Son in his Father’s skin

For my parents

I remember the wildest storm in your arms

it was like a feverish sky rasping in the factory stratus

you had just lost your Father and I was finding myself lost in you.

 

Far in the distance I watched shadows of people converge on the lip of a hill

they looked like octaves making songs on the orange line of sky

I had just lost my Grandfather and felt him fall from my Fathers eye,

 

and then

the storms eye passed

night stole the scars of aeroplanes and hard men.

 

I know something of sky

it left a black cloud in you

and took all the light from you and I.

 

I am the son in my Fathers skin

the more I shut him out

the less I keep him in.

 

I remember the troubled sea when you taught me to swim until dark,

in the end I flew like a bird in water once you let me go

you were root of the tree and I was the brittle bark.

 

Far in the distance I watched my mother wait with a soft smile and coarse towel,

I was the language no one understood and you were consonant and vowel

and now in the pain of night you are the wolves and I your howl.

 

Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Pexels.com

Advertisement

The resurrection of Notre Dame sponsored by capitalism

Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels.com

And the glass of Notre Dame was stained by corporate sponsors

candles in Loreal logos flickered like eyes of rabbits in gauze

Donald Trump prayed beneath the blonde-haired saviour.

 

And waiters from waters of displacement poured evian and merlot

one of them spilled a drop on Prime Minister Farage

“it’s only water he guffawed, only water”

 

And Donald Trump on his second internment made a great speech:

“Tonight, is the resurrection of Notre Dame supported by great friends of mine”

“Please raise a glass to the beautiful fresco of my tweets next to the quote from God”.

 

And the next day a cleaner from Algiers saw her shadow in the black marble,

she could see herself yet no one else was there to see this miracle,

at night she went home and cleaned her windows, her windows.

 

And later that night a machine setter donated five euros to another burning mosque.

The jackals of Notre Dame

Photo by isaac taylor on Pexels.com

 

“Time is greedy, man is greedier”
Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

 

If a tree falls in a forest does it make any noise?

If a mosque burns down in Algiers did we make any noise?

 

If muslim heads on French stamps were licked by silent tongues

do we speak in tongues or French or silence colonial gargoyles?

 

There is a hunchback of sun haunching its way to the stolen land,

darkness is a callous thief it copies man who paints himself by God in Sistine pastels

 

Close to god in marble,

in gold, in glory

in the catacomb bowels of hidden skulls.

 

I am walking through the ashes of Notre Dame

dragging Judas bags of gold,

look – the displaced doves of Notre Dame

hurl themselves south like Calais non-persons.

 

A Roman Amphitheatre is blown up by Isil and the west send condemnation,

a mosque burns down in French colonial Africa and ears are dried up wells.

 

I am walking through Paris and Notre Dame is rising with a hundred logos,

we are very grateful to Oligarchs and commercial philanthropists and Fox and Jackal news.

The bullying of Jasbir Singh

For him it wasn’t geographically wrong insults

the labels of Paki when his roots were Malawi

to save you googling it Malawi is in the world somewhere.

 

For him it was the lane where they punched him in the chest

his heart rang like a bell of meat in a worthless body

For him it was ten lads making him spit white shouting go home.

 

For him it was the 7am dash to the toilet and being obvious,

His sister shouting “hurry up, what are you dong in there”

His sister calling him disgusting and the guilt that he was.

 

For him it wasn’t skin colour it was his mind capsizing,

it was the day he believed all the insults they said were true,

it was the day he gave them silence, not even a letter.

 

For his sister it was the mirror at 7am being always available,

itt was the lifting of patchouli and his bag left hanging,

his bag left hanging, his bag left hanging, his bag left open,

 

swaying like a yoyo when she knocked it on the way to bed.

 

Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com

The laboratory of Nigel Farage

At Nigel Farage’s laboratory

I saw England in Formaldehyde,

Lionhearts displayed in pickle jars

A skull and crossbone warning of cancer.

 

In Theresa May’s disco moves

I saw Brexit dance the night away,

the day away, the yesterday’s away, gone,

all of the days became harder than a soft Brexit.

 

At Earlsdon library a woman decides to remain

she is protesting to a mixed race volunteer

both do not wish to leave

they are forcibly removed.

 

At Nigel Farage’s laboratory

I hear a man deliver lies with a velvet tongue,

he is wearing a cheap suit from China

a thread is trying to leave the slave weaves

 

to many he looks and sounds respectable.

Photo by slon_dot_pics on Pexels.com