Sally takes a knife
down her local alley
she’s looking for a bad man
making up a tally
he’s easy to find
with her carrot powered eyes
he’ll say he’s not to blame
but Sally knows
he lies
so she slices in
between thin ribs
she made the knife herself
for all of them
like him.
I found some hot cross buns,
almost three years past
their sell-by date.
Greying, solid, stodgy,
made to a recipe created
in 1940, or possibly earlier.
Their lightness is all gone,
their golden softness.
Yet they survive,
for they are vacuum-packed,
tightly insulated
from all outside influences.
I wonder whether
they packed themselves.
But put your ear, your nose
to the packet. Can you detect
a yeasty whisper, a leak of conspiracy,
an odour of pseudo-sanctity?
If i just pierce the clingfilm wrapping
– like this –
the sour-sweet efflatus hits you
like decades-old resentment.
In there, the winey, bog-brown fruit
is fermenting.
I do not accept your bulldogs leash around my neck
I am the son of a toolmaker and know this trade
take that sword and keep it from my shoulder
I am the head of state you want to cut off,
my tongue of wet fire is mine alone,
letters lathed from a world I read –
your unhappy endings of empire.
Take those jewels Elizabeth
put them in the eyes of a
colonial slave boy and
wait like the vulture
on Athena posters
hanging like poets
with poems that
burn like heretics
fireflies of light
poems you can
never, ever
understand
my poor
poor
Ma’am.
Take your stolen sword and jewels from India’s heart,
tame a poet of skin not white to be anthems slave.
I am with Zephaniah and I have skin like nylon
It creases with daily pressures of life Ma’am
ages like Grenfell unseen and listen…
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reubenwoolley 