Canto LXXX

My wife tells me to stop wasting my day
debating racist posters on Yahoo.
She has a point, I doubt that they will change

their Little England, Stormfront sanctioned views,
instead I should just picture them glaring
through net curtains into suburban mews

to double check they will not soon be sharing
their little village with some foreign types,
before going to back online to make daring

assaults on PC liberals that hype
the multi culture from our city flats.
Perhaps we should take this as cause for hope,

the views that once were issued by fiat,
by hereditary Lords and party leaders,
are only voiced by faceless, trolling prats

and higher ranking officials at FIFA.

Canto LXXI

It’s just after eleven and each soul
on the Victoria line reads from their phones
or thumbs their way onto the next level

of Angry Birds, when suddenly some loon
begins to shout before the doors slide shut
at some young man who’s just got off the train,

“That’s right, you better get off, fackin’ caaant!
Go play them fackin’ drums in Africa!”
We stay silent, there’s not even a tut,

until a black guy opposite me mutters
“He’s obviously a good friend of John Terry…”
And after stiffled giggles I rejoinder,

“There’s drums in Europe too, apparently”
And like that final scene in Sparticus
when all those faithful men stand up to cry

that it is their name too, other commuters
state other places where they play the drums
like Scotland, South Korea and Croatia,

and after each location named there comes
a louder round of chuckles til the man
that made the racist comment sits and squirms—

and after drum location number ten,
he sullenly whispers “I’ve calmed down now.”
His stop arrives, he shuffles off and then,

the man across from me grins and bellows
in a voice that echoes through the platform’s rafters,
“Be careful mate, there’s drums in Pimlico!”

and the train carries off our ridicule and laughter.

Canto XVIII

My dear fellow caucasians of Pontins,
I understand the child perched on my back
Has Asian eyes, a darker type of skin—

but as I launch into my breaststroke
to carry him a full length of the pool,
please don’t stare or let your jaw go slack

as if I’ve grown another set of balls
across the wrinkled length of my forehead.
And though I’m not a follow national

I seem to tap into some primal dread
of tangled bloodlines, mixed up tones of skin.
My fellow honkies, put your fears to bed!

He’s the blood nephew of my next of kin,
no need to bolster up the National Front.
Although our Irish Filipino genes

will have your jobs and homes in seven months.