as if they are normal folk

by Jane Burn

Shops.      Imagine them wanting
shops.       Wanting to buy stuff      as if
they are normal folk.      Wanting to be
just like us,     with our popping out for bread
and milk,      fags, sweets, bsicuits, pop.
Whatever.      Imagine them needing
food like that.      Libraries.      Imagine them
wanting to read.      As if they care about words,
want to educate      their children, pass
the time.       Time on their hands?      What
do they want time on their hands for?      Surely
they should be out       working or something else.
Cafes? Cafes?      Like they are bothered about
meeting up, sharing conversations,      maybe even
make friends.      As if,      as if it is
fucking Butlins!      I mean, are they ever going to
go home if       they’re living in some sort of
holiday camp?      They have a nightclub now.
A nightclub.      Imagine them wanting
to sing and dance?        Kara-bleedin’-oke?
We like our revellers British, ta very much,
our piss-heads        local.      This church,
this beautiful, fragile, plastic sheet and wood-slat church,
painted up with illuminated angels, simple cross on top.
What's the actual?      These scroungers are not
Christians.      Step off our white-skinned, fair faced
God.      Swathes!      Swathes of them.      Rats.
Well done France,      Stephen from Rugby says.     
Londonzone - hiding under an alias - is brisk.      Good.
The comment crows.      Now finish the job.  

Written in reaction to a newspaper story
about the bulldozing of the settlement at Calais.