A while ago in East London, in an area called Poplar
a black man lived with his wife
Quiet, hardworking, law-abiding they both were.
never courted a scandal, never committed a crime
Just went about their business, working for  better tomorrows

Then next door a Scottish family of five moved in
and immediately started borrowing from couple next door
Do you have sugar, do you have bread, can I borrow a fiver
till our Giro arrives next week, please another tenner for Jim
He has to pay a fine.

Empty beer cans littered their doorway, they all drank like fish
fights and arguments rang late into the night
Police visited twice, thrice weekly and it was known Jim burgled.
and was always doing time, when not drunk and fighting
Joan eldest girl was pregnant at sixteen and Tom fourteen had
done two stretches in juvenile detention
Last daughter Kelly was also to end up in the duff at sixteen

Amounts borrowed was now sizable, the odd fiver repaid
stolen items regularly offered and rejected by quiet couple next door
Invites to the black man to visit while Jim in jail politely declined
Come and have a drink with me and my young daughters
No thanks, got to go and cook, my Mrs would be returning soon.

The family from hell has turned the neighborhood to hell
constant break-ins all around
strange men coming and going, fights and noise, beer cans
for carpets, stairwells reeking of ****, Tom and friends and
Marijuana fumes graced the stairs and veranda.
Mrs Scottish and two young daughters constant smiling invitations
to black man next door, duly always deftly rejected.

Black man and Mrs decided to stop lending money
it was all going on beer and smoke and never paid back
By the end of the week, their car had been vandalized and four
wheels removed, racist leaflets started appearing on veranda.
No more smiling coyly invites, now just loud music and loud
intermittent bangs on walls from next door.
We must complain, we most report all this to the Landlords.
No, lets just ignore them, not worth the hassle.

Then it happened, black man arrives home one afternoon
and finds his front door ajar, they had been burgled.
Seething with anger he stormed next door to be met by Mrs S
'you ******* thieves have robbed me, how can you be so low,
after all we've done to try and help you. None of you work, You are a bunch of lazy
workshy, welfare scroungers, you are pathetic lowlife. why don't you go and get a job instead of burgling houses and getting drunk all day long
I will start a petition to move you away from the neighborhood.
You no-good non working class scums'  a disgrace and an affront to the hardworking working classes. You ******* racist bullies, I will show you, you can't
mess with me'

Mrs S smiled wickedly and said, you will see
'character assassination, public humiliation, we'll ruin your life and you'd wish you are dead by the time we finish with you and your chicken legs wife. I will show you who runs the manor in East London.'
You can't do that, black man replied, I have done nothing wrong, you are the bare-faced thieves, you shameless woman. We have had enough of you and your anti-social behaviour. You are not going to mess with us no more!

OH, YES! they can and by jove, they did.
Mrs S retorted' You are the foreigner here, you are the one that would be leaving the country
and going back to your Jungle'.
Black man called wife to tell her, she came home immediately
the police came, no evidence, here's a crime report, get your door
fixed. How about searching next door, we can't, no witnesses.
And then Black man's life changed FOREVER.

Should I write about the intimidation from other white families
in the neighborhood, should I write about how the Local Socialist
Party got involved, and launched a propaganda campaign about a black Conservative member dissing the Working Classes,  should I write about how one of his beloved dogs was
killed, should I write about a rumour campaign that black man was a wife-beater, a ****, a con man, a greedy parasite, should I write about sudden hostilities and bullying at his work place, how his wife was also sacked, about being randomly insulted and abused in the streets, about kids spitting on him, about being shunned inexplicably by locals
he's known for years. Should I write about outrageous fabrication, smears and humiliation.
Should I write about political victimization, about the black man 'who thinks he is better than us all,' about how a wedge was driven between him and his wife, till she broke and upped and left without warning,
should I write about how strangers shouted 'solidarity with the working Class' at him, should I write about daily torments and constant harassment everywhere he goes, should I write about Criminal gang stalking,
should I write about being informed they were going to ruin his career, ruin his marriage and ruin his reputation, check, all done. S I write about how they said they were going to chuck mud at him everywhere he went and blacken his name forever, should i write about pure isolation, about being made a target and being  hounded and stalked and disrespected everywhere. Should I write about how they stated they were going to drive him insane and drive him to suicide.

If so, WE WILL BE HERE ALL DAY.
Just  know that somewhere in London, a decent, law-abiding progressive, and innocent black man, is now on his own, broke, in debts and on Welfare benefits, unable to find a job, friendless and isolated, discredited and shunned.  He is still being stalked, harassed and hounded, round the clock. All for daring to stand up to CRIMINALS.

IS THERE JUSTICE IN THE WORLD?
IS THIS WHAT ENGLAND HAS BECOME?

The screaming
children of Gaza
torment the sleep
of a troubled world,
and remain a real-time
unending nightmare;
anointing The Levant’s
fevered brow
with a diadem of
incessant grief.

Gaza is a burning
ankh that sears the
madness of sorrow
upon Egypt’s skull.

Gaza,
an unblinking
third eye
of shame,
peers into
Lower Egypt’s
closed window
ever reproaching
it’s turbulent
conscience;
chiding fellow
Muslims with
the ugly memory
of abject affliction,
the endless images
of a living Guernica
suspended in the hell
of indefinite imprisonment
all Palestinians are forced
to suffer.

As Zionists ***** the
steep walls of Apartheid to
extend its occupation
of Palestine, it
condemns the youth
of Gaza to a life of
incarceration with no
possibility of parole;
hardening the hearts
and steeling the resolve
of a new generation of
militants to demolish the
walls and the wardens
that imprison them.

