Sprung deep between the cracks of the slabs in Peckham Rye
come the sprigs of empires children their old masters to defy.
Here where Blake saw angels where shepherds quenched a thirst,
the outcast and the stolen are reaching to be first.
From terraces and tower blocks confined as the unseen,
they soar with aspirations beyond their silent dreams.
Though Highwaymen of history defoliate the past,
their shoots will not be stunted as they forge upwardly at last.
English roses clipped and rootless look so pretty on the shelf,
Smooth stemmed, perfumed, useless, soul-less in their wealth.
Stronger grow the slum-flowers that climb toward the Sun
for abundant is the garden that is sown for everyone.
Reverse search a pool of blood to its foetus of ideas,
calculate trajectories to a pin-head through the years.
While stippling marks proximity the silenced tongue won’t speak,
for its hell that takes our liberty when damp Earth entombs the meek.
In cavities of ancient skulls the dust of time drowns words
where cave walls once were libraries, now echoes fall unheard.
Where hit-list’s flamed in burn-pits and armies forged their prize,
re-written were our histories and their curses damned our eyes.
Then blinded willingly or not we sweep ahead in time
we carve sacred memorials in elevated rhyme,
and the horrors of reality will not be writ upon this page
as we flounder in our duality it is guilt that we assuage.
The mind that strums pure chords from trees
that sets them tumbling on a breeze,
or plucks the seasons fresh from frets
to paint sweet tunes of no regrets,
is seldom seen in winter fields
where sunlights giving warmth oft yields,
where barren turns the empty soil
where springtime chutes wither and spoil.
Yet in such bleak and darkened days
somewhere the Summer Skylark plays,
and in echoes from the seasons gone
we hear our futures hopeful song,
then in reprise our souls unfold
to make us young, to feel less old,
and though a year has once more turned
there is less forgot than to be learned.
Viewing the world through Inch thick glass,
the traffic chokes to a halt.
A veiled shadow holds a face to the window.
Its gaze encrusted with disappointment
eyes as pale as a moonlit desert,
We stare at each other from our different worlds
I silently mouth sorry
whilst thumbing my passports pages,
The Child Spirit sees me whole.
Frozen for the longest moment
in a humming steel cocoon,
I watch the wagons circle, vulturesque.
A hand-print is smeared on the window
I touch it before walking to the terminal,
less than the span of my palm or the fold of a Dollar bill.
Ascending through dust and cloud I curse the City,
Roads spinning out from the Circle below, the people are no longer real.
The Dubai lounge is first class cool just my Duty free and me.
