Sunday, August 29, 2010

single mother's prayer

My clown sad soul looks at the sun

unsure if it should stay or run,

protect my boy from words of dust

and disappointment, broken trust.

His namesake carried words of grace

to share amongst the human race,

enlighten souls and bring true peace,

through miracles and philosophy.


So Gabriel, please grow up true

don’t let others darken you

value all the words you say.

Let sun shine on you every day.


August 2010

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Maulidi night conception

You invited me out on Maulidi night
“Come and be a pilgrim,” you said to me, “and listen to the stories of my childhood.”

The glow of the bar diminishes in the cool early hours
The moonlight guides us.
I cover myself in indigo blue and deep sky kangas
your friends just giggle at the white girl;
your flash dulls the magic full moon as you snap me.

We begin on foot.
At the side of the road, windscreen-cracked buses tilt,
youths lean up against the metal, watching the girls pass.
Oil lamps flicker at chai and market stalls.

We are drawn towards a microphone drone which rises above the crowd chatter
pulling us off the tarmac road onto sandy paths behind squat mud houses
into a sea of multi-coloured moon-washed mothers,
sisters, aunties, lying along the walls, shored up towards the mosque.
A wriggling child turns in its mother’s lap.
A spotlit stage through the dark passageway flooded with people.
Men, white-robed, ease by
rocking us back and forth as we make room to let them pass.

We’re anchored, listening;

but the droning is drifting in me.
“What are the stories?” I ask you finally.
You tut with disdain. “no stories, bwana. He’s just preaching.”

You take my hand and we turn from the spotlight
kicking up the sand as you tell me the stories of your father
and the magic of how it was then, as a boy at midnight, on Maulidi night.

Your headlights lit our way for the rest of the night,
and each of your friends, as you dropped them off one by one.
You hadn’t dropped me yet.
And our last night at your place was blessed
and I never guessed
that my journey into parenthood, on Maulidi night, had begun.


Irena Pearse June 2009

Thursday, November 19, 2009

The Ballad of the Hijab Matyr


The Ballad of the Hijab Matyr

(sung to Bob Dylan’s “Shelter from the cold”)

It was in a district courthouse in Dresden in July
A pregnant mum gave witness as the sun shone up on high
Within a flash, the blood it gushed, the man held tight his blade
I’ve killed, he said, a terrorist and enemy of the state.

The husband caught his wife and let her hijab fall
He cast an eye at the small outcry of his toddler in the stalls
Armed guards charged in and shot at him, he fell onto his face
We thought, they after said, he was an enemy of the state.

Mustafa was the toddler and he’d seen this man before
Last Summer on the swings when he’d called his mum a whore
A scary man, with staring eyes, he’d shouted in her face
“That thing”, he’d spat “upon your head is an enemy of the state.”

And now it’s one year later, the world’s eyes are on this case
“Justice for the hijab matyr", clammers from the Middle East
For the pharmacist who lost her life
For her husband’s disfigured gait
For Mustafa whose swing was taken from him by the enemy of his state.

Nov 2009

Ballade of BNP on QT

The lights flick on, the panel take their place
Bulldog Britain enters with a smile smug but tight
DD, centre stage, shifts his glasses on his face:
“Welcome to Question Time this Thursday night.”
TV viewers know this is a controversial verbal fight to prove free speech must let fascists have their say,
well debated facts will air what’s right.
The BNP is here today.

The bulldog hides his teeth all through this chase
“‘Indigenous Brits’ he says to Bobby Greer, not 'Whites'.
It’s not about colour or a Master Race.
Its England for the English”, and he’d like to see: “bogus asylum seekers denied the right
to take British jobs and given leave to stay.
Stop the immigrant flood undermining Britain’s might.”
The BNP is here today.

The mixed faced audience voice declare he’s a disgrace.
So for whom in this nation does he shine a light?
The 2 million jobless workers who feel displaced,
those who have consumed the “war on terror” sound bite,
those angry at the bottom of the great divide,
where privilege speaks of rights but augments its pay
though votes are cast this class keeps full its plate.
The BNP is here today.

Nick Griffen, MEP, parades at parliament’s gates
and British politics is turning grey,
disenchanted voters beware the vacuum state.
The BNP is here today.

Nov 2009

My T.O.P. child

On clear crisp nights I contemplate the stars,
vision my dead born child giggling at me there
pattering its tiny feet round mars
where freaks and lost souls don’t need human care.
I pray you understand my brutal choice.
I saved you from earth’s deal of constant pain,
from a short life, if lived, on life support.
And my body back, the chance to try again.

Those 13 weeks we reigned, then lost your father.
Within 6 months he found a youthful womb,
your half sister came just one year later
reduced your mum to mistress meetings at full moon.
Your short life ripped away love’s cosy cover,
new tangled hopes will swaddle your soon born brother.

Nov 2009