They come with little in their hands, from burned-out homes and broken lands. Their hopes are packed in bags of thread, their pasts erased, their futures bled. The children walk through desert air, their fathers drown in deep despair. No one who leaves a home intact will ever choose a life like that. But those who watch them at the gate are tired too, and bear their weight. They se...

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It’ll take 500.

in cabins with twin bunks

It’s not a Cunard liner

No need to bring your trunks

There is no captain’s table

Nor cocktails on the deck

No space for any loungers

On this brutal prefab wreck

It’s a worry for the fire brigade

Whose natural concern

Is how to evacuate the inmates

Should it ignite, and burn

Did I say inmates? A Freudian slip

But this ...

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Great Britain is being (choose one or more):

invaded / stormed / assisted / visited / colonised / seen as a safe haven

by another:

fleeing group / flood / hurricane / astronomical number / vulnerable gathering / economically motivated gang

of:

asylum seekers / Illegals / migrants / refugees / criminals & rapists / displaced people

hailing from:

Europe / Africa / Middle East /...

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Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!

(From the Masque of Anarchy by Percy Bysshe Shelley)

Below is what I consider to be a Manifesto of Hope, to whose motives and principles I wholly subscribe.

 

Public ownership of all public services and infrastructure, including ...

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The Tories treat

our nurses with contempt

our doctors with disdain

our firefighters with derision

our ambulance workers with disrespect

our railway staff with scorn

our carers with despisal

our armed forces with antipathy

our sick with neglect

our elderly with indignity

our teachers with ridicule

our children with condescension

our pensioners with contempt

...

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The UK Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, is believe it or not, a barrister; yet she is proposing to break the law with her dog-whistle of a bill.

So she has been forced to make the following admission, under section 19(1)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998:

“I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill are compatible with the Convention rig...

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First they came for freedom of speech, but I did not speak out

Because my sources told me what I wanted to hear, 

 

Then they came for the Poor, but I did not speak out 

Because I was not poor, 

 

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, but I did not speak out 

Because I was not a Trade Unionist, 

 

Then they came for the Socialists, but I did not speak out 

Becau...

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The world is in chaos

Yet there is jubilation everywhere

People are gasping for air

Yet there is air around them

Their lungs refuse to accommodate any

So I watch them give it up instead

A moment of silence for the departed,please!

 

My eyes are glassed with suppressed tears

I turn on tv to silence my sorrows

But my grief knows no rest

The sound of children laughing...

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Aegean  Overspill........

Written in September 2015 when the mass exodus of refugees from war zones began.

Seems apt to re-visit looking at current events on the shores of the English Channel.

 

Crescent starred Gendarmerie manhunt, confront

overblown cover blown shyster sharks

frenzy-feed in back alley Bodrum,

fleecing Damascus dads of ventured shekels,

a one-way lilo lott...

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and soon the bombs won’t fall
and soon the bombs will start again
and soon the child will sleep
and soon the child will not sleep again
and soon she will put her arms around her father
and soon she will lay him in the ground
and now the screams of agony from the child
echo back with no sound

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I will not fight, I will not stand

For border, nor for any land

I need not know, am not concerned

Your place of birth or language learned

Too many wars are fought, too many die

Over province, pride, triumphal lie

 

I will not guard, I will not bar

The stranger landed from afar

They need a home, and wish to settle

Want to work, to show their metal

We can only profit...

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Should we walk by the waters edge
Or swim against the flow,
Where men in oceans, stained with red
Live shortened lives below?

Should we walk by the waters edge
Or break against the waves,
Where women flounder where they fled
In watery graves?

Should we walk by the waters edge
Or thrash against the tide,
Where children drown in sunken beds
Whose parents made them lie?

Should we wa...

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Catechism

 

I will not be defined by ancient Gods,

or the archaic teachings in their books.

I will tread warily around their words

and avoid the hidden traps and snaring hooks.

 

I will not stand behind a coloured flag

and spout my blunt imperialistic views

or drape it on a coffin when I die

or burn it on the early evening news.

 

I will not make a choice that’s...

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1.
Invent a war.
Something bloody and fratricidal.
Lose an uncle to barrel bombs
a brother to secret police.

2.
Three years in, flee.
Pack only what you can carry:
clothes, smartphone, children, cash.
Slip away at night, in silence.

3.
Take your leave of the flat, bakery, office,
rubble-filled streets where the kids once ran
shell of the cafe where old men
drank qahwa, played she...

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The price of freedom

is it to much to pay.

To allow someone to come ashore

to live another day.

 

Allow these people to some dignity

and have a chance at a decent life.

They've suffered enough

they've had enough strife.

 

Dedicated to the

Syrian refugees

 

 

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the stink of diesel and of fear which
everyone’s pretending is not here
because if they do not name it, it will not be real
but in the hot bodies of the strangers pressed
around her she can feel
the tension of a panic only held at bay
like sea-sickness, with iron will, good fortune,
muttered prayers
inshallahinjesusnameinshallahinjesusname
they rise and fall, jaws clench and clench again
...

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