AFTER THE RIOTS
A skyline as idiosyncratic
as Manhattan’s, Chicago’s – its totems
of wealth, faith and dominion – belies
the city’s cruelty: fortunes from famine,
despotism, slavery; licensing
of squalor, bigotry and despair.
In the park where the Orange Lodge drummed out
The Twelfth, a rape was immediate headlines –
white girl, black youths. In Toxteth – its decayed
squares and terraces built on molasses
and cotton, some street signs repainted green,
gold, red, the colours of Rastafari –
was daubed, ‘Vote ANC’.
NOTE: The poem was originally published on the site in April 2010.
Pages:
By David SelzerAFTER THE RIOTS
A skyline as idiosyncratic
as Manhattan’s, Chicago’s – its totems
of wealth, faith and dominion – belies
the city’s cruelty: fortunes from famine,
despotism, slavery; licensing
of squalor, bigotry and despair.
In the park where the Orange Lodge drummed out
The Twelfth, a rape was immediate headlines –
white girl, black youths. In Toxteth – its decayed
squares and terraces built on molasses
and cotton, some street signs repainted green,
gold, red, the colours of Rastafari –
was daubed, ‘Vote ANC’.
Pages:
By David SelzerLOST
After the fluorescent shops and the snatched music,
the side street was damp and dark –
but a bag of chips and a manipulative adult
made the emptiness freedom.
Waterways were trawled and the usual,
time-dishonoured suspects questioned.
Down river, high tides returned her nine year old body.
The funeral cortège was a carriage and horses
and the local press was effulgent.
But gossip condemned her single mother,
living in a hostel on benefit.
The killer lived two floors down,
an estranged father of daughters –
a violent drunk, unemployed, unschooled.
Victim, mother and murderer
threaten the equivocal city.
Losers and losing
challenge its achievements.
Death is only one result of murder.
Remember sweet Fanny Adams – mutilated,
immortalised, profaned unthinkingly!
The murder and rape of children
seem beyond words, understanding, iniquity
– and another’s lack of love or the means to love
is out of our grasp, lost beyond finding.
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By David Selzer