You Can Feel Uneasy
Here we are, sitting in the pub
Of a Friday evening,
A friendly cluster of garnered chairs,
One round in and more to follow;
The chatter is split, a couple here,
A trio there, some just listening in.
Then the topic changes:
‘That Corbyn, thank God he’s gone!’
A couple of heads nod, one or two
Look uneasy.
‘Why’s that?’ we say.
We know what most are thinking –
‘Here we go!’ – but we persevere;
After all, we didn’t introduce
This topic, this simple affirmation
Of the mid-Surrey status quo.
The speaker either doesn’t see,
Or chooses to ignore a warning
Frown here, a deft toe-nudge there:
‘Well imagine if he’d become PM!’
‘Do you object to his policies?’
‘You can’t have someone like him
Running the country! What about
National security? He’s always liked
Mixing with terrorists! Putin
Wound run rings round him!
Besides he’s anti-Semitic isn’t he?’
Where to start?
‘Do you think it’s possible
That you dislike Corbyn
Because you’ve been persuaded
He’s an inept, dangerous racist
By those who fear a genuine
Commitment to peace and justice –
In Palestine too – and to sharing
Our resources more equitably?’
‘Anyway’, someone pipes up
With feigned but earnest goodwill,
‘These are not problems we’re going
To solve tonight. Religion and politics
And all that! Let’s keep it light.’
And there you have it, unwitting
Censorship by the status quo whose
Semi-lubricated proponents sweep
Under a pub carpet mottled by stains
Any dissent by damning it as ‘politics’.
The conversation reverts to harmless,
Mundane matters of unreasonable
Relations and neighbourhood gossip,
And people are visibly more at ease;
It’s almost as if we hadn’t spoken,
Excepting that the collective memory
Has us filed away as likely misfits:
‘Keep off politics and they’re ok.’
The evening ends well as nothing
More of consequence has been said.
Just a Bit of Fun
If in a spare moment you pen a ditty
On a torn scrap of paper from a folder,
It really needn’t be especially witty
To give a smidgeon of joy to an older,
Bearded man, say, a retired bookseller.
Its theme can be flippant or light,
Improvised, or plucked from the air
Like a bird of prey nailing the plight
Of a scurrying mouse slow to beware
The risks of comprising a meal.
But this is getting too heavy and raw,
It was only intended as a diversion!
So let’s reign ourselves in and be sure
To close with a smile, not a perversion
Of all that is soft, soothing and calm.
Set aside your worries, flick a switch,
And toy with words that rhyme,
If you’re pushed for time, just ditch
All ambition to impress, it’s no crime
To experiment, to play just for fun.
Politics, What’s That?
It’s easier to say what politics is not
Than to imprint its name on the mind,
Legibly, once and for all.
It’s obviously not inserting a cross
On a ballot paper every four years,
Or watching party political broadcasts,
If anyone still does that.
Even canvassing, padding the streets
Or handing out leaflets on a stall
To evangelise a chosen cause
Don’t seem to capture it (or them).
You might be a candidate, peeping
Over the parapet with or without
Due diligence, but then …
So what is politics if not one or other
Of these activities?
Well, it is these things, but always
More than any one of them!
Politics includes them without
Being exhausted by them.
No more is politics ‘doing charity’,
Educating, writing, even protesting.
For politics is not only doing,
Cannot be satisfied by activities;
Politics is being your cause
Every day when the sun rises till
It sinks at dusk and night falls.
A Book
A book is an opening, a Nania-like
Burrow to another world, and each
Volume leads to its own domain:
Cognitive, emotive, forms of life
With something novel about them.
Gadamer was shrewd to speak
Of a fusion of horizons, a coming
Together, a reconciliation, of oldthink
And newthink; a fresh beginning.
A theory buried deep gives shape
And context to unfolding thoughts;
Studies, details long forgotten,
Seeps uninvited from the unconscious
To lend a view grit and substance.
Fiction is different again, for novels
Can take your hand and lead you
To times unknown, lands unvisited;
The honeysuckle fragrance of a poem
Can insinuate itself into the brain
And lift the spirit, while another
Will tug you down into the trenches
And leave you wet, muddy, wounded.
You may not know it yet, but books
Are part of your becoming who, one day
When the dust finally settles, you will be,
For only then, as Sartre declares,
Will your essence grow stable.
A Meeting of Minds
I said this
And he said that,
He’s taking the piss
The half-arsed twat!
Black Lives Matter
If you are white and you think it through
It’s a good start.
There are books, articles collecting dust in rows
Of journals waiting in vain to enlighten.
But it’s not enough.
I lectured on race, or ethnicity as we
Were then counselled to call it,
For the best part of five decades, calling out
Structural racism, not least in medicine,
That venerable institution in whose mouth
Butter would never dare to melt.
I spoke of centuries of imperial warfare,
Crystalized in the death traps of slave ships
Destined for the plantations, and the echoes
Of genocide that still resonate in Britain.
But it’s not enough.
I was aware that Britain’s black families
Cannot simply sidestep the hurt, pain and anger
Of that tribal stigma that informs and provokes
Stop-and-search, false arrests, the scandal
Of Windrush, the Home Office of May and Patel:
Savage, wanton, life-severing deportations!
But it’s not enough.
Why is it not enough?
Aren’t I angry enough?
No, it’s not that: I’m alluding to the gap
Between the scholar’s knowledge
And that of lived experience;
Scholarship teaches: it’s a brain job.
Experiential knowledge of blackness
Penetrates the skin, sits among the organs,
Nibbling at the core of what it is to be.
It is beyond time to listen.