A serpent refugee
A person in need
Do you hate my skin
Blonde gets you in
In a wood in a tent
Welcome home have a bed
My wounds are unseen
Hotel showers make you clean
A lorry again tonight
Private jet, direct flight
Does anyone there see us
Here have your visas
Easier perhaps to be dead
than
to
inconvenience
anyone
by
p r o c e s s i n g
me.
I think that non-discriminate abundant care and extravagant generosity should be given to anyone who flees their home because of war, persecution or danger.
I don’t think our government have gone anywhere near far enough to accommodate and support the people of Ukraine and the other countries in Europe in assisting them.
It is clear that there is a massive need and it is right and just that those who have much and who are safe should want to afford that to those that don’t (through no fault of their own).
I cannot get the refugees stuck in Calais and Dunkirk out of my mind though. I keep imagining how it must feel to be so desperate to be humanised whilst being treated like dogs and rats, driven out of make-shift shelters again and again by the French police and ignored by the British government. What do they think when they see Ukrainian refugees (rightly) being given access to hotels and spare rooms in people’s homes? I can’t fathom the suffering of those who have already escaped war, travelled so far, risked everything only to find that somehow their exodus is less valid, that their torment is less traumatising.
I wrote a poem a couple of years ago from the ignorant and demeaning perspective unfortunately held by some people in Britain; those who view refugees as snakes to be stood upon. It’s in the old archives here if you’re bored and want something to read.
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