Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Hijaab

I turn the corner find people looking and staring
Simply because my hair isn’t baring
I wonder why…
I then realise…

Some think I am controlled
Whilst others believe I am uneducated
I wonder why…
I then realise…

These people with these thoughts feel I have no voice
They think being hooded means I have no choice
I wonder why…
I then realise…

People whisper that I am oppressed and rejected
For they do not know I am covered and well respected!
I am not judged by how I look
But the way I speak and my conduct

So while passers by may see me as a reject
I know inside I am perfect
Raheel K, 15. Bradford

Sunday, February 19, 2012

The Worlds Latest Addiction

Just six clicks away
from five thousand “friends.”
No clue what today is,
or what’s on CNN.

I should really get dressed,
Or at least shave my pits.
But with all these new friends,
I can’t stop the clicks.

Glued to the screen
like some kind of affliction.
Welcome to Facebook:
the world’s latest addiction.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Five Ways to Kill a Man

There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.
You can make him carry a plank of wood
To the top of a hill and nail him to it.
To do this
Properly you require a crowd of people
Wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak
To dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
Man to hammer the nails home.

Or you can take a length of steel,
Shaped and chased in a traditional way,
And attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.
But for this you need white horses,
English trees, men with bows and arrows,
At least two flags, a prince and a
Castle to hold your banquet in.

Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind
Allows, blow gas at him. But then you need
A mile of mud sliced through with ditches,
Not to mention black boots, bomb craters,
More mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs
And some round hats made of steel.

In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly
Miles above your victim and dispose of him by
Pressing one small switch. All you then
Require is an ocean to separate you, two
Systems of government, a nation's scientists,
Several factories, a psychopath and
Land that no one needs for several years.

These are, as I began, cumbersome ways
To kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neat
Is to see that he lives somewhere in the middle
Of the twentieth century, and leave him there.

-- Edwin Brock