Tuesday, 22 October 2013

Sleepless In Brussels (Poem)


There is a red rubber vein
bulging
in the industrial neck of this city.

can’t speak history
without blood
curling my fist
around this night in Brussels -
where a statue of King Leopold II
is pedestalled

the deep red that flames
my passport,
fires my feet through the lines of E.U Citizens
at the Eurostar Check in.

with an i-phone connected
to the modern day
life expectancy
of a Congolese miner

These are Leopold’s words cut
into his stone statue -

I have undertaken the work in Congo in the interest
of civilisation and for the good of Belgium”

These words have severed limbs

And if don’t charge my i-phone

history will have no reception.

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