Risks

She, your daughter or perhaps your niece,
has worked with refugees,
sewn on limbs blown off by mines,
read homelessness in women’s eyes –
the pain of the dispossessed.


You, an insurance man, say
‘they should better have weighed
the risks, avoided the temptation
of escape, stayed at home
for goodness sake!’


Safe and bored in suburban freedom,
you cannot imagine danger
surrounding your home
with paralysing fear
a time-bomb slowly ticking.




previously published on Catapult to Mars

Shells

(Morecambe Bay, February 2004)

Grey skies, cold and bitter wind
a share of a damp mattress
in an unheated room.

You follow orders from the brother
to the man who let your cousin die
in a truck approaching Dover.

Your parents wait back home
with nothing but pain and a photo of you
smiling through the English rain.

Shells held to your ear
murmured promises, but they are empty
here in devil’s beach.

Treacherous sands shift
impossible to know where is safe
where will suck away your life.


Speaking freely for Read Write Poem

reposted for Refugee Week

Home

Home is a place you won’t see again
Home’s what you lost when you boarded the boat
Home is the songs you sing to keep sane
Home is the seeds in the hem of your coat

Home is the warm soft bread that you bake
Home is the old-country clothes that you make
Home is the musical language you speak
Home is the garden where you plant the seeds

Home is the tree that grows from your seeds
Home is the shelter and shade of the tree
Home is the love in your children’s eyes
Home is the future here to which they aspire.


Home for Refugee Week
(cross-posted on Crafty Green Poet)

What does Home mean to You?

From film festivals to football tournaments, comedy nights to carnivals, exhibitions, workshops, parties and much, much more, Refugee Week Scotland (15-21 June 2009) is an exciting programme of events happening across the country to celebrate diversity and raise awareness of refugee issues.

This year the theme of Refugee Week is HOME. For many refugees and asylum seekers, a new home in Scotland means safety from persecution and a life without fear. But what does home mean to you?

Home for me is Edinburgh, Crafty Green Boyfriend, goth clubs, the Filmhouse bar and of course the natural environment. You can read more about that last over on Crafty Green Poet, which is my natural blogging home.

I'll be posting poetry on the theme of Home during Refugee Week.

Meanwhile what does home mean to you? If you're in Scotland and want to include your thoughts on home in your blog, please include the first two paragraphs and link to Refugee Week Scotland 09 in your post.

Scots in Malaŵi

I recognised my student Rose
by the Bank of Scotland t-shirt she chose
to wear to class before her uniform arrived.

I found my way around the map
by following traces of a certain chap
called Livingstone as we have presumed.

From Mzuzu to Malindi
the place is full of Scots of inde-
pendent spirit and enquiring mind.

Even Banda was a Scot
by formation as near as not.

But the shops sell Coca Cola and never Irn Bru.




previously published in my pamphlet Bougainvillea Dancing

for more about the connections between Scotland and Malawi, visit the Scotland Malawi Partnership website.

Hyperlinking my poetry for Read Write Poem. The best idea is to read the poem all the way through and then follow the links to find out more. I'm not sure how much creative, rather than informative value there is in adding hyperlinks to poetry, but i think its worth looking into. What do you think?

St Cuthbert's Churchyard, Edinburgh

More photos from the same walk on Crafty Green Poet here.

Not in Our Name

There were mutterings that each day grew louder,
signs and portents that we refused to believe.
Local militia were organizing and drilling
getting ready to answer the call should it come.
Not that people thought that it would come.
They believed, as they hoped,
that something would be done to prevent war…….
As for those others who prophesied and prayed for it,
who wanted the vials of God's wrath uncorked,
they got what they wanted.
Their prayers were answered;
the land was drenched in blood.
But for the most of us
we did not.




Found poem from:
A Virginia Girl in the Civil War, 1861-1865: Being a Record of the Actual Experiences of the Wife of a Confederate Officer: Ed. by Myrta Lockett Avary

For Read Write Poem