Image by Steev Burgess
Over the Rainbow
On any given morning that the world
slaps hate into its blue self
in a sedated town overlooked by factories,
that contain their rusty resentment,
a woman will bottle green messages –
make for the canal with hopes
of the sea and an answer.
A man waged only in minimums
must shelter behind indigo shades
because his eyes bleed a queer fuchsia.
There is nothing but beige in the brickwork
and grey rivers flooded
by all that reign and anyone
on the wrong side of brown
will be struck by white lightening.
Hope could be golden, at rainbow’s end,
but it arrives with the asking
and the asking is a yellow brand
a colour few can wear, but seek to,
until gargling sweet and sour the dusk
growls the day’s obituary.
The charcoal hours smell a rat
as the black dogs run with the neon dogs –
a shuffled pack, guttered magnificent
in all of their mortal cravings,
preferring to inhale each other’s shit
over the stench of sterility.
Dawn is never an advent
simply an orange grimace
another bronze effigy
overshadowed by its violet past.
The Usual Suspects (from Priti Patel’s statements to Parliament, April/June 2022)
I will make a statement
the children will translate,
control our borders … by removing the demand
simple demands to be moved to safety.
We cannot sustain …
cannot sustain.
Our capacity to help … may be relocated to Rwanda
having no more capacity,
who is considered will be screened and interviewed –
will consider suicide,
our new plan … it will deter …make it easier to remove.
every question is a noose
controlling immigration,
faces, names, talents, histories
both legal and illegal
asylum seekers, migrants, refugees.
Last night, we aimed to relocate the first people
by state-backed trafficking.
However… the European Court of Human Rights,
rejected by the Right,
want to make something absolutely clear,
blinded by the light,
anyone released will be tagged while we progress
migration as a crime.
We cannot accept this … It makes us less safe as a nation.
In a safe life it is hard to imagine
the usual suspects campaign against … the will of the British.
People setting out on suspicious seas,
the inevitable, last-minute challenges,
ask, as if in their last minutes
systems … they are firm … they are fair
will you then, without a heart, consign us?
