Poetry Blogs (BLM)

May never a Cock in England Crow,
Nor never a Pipe in Scotland Blow,
Nor never a Harp in Ireland Play,
Till Liberty regains Her Sway.

The Skelmanthorpe Flag, West Yorkshire, c. 1819

May all the Choirs in Wales Sing,
and the Liberty Bell in America Ring,
and the Dancers of India stamp their Feet,
till Decolonisation is Complete.

May Caribbean Poets Rhyme,
and Jazz Bands Play in...

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I am angry.

I am angry at men, and women
and children and mothers and fathers.
my body is full of unbridled rage, that the ones
I love and care about, sometimes even myself,
can turn a blind eye to the atrocities right in front of us.

Children ripped from their mothers
Young people blinded and beaten for speaking the truth
Men spewing bile, cruelty, poison to hide the 
depths of their...

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Amputation & Education

Some wounds won’t scab over

As some wounds never heal

They are infected by colonial blades

That hot irons won’t seal

Puss filled abominations

tainted by avarice and greed

you cannot absolve the guilty knife

whilst open wounds still bleed

You say ‘history was not written in pencil,

You cannot rub it out’

It’s not what it was written ...

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crystalline echos 
of webs run jagged
collapsing against the face 
of what history wrought. 

winds stripping flesh:
the immolate cries 
at a thousand stakes
freed from the old mortar 
churned under one hundred years 
by the twisting abuse of saints.

you'll know me 
by the raw and torn:
by the salted splines 
of feathers shorn 
bristling under embers 
and by ire 

you'll know m...

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Sell Me Something More Than Snake Oil And Lies

They say that pulling down statues

Is rewriting history

As though the sculptors who made them

Were historians

And not some commissioned artist

Doing what he was told

Sell me something more than snake oil and lies

It is a form of history

Cast in the wealthy viewpoint

From the stance of the privileged

It’s...

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Hands up

On your knees 

It’s not an instruction 

It’s a threat

Because your skin

Your hands 

Your hoodie 

Are a weapon 

So you drop

You drop like Trayvon’s skittles 

You drop like Tamir’s BB pellets

You drop like Michael’s cigars 

Or you drop dead. 

Each breath could be your last

Breathe breathe breathe 

I can’t breathe

Please, please, I can’t breath...

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The Truth Of Colour

The colour of humanity

Is not white skin

Or black skin

Not brown skin

Or yellow skin

It is the red blood

Of a beating heart

A blue shield

Is not the colour of humanity

When it takes a life

And all the greys

of muddled opinions

cannot change the truth

that a man could not breathe

because his skin colour

was...

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Calling onto the masses
Whom no amount of classes
Would open their eyes
To the hate and despise
That people of colour receive
And how their hearts grieve
To the endless blood shed
And countless bodies dead
To years of uncalled for attacks
And merciless whacks
To all the foolish, never forget
That you are in great debt
To all the souls you have scarred
And dead bodies you disregard
An...

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