Pain is beauty:
The thick, swollen red line
Runs jagged between my hip-bones
To right beneath my belly button:
Peeking out from under my
Drawstring pants
As my figure wavers
In the fogged bathroom mirror reflection:

Beauty masks pain.
I focus on a freckle above my midriff
While my stomach heaves in and out-
A testament that I'm still Here.

Life is concealment
Of all the run ins with death
That we are too humble to
Praise
With the same unabashed glory
That we attribute to the very
God- whose own son's hands
Were marred with the scars
Of a self righteousness
That isn't felt in hospital recovery rooms.

Sensations are transitory-
Leaving subtle marks upon our fragile
Bodies,
A reminder
That death can never be beaten;

I trace my fingers across
The rigged Scar- but I don't feel
Anything-
I don't feel the missing faulty pieces
Of my body,
Carefully extracted like a childhood
Game of Operation:
They didn't belong there, anymore.

Beauty has fallen
(Down from the right hand of god)
Into the arms of modern medicine,
Adorned with sickly sweet lilies
And medals of honor
Pinned upon the breast
Of anyone tragic enough
To experience
Life
Without the security
Of a timely exit.

I am whole because my experiences
Are hidden beneath a functioning
Exterior:
My marred flesh burns against
The heavy fabric draped over
Last summer.

Experience is merely a fallacy
For survival:
My raised skin outlines
A tragedy too human
To pray about over the dinner table.

The old man paints seashells
for all of the women he has loved.
He takes his husky for walks
along the beach, returning with
a bag of **** and a collection
of spirals and fans, still pregnant
with the whispers of the ocean.

By the window, he licks his brush
and steadies his nervous hands.
He will share a steak with the dog,
and wonder when the best company
became inanimate or at most; unspeaking.
He had long turned his back on Dylan
and Cohen, in favour of empty sound

and the rain hitting the tarp
in the garden. He recalls Diane
and the green of life in her poetry.
Louise, the blue of her moods and the sea.
Each woman had coloured his life
in hopeful hues, oh, and what a mess
he was in their absence.
(even the dog wouldn't sleep beside him)

The old man drew his last breath
when the silence became deafening.
When he realised he could not reclaim
memories through art, or through
the patient analysis of nature.
There was no shape or colour
that had not been created before.

Another night spent
between walls
that ooze sympathetic smiles;
drinking homemade wine
and raising my crystal glass
in a toast to my homeland-

Congratulations.
You've all gone
to waste.

I love the way my cat looks
On spring-ish autumn days
Ignoring everything and
Hiding under the shade
Black bugs crawling through white fur
Dandelion pillows on green earth
Then I remember being young
Sticks became swords under the sun
I could fly if I closed my eyes
And truly believed
But that was some time ago
A different cat in my home
I was so much younger
And so was my house
And so were the trees

Sweet words spoken
Sounds sweet in few
Too many spoils the day

After all, we're not savages. We're English.
And the English are the best at everything.
                                                     ­       (Piggy)
The hovelled huts
Near  school house ditches
Hardly sheltered starving children.
Emaciated, pale and ghastly,
Three million lost.
Exports defined them,
Imports denied them,
The world was told their hunger
Was the wrath of God.
For seven hundred years
Untolled Rachels wept;
Twice as long
As Jews were kept
Enslaved in pagan Egypt.
This was Ireland,
Not Auschwitz.

Beneath the banners of
Labour and Freedom,
Toiled the innocents.
Eyes burning from hot peppers,
Bodies weak and wrecked
From boarding;
Skin separated by flogging
Thousands of Cypriots.

Over soup and sandwiches
A demarcation's drawn,
So Hindus now face Muslims
Seeking their new homes.
Three million displaced
During lunch,
Brain salad served up on a hunch
By a line
Drawn by one man.
This wasn't Treblinka,
But Pakistan.

Millions fenced in labour camps
In what they called  
The Dark Continent.
The torture was horrendous,
With random executions.
Think the worse, you're still not there,
Think ravenous dogs and mutilation,
**** and human degradation.
Eyes gouged out, ears cut off,
This was Kenya,
Not Warsaw.

Sir Winston wore
His crocodile shoes,
Feigning the blues,
While blocking friendly supplies;
Letting three million hungry die.
His callousness was cruelly matched
When delivering Mahatma's epithet:
“Has Gandhi not starved yet?”
This was Bengal,
Not Dachau.

Their ****** count adds up.
Their new policy was errant:
Imprison all the peasants.
It was racist to the Nth degree,
A million desperate detainees
To exile when they're freed.
But half died on their knees
In Malay,
Not Buchenwald.


The Boer War and Apartheid
Were blessed with Royal Assent.
In Amritsar Brits opened fire,
To cut down Innocents.

This isn't just in history,
It's happened all too recently.

Argentina's watery graves
Gurgle from The Belgrano,
Sunk by Royal torpedoes
For a rock of sheep.
Such was the work
Of a band of brothers,
To fly their flag
Over Falkland waters?

There's no denying
The atrocities
Of her maternal
Ferocities.
The Spinners
Wrapped their glories
Furled in Jack's war stories.
The winners
Have detoured their crimes,
Enjoin us denouncing
**** times;
But the sun hasn't set
On Empire fires:
China, India, Kenya, Aden,
Ireland, Africa,
All invaded.
All degraded.
Imperialism is not benign,
The legacy lives on
In Palestine.

Under pretence
Of flag and king,
The English are
Best at everything.

Like fire
Lit beneath my feet
My eyes open wide
My speech
bent to scream
My knees holding all of me
Up & to the side
I wait for you
Till it's too late
I return to the same place
Where I made my mistakes
Mine
My mind
& now I'm not ashamed of them
But I'm still being shamed for them
& I'm pushing through
Pressed against it
My lips turning blue
and I can't help but be
annoyed
Exploited
It's not who I am
& I'm proving to be
Just what you want anyway
Which isn't at all
What I need