NaPoWriMo. Day 4. Poem 3. A Man In The Pub Remembers His Friend Gerald

The bookmaker shop on Broadway market

reminds me of Gerald, my friend from Jamaica.

Gerald came to England to work 

in his fathers Butcher shop.

He was here one month and got arrested,

caught with a bag of weed.

In jail a police officer put his head down a toilet, 
said he wanted to see if he could flush niggers.

Weeks later, outside that bookmaker shop 
I saw Gerald again, covered in blood.

He shrugged when I asked him what happened.

said he’d slaughtered some pig.

Found out later he’d murdered a police officer,

same one that flushed him.

Gerald saw the officer on the street and swung a butcher’s

knife into his neck,

half his head hung off like a sliced coconut.

After four days in prison 

Gerald was hung in his cell.

I'll never forget the sight of Gerald’s father

going crazy in the street shouting

THEY KILLED MY SON  THEY KILLED MY SON!


Lots of dead meat about those days.