The Zionist jailers
bestow upon
Ishmael’s Children
phylacteries of shame,
wearing the rolled
prayers of wailing pain
scribed with bits of
dust from the
the broken walls of
demolished buildings
and desolate homes
beyond habitation,
now housing grief
of trampled souls,
forcing recitations
of deliverance
to Allah while
davening an
incessant drone
of anguish at
the Wailing Wall
of Resentment;
decrying the
blood lust of
undying acrimony,
victimization and
the slaughter of
innocents, carried on
with the imperial license
of state sanctioned impunity.


Father Ibrahim's
feuding children may
share a sacred paternity
but remain the
divided brothers
of different mothers;
stoking a sibling rivalry
more bitter then
Cain and Abel.

Our anguish
never dissipates,
the gnawing
impulse of empathy
to assist the distressed
of Gaza is dashed
by omnipotent
powers recusing
the ability to act.

Sympathy is
embargoed
in the black
obfuscation
of religious
partisanship
while timely
assistance
to aid the
distressed
lie netted in
blockades of
realpolitik
affinities.

Gaza, where
Hashim is granted
his eternal rest,
restlessly inhabits
his unknown grave
from the destitution of
his profaned homeland.

Ghazzat,  “the stronghold”
countlessly conquered,
falling to Roman Emperors,
Lionhearted Crusaders
Ottoman Caliphates,
and British Mandates;
slipping from Egypt’s
geopolitical grasp as
as a casualty of
The Six Day War.

Gaza is now a stronghold of
resent and desperation for a
desperate conquered people.

Ghazzat, the prized city of
the western Mediterranean,
a four star Phoenician port of
caravansaries now unable
to trade with any partners
due to ungodly blockades.

Gaza, has grown wholly
dependent on the largess
of UN aid and meager
subsistence portions
doled out by well
meaning NGO’s.

Gaza, the foot stool of
the Levant and surely
the pathway Father
Ibrahim, Jacob,
Joseph and Jeremiah
traveled to escape
Canaan's famine;
finding at the close
of their sojourn
a table set with the
plenteous bounty
the Blue Nile
unconditionally offered;
the veritable feast
of abundance,
the generous yields
of the blessed delta
that sustained the
Prophets of Judah
and a thousand
generations of the
Nile’s Children.

Gaza, the Achilles
heal of Middle East
peace, land of the
Canaanites, Philistines
and Old Testament
heroes.

Gaza, a fortress for
Philistines who
imprisoned the storied
Sampson, revered for
breaking the chains of
imprisonment and righteously
destroying a pagan temple
in a suicidal act of heroism.

Gaza, where the myths and
legends of rapacious
holy crusaders captured
the western imagination
with the chivalrous gallantry
of religious warfare and
valiant last stands of
Templar Knights employing
the tactical imperatives
of terrorism in service to their
higher God.

Gaza, an oasis
by the sea now
lies dry and brittle
as the precious Hebron
waters of Wadi Ghazza
are diverted to serve
the agriculture of
Judah; condemning
a dehydrated Gaza
panting of thirst
to an imposed drought
and a war of
self preservation
to remove
the dammed rivers
of justice controlled
by intractable powers
laying upstream beyond
Gaza’s mean borders.

The Qassams
lunched by Hamas
are desperate
expressions of
exasperated people,
eager to call
world attention
to the growing
insufferable plight
of a people living
in a perpetual
state of siege.

Its a modern day
David slinging rocks
against an armor
clad Goliath.

Each Katusha
serves as
a justification
for Zionist
intransigence
and condemns
any possibility
for peaceful
coexistence
of a Two State
Solution.

The pointless attacks
invite massive
disproportionate
retaliation and succeed
in prolonging and
increasing the
measure of Gaza’s
agony.

The mystic grace,
the divine power
of satyagraha
-a non-violent
response to the
cruel enforcement of
Apartheid- is Allah’s
way to secure the
moral high-ground
and the surest way
for Palestinians to
expose it’s unholy
adversaries innate
contempt for civil rights
and a refusal to
recognized the
shared humanity of
all of Father Ibrahim’s
wayward progeny and
recalcitrant prodigal sons.

Mubarak’s fall
has allowed the
Rafah Gate
to swing open again.

The concertina
wire that separates
Gaza and Egypt
has been removed.

The prisoners
of Gaza have
an open portal
of freedom.

It is a Day of
Jubilee, a day
of pardon for
for the inmates
of prisons built
for victims.  

It is a day of
possibility for peace.  

It is a day to declare an
Exodus from the land
of bitterness.

Humanity is
offered the hope
of escape from
the prisons of
acrimony, to
freely move across
the staid borders
of intractability
and exclusion.

The hearts and
minds of Palestinians
and Egyptians
are free to connect
and unite once again.

Liberation is
possible only
when we uphold
and honor the
affirmation
of all humanity.

Music Video:

Silk Road
We Will Not Go Down

Oakland
2/9/12
jbm

Land of the free
you seem to call it
But the freedom
only seems to fall
on one end of the spectrum
one side of the scale

And when the scale tries
so excruciatingly
to balance itself
When it comes crashing down
in an attempt to be heard,
to make a sound,

It is met with cries of outrage;
With a selfish victimization of,
“what about us?”
“don’t we matter too?”

but that’s not the point,
now is it?

The scale
isn’t screaming out any less
for the importance of
one side
by trying to give an inch of importance
to the disregarded other.


**Black Lives Matter.