Holiday

I wrote this poem many years ago in response to the Syrian refugee crisis and after reading Home by Warsan Shire.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat,
unless the water is safer than the land

My poem is not going to rock the poetry world but I remembered it this week because of what is happening to those poor people trying to cross the Channel to get to the UK. 

HOLIDAY

We’re going on holiday
Mum, Dad and I.
On a sailing boat, across the sea
To an island, nearby.

We’ve a backpack each,
I’ve packed my Teddy
Why’s Mum crying?
Everything’s ready.

Dad says we’re leaving late at night
Cause that is much more fun.
It’s so cold, look – the stars are out
Why are they starting to run?

There’s many other people here,
are they all coming too?
No-one looks that happy,
I really need the loo.

That’s not a sailing boat at all,
but a rubber blow-up thing.
It looks like the toy I have in my bath
where I splash and play and sing.

The sea is dark, it looks so big
The waves are very high.
Mum and Dad are quiet.

I’m scared. I don’t know why.

Strange men shouting
Children crying
In the boat, now!
Someone is lying.

I need the toilet, Mum says wait
I want my bed and toys
I shouldn’t be up this late, I think
I’m just a little boy.

Men shoving
Ocean, heaving.

Boat is full.

Boat is leaving.

Wee runs straight down my leg.
Tears fill my eyes.
It’s raining now, I’m so cold
Inside, it’s warm and dry.

Mum wades in the water,
her trousers are now all wet.
‘Mum! Mum! I shout
I'm not having much fun yet.

Dad grabs me.
Screaming, I kick and shout.
My backpack falls off,
Ted falls out.

The boat’s now full, we’re in the dark
Silence fills the air.
Is this a holiday we’re on?
I want my teddy bear.

Boat is leaking
Mum is screaming
Ted is gone
Am I dreaming?

RIP

March for Europe

Today London marches to protest the results of the Brexit referendum.  Over the past week, the world has watched our union unravel at the seams. Not only the union with our European neighbours but the union within our country, the United Kingdom. The Conservative and Labour parties are both in disarray. We have no real leader and whilst people cling to hope, despair is not far from the surface either.

I am at a writers retreat this weekend hosted by the Arvon Foundation. It is a sanctuary; tranquil and beautiful amidst the lush Shropshire countryside. I am sifting through old and new work trying to unravel and and tease out new stories and words. I found this old writing exercise from many years ago. A villanelle based around the election race between Obama and Hilary Clinton.  Somehow it seems fitting for the spirit of the pro EU march today so I will share it here:

Villanelle  #1

‘What a historic moment,’ the broadcaster said

She cried as she watched the election unfold.

‘Obama’s the man. He’s got the street cred.’

Thirty years ago, she’d gone to buy bread,

then walked back out into the cold.

'All blacks should be shot,' the baker had said.

And now naught for nothing had her ancestors bled.

She heard the echoes of voices of old.

‘Obama’s the man. He’s got the street cred.’

It was a moment for hope, but instead

she couldn’t forget the time she’d been told

‘All blacks should be shot,’ the baker had said.

The next morning she opened the paper and read

that to vote, people had queued for hours in the cold.

‘Obama’s the man. He’s got the street cred.’

What good is the hope that fills you with dread?

A movement for peace with their flag soaked in red

‘All blacks should be shot,’ the baker had said.

‘Obama’s the man. He’s got the street cred.’

In solidarity. Good luck and here's to a peaceful protest

Goodbye To All That

Since the results of Brexit have come through with 51.9% of the UK voting to leave the EU, I feel that the terra firm upon which I stood so recently is rapidly disintegrating beneath me. I am on unstable territory.

My frame of reference. The place I call home. The axis against which I based my choices on where in the world to live has irrevocably tipped over. For good. And I know I am not the only one to feel this way.

In the months leading up to the Brexit referendum, the sensationalist scare tactics used by both the Remain and Leave parties left me cold. However I was in no doubt that I would vote in. To leave the EU, an alliance which I regard as having immeasurably more benefits than disadvantages for the world at large, seemed to be sheer stupidity.

When the polls called it a neck and neck race, I think most did not really believe we would ever leave the EU. Or maybe that was just me. With my head in the sand. In a state of denial.

After all, why would a UK citizen vote for insularity over cosmopolitanism. Competition over alliance. Borders up rather than bridges built. Why would someone think it is stronger to stand alone rather than together?

Why?

