Blood, Gold and Brass

Blood, Gold and Brass

Huge heaven bellied laugh of man,

stops his taxi, opens door and beckons

for I am UKanian, he rightly reckons:

a warrior king of blood, gold, grass,

though never me, I lack Ashanti; my kra

and his entwine briefly in the car

for fleeting duration, talk long of nation,

journey together in conversation.

Slip wind thread seasick serpentine,

change places, slick swap lanes

savannah swamps of forest rains

by way of Gravesend and the Thames.

Some gold coasting, idle by the lights

he talks of love and forgone fights

yet not forgotten, pluck choking cotton,

backseat driver echoes something rotten.

They take the gold, they take the oil

what grew in earth they hack and spoil

cold choppings, bone plattered clotting fish

sworn loaves on every chipped dish;

he chuckles deep at penitent replies,

benign, listens, ticks time, likewise.

Those easy pickings glitter ivory shores

in perpetual drink, scaly scabbard reptiles

bind in local cloth and local textiles

topple golden stools, kuduo backcracked,

snort lines, left crimes, thick grimy

stickybeak fingers nail the hiplife and highlife

steal her dark sullen stares to top as wife

beneath rounded huts, grassy bed and roof

streaks stencilled light of God and truth.

But his profound love of everything British

still seems a poor bargain, to leave,

demand visas, bar entrance, magpie thieve

and pilfer every kind of meagre right

in the sacred flames of immigration,

for once we were linked as nations:

Hip joined in blood, gold and grass

but where’s there’s muck, there’s brass.

Deposited, I tip my hat, reach for change,

must feel his laughter something strange

as his eyes explore my soiled skull

exchange tawny eagle for retching rapist gull.