Refugee: Poems Of Courage

I saw them at the YMCA in Kenya, their worried Gaze betraying the sadness of displacement, Brought about by climatic conditions, resource  Dislodgements for profit, loss of lands, homes and Forests, oil, gas and diamonds… uranium, more.  Foreign investors seemed to help with the left Hand, while supporting armed conflicts

The words are not made welcome: If you’re seeking ‘seeking political asylum’ ….it got jettisoned overboard the mass of migrants rocked the boat. When they shut down the cheesemongers invested our pensions in the warmongers 'collateral damage' caused System Overload and sent Go Home Vans to collect

Dear prospective citizen  thank you for your application  a State response will soon be sent but here’s mine: I hope this soil will not for long  be foreign to your feet that my weather  will be your weather that my cities will offer their freedom  my countryside the right

What would you take  If abruptly displaced? Try to keep dry  In plastic zip lock bags? What would you pack  In your life on your back? How heavy would it be to carry? Would there be time for sentimentality? First step snaps  A wedding day  Grandma as she fades away

Once, my love, you wrote, 'We lived in a Mother and Child Home in Jaffa for a time.' You saw little of your soldier father, more of the nuns. You told me people were kind, you picked up a bit of Arabic - then you left in a big

we came to a green land by flowing water / set up our tent arrogance of homemaking / pretence of comfort men who belonged / basked in midday sun / spread their anger on rocks in the river anger fully fed and playful / with lazy eye open / with curious ear cocked danger here a

Jaded by weary contentment?   A too orderly agenda? Fretting about abandonment?       Or a tailspin of surrender?      Suffering too much Overwhelm? Can’t transcend the annual mire? Try cold water swimming     the fix that’s sure to inspire Or ocean row for charity  – unlock the bolder you Parade veneers and sponsor

After Bashar al-Assad’s bomb had shattered his apartment the old man slowly took his tobacco pouch from the right-hand jacket pocket filled his pipe and lit it as he drew the warm smoke into his lungs it anaesthetised his pain he blew the dust from the battered

They are the citizens of nowhere The stateless homeless masses Ring fenced as if they are toxic As they flee from fire and sword They must long for some stability Yet their roots find barren soil Bureaucrats, then play for time And complete another file We extend a tepid welcome

A Somali family decided to flee seeing their child’s hand destroyed by a bomb he was playing with. A family from Sierra Leone decided to flee because their child saw someone’s hand chopped off. Teachers here tell how new children won’t stop hiding under desks in case

Far now from Eden, memory almost lost Of what we were and of the shameful deed, The crime, for which we suffer. Listen to me. Your father has forsaken you. Come down from that cross, Jesus. Admit the truth. God’s, not mankind’s, was the original sin. Teach us

There’s a dead rat beside the bins by the tables laid out with curries rice and bread gaffer taped paper cloth flapping in the wind like a tattered prayer flag where the boys sit on the railings full of bravado and hopeless dreams scuffed trainers dusty and wet pinched