Responses to Readings: Poetry

These poems were written by students in the Department of English at King's for the first Thinking in Crisis Times meeting on October 28th, 2020.

Ernest Chlopicki

voices feast

even in the most noiseless of landscape paintings

the insects are tearing each other apart

and when you listen with alerted patience

you can hear how their atoms steal electrons from each other

with deaf and inherited violence

it is enough to hit the table for the cutlery to speak up with vibration of the fist

it is our duty to refuse the invitation for dining

cook our own meal bravely put together from the scraps

and feast upon our life

Sameera Mohammed

[Untitled]

What did my grandparents want for me when they brought our family to this country? I'm always asking myself that. They were either long gone, or stony and distant by the time I was old enough to wonder. Is this the life they imagined for their distant British granddaughter, fifty years later? Maybe they imagined prosperity, good health, and great success. I ask myself what their younger selves would think of me, or rather, how this country has treated me. My grandfather, born in the Punjabi village with few real records, making up a date of birth for himself on the spot so he can travel to Britain, my father still convinced he underestimated his ancient-ness by at least ten years. Me, born in a spluttering English town, making up words on the spot just to try to get somewhere better, and gritting my teeth because I have to accept that maybe my worth has been underestimated too. Half a century of my family repeating itself. How many more times will this happen to us?

Sara Osman Saeed

periphery

we are a non-people.

we are between the lines of those king history books.

we are not of this dimension.

we are off the grid.

we are aliens. we are familiar. we are a threat.

you see us on tv. you see us on the silver screen

boxed in like animals.

we earn a meagre living as slaves and terrorists, exotic dancers and maids.

our lives are played out in front of a billion eyes,

it's there. you don't need to know us.

our books are blank. our histories float in the sandstorms.

our language baffles you, and you don't need to learn it.

the land is against us. the plains run away from us. the animals are our enemies.

our food is scarce and our suffering is never-ending.

throw us into the oceans. kick us into the seas.

drop a hurricane on us. riddle us with disease.

weaken us with famine. suck the riches off our lands.

the beauty has been lost. we are living in a dystopia.

we are here for pitying eyes. we are philanthropic attractions. a charity fetish.

our biographies dissolve from our tongues like cotton candy.

we might as well not have even existed.