A Whole Civilisation

 

When planes flying from our bases

'destroy a civilisation' tonight,

what will we say? 

When people of that civilisation 

scream rage in our faces,

what will we say?

'Woman, I am not one of them'?

Will we tell them that this

is not who we are? 

Will we express bitter contrition 

and say not in our name?

I remember one night, back in Brixton,

my friend Nila saying to me 

"You say 'them' when you speak of the English,

but you're English. It's not 'them', it's 'we'."

I don't know what I'll say

when our planes fly tonight

sowing death. But I will not deny

that, as much as I hate it,

they fly in my name;

and when the blowback comes

I will accept that I, just like the rest of us,

am as legitimate a target,

a more legitimate target,

than two-hundred schoolgirls 

or a six year old child in a taxi,

and will accept my civilisation 

- about which I once pompously worried -

died long ago;

and pray,

for the rest of the world,

that its corpse may stop shaking.