We break doors like cannonballs

You send your men and call us vandals

We paint our voice on your walls

You see no art, only scandals

If poverty is our fate

And your wealth is your destiny

We can only commiserate

Imprinting walls with your tyranny

Diehards never die

Equality is just a lie

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Bio: Andy is a photographer, writer and poet. British born, he has lived and worked in the UK, Australia, Serbia, and Belgium.

Andy’s first venture into blogging began in 2011 with belgradestreets, a project that resulted in the publication of two books featuring his photographs of Belgrade, Serbia, exhibitions, and a TV documentary. You can follow Andy on Twitter @andytownend and check out his work on andytownend.com, belgianstreets, and belgradestreets.