The English Refugee

For a careless moment, suspend your disbelief;
Put aside the grim cares of Gaza, Ukraine, Syria and Iran.
Perhaps imagine changing the colour of your skin!
Have courage; bend your mind to the feeble politics of man.

However hard it is, imagine yourself upon a human tide,
Of refugees who may yet be distant in their plight.
Be not arrogant and say, ‘It wouldn’t happen here’,
Suspend your disbelief and, for now, assume it might.

Imagine poor Britain amid monstrous tumult and aflame,
And a cold-hearted Wales has, at last, built its Trumpish wall.
You learn from the BBC you’re among an English ‘swarm’,
Oh, how the corrupted politicians wring their hands appalled.

When you fled your home to land upon our golden shore,
How hard you fell among the dreary lexicon of refugees.
Criminals! Boat people! Immigrants! Send them back!
Fly them to Rwanda, where none may hear your pleas!

What innocence brought you to your dreadful impasse?
Did you fail to love the Party, or are you merely poor,
Perhaps you’re a woman or worship some benighted god,
Did the Powers of Reason forbid that you love him or her?

Ne’er mind what flimsy excuse defines your difference,
We’ll scorn your labour’s taxes that pay for our society.
You, a labourer, a teacher, a manager, must now stand idle,
Guiltless but entombed within our smug and heartless polity.

We so dislike ‘sponging’ illegal English refugees like you!
Some bemoan you as foul beasts, guilty of imagined sins.
Others fear you’ll steal our jobs and crowd our homely streets,
Or, without rhyme or reason, even fear the colour of your skin!

Now you’re condemned to roam as a wandering beggar,
Suffering in the burgeoning flood of a pitiful human tide,
Would you have us stand against you at our ballot box?
‘No,’ you’d say, ‘cry welcome, and put your fears aside!’

Photo: Jonathan Ramalho on Unsplash














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