Normal family life
making tea, seeing
school reports, fleeing
artillery-bombardment,
civil-war
persecution for
nothing more than
the neighbourhood
you live in, next-door
to where they
used to live.
Trek those thousand or three miles
to be discussed and disgusted,
dissected by a Great Brutish press,
alive only to public condemnation
of those oh so sorry
for escaping persecution,
for taking flight in the midst
of incidental
governmental
aggression, or strategy.
All speak with pointed ideas
of how to suppress
a small people
bred in drought
grown and then outgrown
by insurrection.
“Fuck them.”
Why should we share spare rooms?
Aren’t we half-full, or half-empty?
Square footage,
a film showing moral ambivalence
and hands dirtied by newspaper print
vying for space
with the blood all over our fingertips,
on our lips.
Wombs weary of children
alive by way of normality and equality
but now dead on a shore,
forever more, war
wounds healing but
seeping forever… more.
Sure. Send them fences,
send them dogs.
Send them tents and tear gas and
Hope
beyond hope you never alight a train
weary but cap-a-hand and
fearful, dismal, tearful,
wearisome, of a sneered
belittled welcome.
Welcome me and I you,
with a blanket. With a hug.
Tighter than is appropriate.
You’re welcome.
Everybody’s welcome.
Everybody’s welcome, and everyone can do their bit to help. Click here for details of what you can do to make a difference to the lives of people who have suffered more than enough to last a dozen lifetimes.
March with London on 12th September at Marble Arch as part of the ‘Refugees Welcome Here’ National Day of Action.
Book of Pye 