~
Saturn Jupiter Mars,
three blind mice running
up the clock to find freedom.

starlight stairs in abyss,
cities of the interior ring
carry a dangerous cargo: citizens.

t-minus one/this is fear

I am no astronaut,
I'm a refugee, bleeding hands pressed
tight to the barbed-wired fence.

we play charades from the window,
lunar phases keening
in the tender light of these infant wars.

t-minus one/this is fear

farewell threshold on laudanum,
the grifted gift of the Joe Blakes
painted from memory.

the far off observation
telescoping my fear, leading me
to believe I'm hiding in plain view.
~

A nation is not of land nor borders, nor people
Israel dispersed and vanished, Jews remain
Mongols destroyed, yet the land is Ishmael's
Once there were seventy nations, today only one

Where do people go
When they are dispossessed?
When the home they know
Is no longer seen as theirs,
When their beds are tossed out,
And those boxes beneath the stairs
Regarded as trash by the soulless ****
Whose only motive is greed?
I have seen images of them in a group,
Walking down a road to nowhere,
Or out on desert sand, wandering.
Where can they go and not be harassed
By owners with no sympathy?
What boat will carry them to another shore
Where they are met with friendship
And not seen as enemies?
How strange and terrible to see them,
All walking in the same way,
Heads down and shoulders bent,
Many carrying a child
Or remnants of a home enfolded.
When they reach borders,
They are stopped and questioned,
Crowded, as are sheep in a pen.
So many are turned away
And some, desperate they become,
Board small boats with promises
To take them to freedom,
Only to founder and sink,
So that the sea becomes
Their last, dark home.
Others consider themselves lucky
To find a tent or metal van
Which they must take away
From those with property,
And keep moving, herded
Like those same sheep,
Yet now almost wild,
Huddling together with strangers
Near a fire in vast and empty lands
That play slow and vivid sunsets
To soothe the rootless host?
They tell each other stories
Of their home or hard journeys,
Give counsel to evade the dogs
That prey on those who wander.
And on those nights in endless lands,
And a dome not veiled by earthly light,
But dazzling the wanderers
With millions of shimmering stars,
That sends dreams of others gone astray
And they lament their fate as their own,
As unknown brothers and sisters,
Who, bewildered, weep for them as well.

I don’t know what will heal the world
see the colours of hope unfurled
maybe we should ban all flags
the universal rags
of sovereignty
those emblems of pride
which divide
what part belongs to you or to me
where even the sea is chopped into bits
so it fits very neatly and oh so completely
into tiny bites
with regards to fishing rights
that say where we can sail
you can go to jail
or face a huge fine
for dangling your line
into someone elses pond
we are way too fond of the
walls that were provided
by any empire
who decided
it should all subdivided
so it could take the best
and fling out the rest
like meat to a dog
while they hogged the mineral wealth
that they took by stealth
how proudly they planted their pennant
became the sitting tenant and saw it wave
over the graves of the people they had enslaved
pretend separation of each earthly nation
what is it for?
to stop us going to war?
we can be entirely sure
that wouldn’t work
because it’s happened before
maybe we need a long cold drink
and a post-pandemic think
about what we could do
to improve our sprawling human zoo
and bridge a divide that has become way too wide
it won’t work, it’s political suicide
but consider the millions who have died
did the virus follow orders
or stop at any borders
no, it jumped all the silly dotted lines
that we use to define what is yours from what is mine
and after all if not under one God, we are under one sky
so we could at least give it a try!

the cities
redraw their borders and
fragment their spaces
into small cubes:
apartments,
studios,
and duplex houses.
and you,
with a thousand windows open
in windows,
your emoji hands,
and your microphone muted.

boom.


that's it.
that's the poem.

I can stay and die
or I can try to go where angry folk don’t want me

Death, or raging pink faces
is a choice of sorts,
but still no place, no home

So, beheading, or maybe hanging,
lynched by dragging,
or if lucky, shot alone,

versus locking up in a green walled facility,
****** as it may be,
until someone takes a moment to judge me safe,
is luxury

Or maybe I’ll be deported,
doomed,
I struggle to see your view against me

As a young brown man I know I’m done,
I might have a degree in medicine
or years of fixing cars or houses, horses,
understand trade or charity

It won’t matter
when my photofit
reminds you of another brown man
who blew himself up or lashed out with a knife,
for a misread life and afterlife

A few white lives will always tip the scale
where hundreds,
thousands,
millions of ours,
despite your fears
will not prevail

Some borders can not be moved with fingers. Some borders are moved by the will, wish, struggle, everyday struggle.
Drop by drop of blood, drop by drop of sweat, drop, tear, ocean.

I no longer want to try to move them. From now on I tear them down with my bare hands, fingers scratched to the bones, I bite and rip with my teeth until I'm left alone in the wasteland.
Borders do not exist. I dig out all feelings that were hidden, pushed aside, forgotten, shoved under the rug, tamed. I pull out anger, hatred and bitterness from the depths of my soul, I release them to roam free, I open Pandora's box and let them all out to create chaos, to destroy and to hate, to rage and ravage until all that's left is one big and empty nothing, until I, myself am left empty and clear, and free.
An empty paper sheet, something that has yet to start, something that's about to become, something that breaths and sings and screams and exists, something that still just threatens to conquer the world, confident, with a carefree, rebellious grin on the face.
Something wild and indocile, something that doesn't care, something that threatens to become in spite of everything, something that doesn't care about your opinion, because it does not exist for you, it does not exist to be liked by you, it does not exist to be appropriate, to fit in, to comply, to please you.
That something doesn't need you to exist.
It exists in spite of you, in spite of the world, just for itself.

Trains don't run
Planes don't fly
Cars & buses come to borders and reverse
I'm bumping into myself
trying to tell her
I miss her

Films are lame
Music's bland
art is feeble & inert
and none of the books on my shelf
can make me forget
that I miss her

City's bare
shops are closed
someone's getting reimbursed
I await the government's help
since I've declared
that I miss her

Flat is clean
dinner's cooked
and this hangover is a curse
Now that I've allowed myself
beyond all hope
to miss her