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?

A mosque vandalized,
A Muslim family killed.
Where is this "freedom?"

Remember? Do you?
The verses of the Mahabharata,
Where Draupati begged to let her go,
Where being a wife of the Pandavas made her no different from the unmarried women.
Remember? Do you?
When inside 1 in 10 houses,
A little girl complains to her mum,  
It hurts me in there Maa.
Remember? Do you?
The night,
When a girl lay all naked and battered on the road,
When a friend of her's was as helpless as the lost kid at the course.
Remember? do you?
The nights when people marched with candles in their hands,
The days when we witnessed protests.
Days after days,
Months after months,
Years after years,
Didn't you,
All of you, tried to build us?
The ones who were too small to understand,
The ones who were capable enough to understand,
And the ones who understood what all this actually meant.
From the cheap comments passed
To the guidelines to dress-up,
You filled our heads,
With the thoughts which were never meant to be there.
From all those sad old lines to the new generation trends,
You made us cautious yet scared.
While there were dreams to be accomplished,
And words that were unsaid,
Your efforts to build us,
Made us question our own existence.
With every tantrum and argument we throw,
We have something for you to know, you know,
Caging us won't do us any good,
While letting us live without the not so needed guidelines will do.
Set us free and cage the ones who needs so,
For the day you would realise,
Is merely a *hypothetical concept you would know.

In one bright, rainless, warm, non-sombre and cloudless morning of April 2014,
Skirmishes began at ten in the morning, among the roaming street children
As if they were only playing hopscotch among themselves, and their mates,
It was an unfolding in the dust filled non tarmacked streets of Lodwar town,
Town located in the savannah desert belt of north western Kenya,
A non local police man who was on patrol shot dead a rioting local,
A hungry local had attempted to ****** a shot-gun from the policeman,
He shot him twice in the head, scattering whitish brain tissues all over,
He shot another local sympathizer of the riot in the leg, in the heel,
The remaining riff-raff of rioting locals took off on their heels, like rats,
Once picturized in the word-smithing power of James Herbert,
The hoards of local rioters, most of them motorbike riders, rushed back,
To their places of abode, known as Manyatta,
                                                  or poor hamlets, more sorriest than ghettos,
They pulled out their fellow manyatta dwellers
For military reinforcement
They came back in throngs
All armed with rusty guns
Swearing to **** all
By the brute guns,
All the non locals
Not from their tribe.


They rampaged a whole town
Mercilessly looting and plundering
Each and every shop, business vessel, all outlets
Of the non-locals, all the migrants; black and white,
Chinese and Arabs, Indians and Somalis, Just but to mention,
They looted while singing tribal war songs, shooting all the non locals
Identified by differences in outfits; especially loincloths, Ekijolong, etc
They shot non local women, children and vandalized their trade wares
Those with guns holding the police station hostage, those without guns looting shops
Some tried ******, but their uncircumcised ***** proved a snag in this satanic venture
With a sardonic remorse they stopped the terror of **** against womenfolk of non natives
Women folk of non local ethnicity, but still not safe as shooting followed without ruth,
Puncturing the *******, ****** and bladders, spilling and splashing blood on each gunshot,
Human wailing, crying, hysterical running, farting, falling, and brute of the gun’s cannon
Gripped the town in a flower of curling dark smoke from burning tires,
Gunmen walked from door to door in a feat of amok anger,
Asking names of each person on their way
To decipher out the tribe or the clan
Lest they mayhem a native son
Instead of the non- local
Which they are bound to ****
By dutifully releasing
Deathly bullets
Into the head
Of emoit.

nobody
in the whole ******* world
has the power over you
that you do
**** that guy who broke into
your holy body,
vandalized your insides
used his hand
to crack stained glass windows
he smashed what you were born with
but know
he did not break you
there is beauty
in rebuilding
gentrify what he left condemned
you are still standing
you are still here
the power is in you
and boy,
does resilience
glisten
when you wear it
**boldly

Lean not on to me
O' dear one
I am weary and old
All day in the sun

Standing, bearing
The heat and rain
Abused and vandalized
Pinned with pain

My branches shade
To one and all
Now too old to stand
I am ready to fall

No leaves, no greenery
Only dead branches stand
Birds just pass by
As I am stuck on this land

An woodcutter showed
No mercy today
Chopped off all branches
And took all my pieces away

Now I am just rooted
Like an ugly dying pole
Wishing for a great storm
To release my tortured soul...

©sim

My arms are a tigers tail.
My body is a temple, or was.
Should be.
Though I have vandalized it.
I could not kneel before the King
And say to Him, I have done wrong.
I refused.

A swelling rage infused me.
I slashed the walls, the translucent skin of my Temple.
I chipped away at its beauty.
Now my arms are a tigers tail-
And my heart is non-existent
*My Temple Has Burned