The Windrushers

After David Lammy

 

A rose ripped through soil

like Windrush through waves,

or babes through motherlands

disembarked from motherships

her ivory mast, her salt-skin on creation

named in a whale-lit room rocking side to side

come to England, come to learn our ways, teach us yours.

 

I think of you on the hull licking your thumb to feel north

the porthole moon bobbing to a half on the horizon

you will make the hearts of Jaguars purr on my lane

I will see you swig Pilsner on your lunchbreak,

you will wear the cross of St Christopher

dwelt into blue-collars he sailed on you

I wonder if Britain ever found you?

 

They won’t find your Grandfather on the cenotaph of names,

Taylor, Andrews, Jones, black man who died for the rose.

Once upon a time a bulldog laid down with fleas

she licked her Brexit runt and raised it British.

All of her litter are white with blue markings,

they are fighting over the septic teets.

 

I thought of the wall of Johal newsagents today in that summer of 82,

a brick wall of men and women eating baguettes made by Indians,

a white man blowing smoke next to black man blowing smoke,

none of us gave a shit about Britain we were Coventry,

Allesley, Radford, Keresley. we came from everywhere

 

And nowhere, but that wall of Johal newsagents,

it were a bridge

Yeah, it were Windrush to all of us.

 

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Errata to the Lord’s prayer

“The devils hide flames up their sleeves”

Survivor

And so it was, Syria was Magdalene

Judas bit his lip releasing vinegar

A dove tore its feathers out

Smashed itself into a roman shield

And so it was, Syria was Magdalene.

 

And so it was, the hearts were emptied

Like Aldi shelves of slave made bread

The roads were lit like bloodied serpents,

A woman was trampled over for fuel,

And so it was, Syria was Magdalene.

 

And so it was, Syria forgave its trespassers,

An oligarch who curled air with his cigar,

A huckster with a fake tan and heart

Throwing the name of god around like a punctured baseball.

And so it was Earth was Magdalene,

Devils ate the cities and a cockroach wheeled sun on its back

 

And so it was the trees looked like scales

Rook nests turned to bulbs and a final song played out

The argumentative mansplainer pissed his pants,

A dog barked with no fur at zombies draped in skin

And so it was Judas lived on, maddened in a gold plated bunker.

 

 

 

 

The unfashionable death of another Syrian daughter

Knock-kneed from Sarin she walked in perfect ovals

the girl is being evacuated from her bowels,

forget the image think of her an hour ago,

 

her fingers were jade from ripping coriander for soup,

she combed that smell into her hair for her Mother,

in fifty-eight minutes the whole world will care.

 

A pilot from Earth once described the explosion of a bomb,

he said it looked like a folded up Christmas tree

down there are people unwrapping their skin.

 

Back to the girl or do we skip forward to the end? Yes lets.

Captain America and Wonder Woman from Tel Aviv came

They saved them all and the camera zoomed in on the credits.

 

Daughter of Syria played by a caption of Coco by Chanel,

Mother of Daughter interrupted by an advert for Amazon,

I travelled there last night to order some cologne, how clever.

 

The end of this poem is random, imagine street dogs sharing meat,

They tear each other to shreds then another dog comes and another.

Leave an emoji at the grave, share the meat, shine a bat-light to Aleppo

 

Help us.

Luther King

I had a dream of your maiden voyage

you arrive from the hull of your mother in January,

the first thing to touch you was water blessed by your Father

he washed away your wine and drank the smell of his new world in.

 

I had a dream Master King that you poured the slave ship sea dry

you rinsed our skins together, we were bone and sinew, you said –

“masts are crosses blown by Jesus from the heavens

and what is sea but his eyes for us to rest in”?

 

I had a dream of a bullet smashing your vertebrae into snowflakes –

entering through your cheek like a bloody flare from sun.

It is all quiet in your blood and your eyes capsize white.

They are using your words as a compass for man

enslaved in black and white coats, their red sea.