From the garden of love I fled by sea
Came ashore on a drying day to see
Sheets hung out like a mass surrender
Swallowing sea water I’m four sheets to the wind
Washing is seldom unblemished by returning swallows
To be a pilgrim is a grim pill to swallow
I hear willow on leather – balls flee to the boundary rope
Europe looks as if it rhymes with hope
I stare at the team in their pure whites
I learn to say sorrysorrysorry on the teeming streets
and in opening doors and joining a queue
After you no after you
I wolf down free Mars bars but it’s so cold
so wet – the Syrian came down like the wolf on the fold
Lugging our poor languages to the ports and coasts
where you look at us like you’re seeing ghosts
I pick up facetious pieces of your lingo
Overhearing my Farsi you call me Pingu
My children drowned in transit please translate
and please what is that worth? I have of late
but wherefore I know not lost all my mirth
I owned a loving garden in Raqqah
before it became benighted I follow Allah
I follow Manchester United
I wear the black tee shirt sloganed with Arabic
totally wicked it is totally sick
In Calais I coax my violin for pity
I sing sea shanties in a shanty city
Shantih shantih shantih – Peace be with you
Red and yellow and pink and green orange and purple and blue
A fortnight after the selfie on the rocks
as dawn breaks dung drops through the letterbox
I elect or have to draw my veil I
would like please very much to come to school
The English I offer you sounds wrong
I will be less than nought unless on the tongue
I speak it trippingly I’ll become a lunar astronaut
hide my face in my wide space helmet
you can only see what I see through my visor’s
lonely golden mirror this is no moon for losers
it’s opium-white unblemished flawless
I couldn’t have wished for a purer place
Knowing by heart satellite transits is a passion
of mine for instance the International Space Station
in virginal night an infinitesimal jewel
passing over is my punctual angel.
