#NaPoWriMo: New Poem: Microaggressions (part 1)

Microaggressions part 1

Today a new colleague asked me : “Where are you from?”
and she told me that I don’t look Indian.
She shrugged off my reply and said: “What about your parents then?”
I told her: “From Bradford, second generation.”

An old colleague confuses me with the last Asian face
I replaced.
Alma’s been on maternity leave for nearly a year and my name is too hard to remember.
When I correct him he struggles to say Selina
and jokes that my name could be easier.

Poem of the day: The interchange #NaPoWriMo

The divide multiplies: The interchange

Am I a threat or threatened?

Even the walls have eyes and ears.
I walk through the interchange with fear of being feared.

What’s that I hear?
Grunts as they speak about me.
Can I believe what I see?
Parents grabbing hands, distinctly removing loved ones from me.
From my path.

Is it paranoia?
What is it that I possess?
You judge me from the way I dress.
From the beige in my face.

What a fall from grace.

If you look me up you’ll find I always lived by the book.
Suddenly my mind is over-conscious – I used to blend in, now do I even fit in?

Noone’s winning,
Just dividing.

Faith lost in pretenders.

Objective becomes selective.
Now more people look beyond a lens and a self-fulfilling agenda.
Amid soul searching and scrolling,
petitioning and polling.

The divide multiplies.

I walk through the interchange intolerable.
Eyes closed, music on.

Poetry: Immigrant #NaPoWriMo

The bottom line – to cap it all

Forgive me –I broke the law,
But if you had walked in my shoes and saw what I saw,
You’d know my motives,
So my children can live,
a better life, and too, their kids.

A Mexican working hard in the US to support families,
left behind,
south of the border, with no peace of mind – whether she’s been shot, by an Arizona ranger – whether he’s been jailed, by Operation Gatekeeper.

Lost across the Imperial Desert or over the mountains north of Tecate.
Mexicans  drown in canals and rivers. While the army militarize the border…

A 30 hour coach journey, in the faith of living better.
Only to die of dehydration, hypothermia or xenophobia.

Busloads of Polish people, skilled in many trades,
make the journey from Warsaw to the land of opportunity, the UK.

Better healthcare, better pay, this is the European Union
Only to find themselves taken advantage of and spit upon for taking the jobs natives can’t or refuse to work in.

Was this the freedom envisaged?
Working 7 days a week, paid cheap for their keep.

Laws let goods and money freely cross borders, yet impose a form of class warfare against when it comes to workers.

Not free to move with changing economic conditions in the same manner that businesses can move their capital.

And that’s the bottom line, to cap it all.

Poem a Day: Woman: #NaPoWriMo

Woman

You cannot stop a force of nature

Her questions are getting no answers and she has to ask them louder.
She’s given no explanation and her confusion is growing stronger.

She is alone, determined to survive. She has the energy, in her mind.

She is a fighter and there is so much to live for, that’s why she was born. She will honor it. Do not cause her any harm.

If she feeds her soul, do you fear she can outgrow you? Don’t forget, she can uphold you.

She’ll put a message in a bottle. She will not be unheard.

You cannot stop a force of nature, it will catch up with you, it already encapsulates you.

The force is too strong.

She has been standing up for centuries and she will not to be silenced.

There’s nothing that can stop her, not ancestry, not violence.

Not even judgment because she knows…

All she needs is one person, because that love is strong.

Love lasts for all time, no matter where she has gone.

National Poetry Writing Month: Requiem #NaPoWriMo

Raindrops on the train glass window

This is the perfect poem for me to kick off  my #NaPoWriMo contribution with, as I wrote Requiem after a long long period of writer’s block. The inspiration behind it was something so simple, yet created this out pour which I was not in control of:-

Requiem

Raindrops on the train glass window,

fall effortlessly like the pain you give and claim to not know.

Epitomising the demising friendship I was desiring, to step into; fantasising,

where it could go.

Oh they fall, so small,

But build up to a size,

uncontrollable to hold back anymore.

Like the tears in my eyes,

concealed by a smile;

hard to not eventually show at all.

They fall south despite being blown; forced in the other direction.

I wish I had somewhere to hide – a distraction,

from the cold slap of spite, like sudden frostbite

from the warm sunny flirts of your affection.

I wish I had some protection from the gust that stings my eyes,

And the whistling wind voicing my silent cries.

I was crazy for you.

Now I abhor you.

I guess I had to write a requiem for you.

Soon the storm will pass,

After a lightning flash making sense of the past;

To wash old rivers away,

Drown out the sorrow, for tomorrow may still be cold but will be a brighter day.

Shouldn’t let a bad experience diminish my spirit,

Or keep me from friendships.

I’ve come to terms with it.

Definitely learned from it.

You were never true.

I was crazy for you.

Now I abhor you.

So I wrote a requiem for you.

(here’s a requiem for you).