A Song

This is a song for the hungry
Aché


For those with discerning tongues
And fickle wallets
With single minds and yokes for brains
For the chains that link London streets
For the feet that meander aimlessly
And those who take drunken swigs of postcolonial discourse
Those in double jeopardy
For the aliens in their home territory:
Those who have learnt to read the lines
And not just the bits in between
For the peculiar people
Purses for stomachs
And verses for mouths
To the hungry


This is a song to the hungry
Those without money
Come buy!
Those with springs of living water
Run dry
To those with kum-by-yahs for lullabies
To those wondering minds that are thirsty
And deep-down dirty 


Aché


This is for your High Street hips
And down-low thighs
This is for pomegranate breasts
And love-sucked necks
Sun-starved backs
And tear-stained cheeks
This is for the chains that shackle London streets


This is a song
For those with weary eyes
And exhausted palates
Stutter-tongues and crusted lips
This is for the starved
With discerning mouths that would rather wither
Than pucker up to Massa's arse


This is not a poetry masterclass
Or even a classy rhyme
Or a witty sideshow
This is just a freshly squeezed skit
With the pips still in it


Floating


This is to those who would rather sink in the cistern
Than suck up to the system
This is to the hard-hearted and the sofly-spoken


This is to the token.
The outcast.
The rebellious.
The lost and the zealous.
To those who riot inside
And those who die daily


This is a song for the hungry and the parched
This is for the medium-bodied and the dry
The sober and the high
The lowest of the low
The aching bellies that leave you restless
For the undetermined and relentless


This is not for the ruthless.
This is only for those with souls
Those with bullet holes for hands
Letting coins slip
For bitten lips
For those who can still spare a kiss


For those who survive
Without wherefores and whys
Those who are afraid to die
Those who cry verses
And whisper curses from leaking pens
And unsteady keyboards


This is a song for the hungry
The downright ravenous;
The scavengers
For those who hunt for the peas
Under the mattresses
And feast
This is for the least
Those who are haunted by beasts
This is for the scared and the scarred
The weird and the wired
Those with seaming wounds that run like rickety tube tracks
This is for the laid-back
And the laid-low
But this is only for those with souls that lay exposed
Beneath the cracks


This is for the rattle of chains
For the battles for change
For the wandering brains
And the hungry


This is just a meandering song
To those who are wronged
To those without rights
To those whom justice has failed
This is to the jailed
Those who squeeze through broken bars
And bail out
To those who fail and try
To those who cry verses


This is me reading your rights
This is for your silent nights
This is for those who walk timidly towards the light
Who flinch but keep walking
This is for those who know when to stop talking...

I salute you

Aché