Nationalism is a dangerous tool to wield in a world which needs to work together. Our generation is a global one and the technological access we have cuts down borders of geography, distance and time. None of us are isolated from one another if we choose not to be and if we have the access to technology. It is political artifice to create a golden vision of insularity and sell it as strength.

It is a lie.

Which is common enough in politics but this lie is one that British citizens will be suffering the consequences of for generations to come.

And me. All the reasons I love living in London are to be tested. The feeling of being a part of the world at large. The freedom of access. The inclusivity, diversity, dynamism and integration are all under threat. It may not be all doom and gloom but at a visceral level, this just feels wrong.

As John Donne wrote in fricken 1624:

No man [sic] is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee

Will we ever learn?

Still I Rise

The indomitable Maya Angelou put a spring in my step yesterday when I was feeling particularly knackered and fed up with the symptoms of pregnancy:

Still I Rise


You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise
I rise
I rise.

-Maya Angelou




What a woman!



Not All Chinese Are Gutless

My dad is a professional hobbyist. This aspect of his personality benefitted me hugely growing up as I got to participate in whatever had captured his fancy. Fishing, building construction, tennis, stamp collecting (I passed on that one), table tennis, dancing and so on. But for as long as I've known him, his love for the written word, politics and history has remained constant.

Dad contributes regularly to an online Chinese poetry site based in Macau. Recently he posted a poem in tribute to ths year's Nobel peace prize winner Liu Xiabo who is currently imprisoned in China for his non-violent struggle for human rights. Dad called today to tell me that he had been criticised and accused online as being an anti-revolutionary for what he wrote in his poem.

Liu Xiabo

I warned him to be careful on his trip to China at the end of the year. I said maybe his phone was bugged as we spoke. After all, he was a counter-revolutionary now!

Here is the poem below. It loses a lot in English translation, rather like comparing an ice sculpture with a lego house but you'll get the gist:

In Praise of the Liu Xiabo - Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Praise, for you have gone to prison with courage.
Not all Chinese are gutless.
You refused to go into exile
although now you are in such a fatal enterprise.
Heaven and earth tremble beneath your dignity
while the termites put on their show.
In the chill of the morning,
I behold your withering statue
as the rising current, rages on.

Personally I think he shoud re-title it - Not All Chinese are Termites

Javed Akhtar

Last night I had a work event on at the Nehru Centre which I was not too keen on going to. The event was a poetry reading and Q & A with Javed Akhtar; a famous poet, lyricist and scriptwriter from India. My reluctance stemmed from the fact that the reading was going to be in Urdu - a language which I do not know except for one word - Shukria. My boss hustled me along nonetheless.

Just go for a bit, she said. Then you can slip out.

Yeah right, I thought. I'm going to be stuck there for the whole night.

When Javed came onstage, I immediately felt a sense of familiarity about him. A few minutes it occured to me why. He was a male version of my boss. Except from a distance, he seemed less tired.

He started to speak in English. He welcomed the audience and made witty jokes. His eyes sparkled and he looked liked he was constantly smiling on the inside. He was one of those people who when onstage, light up. Effortlessly.

I sat up straighter in my seat.

Javed recited his poetry for about 30 minutes. In that time he spoke mainly Urdu but from time to time, he spoke some lines in English. Maybe about 10 sentences. When that happened something in me lit up too.

During the Q & A, someone asked him about what it was like to be an artist to which he replied, Schizophrenic. I was still laughing when he went onto explain that he regards creative endeavour as a paradox. Being that you have to keep loose and open and fluid for the ideas to arrive but when they come, you must then force them into an infrastructure and operate to a rigid system to deliver those ideas.

He talked about form and the importance of training which he summarised by saying: You have to learn to draw a straight line before you can bend it.

Someone else asked him what his source inspiration was to which he replied, Deadlines.

I stayed till the very end. I couldn't have left as I was glued to my seat.

Eventually my boss hustled me out in the same way she had hustled me in.

Wait one moment, she said, I have to say Hello.

So we stood with a crowd of others and waited for Javed to exit the auditorium. It seemed that everyone wanted to pay their respects.

When he came out he went straight over to my boss. His eyes lit up upon sight of her and they smiled at each other and exchanged greetings in Urdu. I was so delighted to see them two of them together but I wasn't sure why. He smiled over at me, probably wondering why there was a lone Chinese person present amongst a crowd of Indians. I beamed back. I felt so lucky to have heard him speak. What a guy. Magic.

When we left, I asked her what she had said to him.

I told him off for giving me a fake mobile number the last time we met.

We laughed and went home. Inspired and smiling on the inside, and out.

Thank you Mr Akhtar. Shukria.