Refugee crisis: poem
Journey
Festive lights float above the streets below
as the bus starts, stops and starts again
on the journey through town. Upstairs a hubbub
of world languages that resemble an orchestra
warming up. The occasional cymbal crash
of a mobile phone breaks the aural warmth.
It is home here and we feel safe so we dream
of monsoons, rivers, islands and the stars.
On Oxford Street a one legged man in white shorts
begs outside a Body Shop, old wooden crutches
to emphasise his plight. Crutches that speak of
another time, the train to Dover and an earlier war.
Our little world is well lit up as we pass through
a perpetual cool Britannia where style is for sale.
Around us the black cabs bully the red buses, a sign
that there is a gap between the gaudily dressed shops
and a war of salvation that is to be delivered courtesy
of a Pandora’s Box of suited rats, who want for nothing
but a conscience. The grass of Parliament Square
is slippery underfoot as the fiery speeches float above.
As one we have lights and some peace at Christmas
but for them it will be where to lay this broken body
or where to lay that broken body. Then weep.
