The Immigrant In The Room - And On The Street

by David Erdos

It seems quiet here now, and yet Uxbridge neighbours Hounslow,
As do other strained suburbs in other cities near, other towns

As the Anti-Immigration lobby extend their hate filled rooms
To chase pavements, not as Duffy did, but as the animals

From Fear’s circus, who will roar and bite beside clowns.
Not that fear is the key, for what has been unlocked of late

Is hate heated; British racism bridling under the swampland
The sun has enduced, and which cannot be cooled by the rain

When it has come to wash over, or soothe the savage brow,
Or breast, for what’s savage cannot ever be quelled, or reduced.

The world has gone mad. We are the end of ecstasy generation.
Where once they danced in the 80s, these 20s and this Century

Has been corrupted, convinced and completely conquered,
By Ignorance only, as we fell for fools as false idols and have come

To embrace bigotry. I call for hope every day and it even basslines
These poems. And these poems are warnings, declarations too,

From the Ring, as I as failed Ringmaster attempt to put all ducks
In row, despite lions, and where high wire above us, we can all look

To the net kept below. But as with all nets, the holes just get wider
And wider. The Far Right hand side edges closer and the left is itself

Compromised. As we witness attacks from the U4, or 222 bus,
Daily, heat stoking horror, or ruin through rain realized.

As the English feel threatened again, because some ugly thug
Prods them, grimacing gladly, much like the clown courting jeers

As he stumbles and slips, sliding easily into violence,
Which we are seeing now, while cowed lions, and the Elephants,
Hidden are mistreated madly and the truth of abuse claims
Their cheers. Countries collapse and each crack sends its spilt

Victims swimming. They circle the globe seeking refuge
And the humanity Christians preach. And we say we pride

Ourselves on that here, but Brexit alone fanned that fire,
And the backfire rages as Clonakilty black pudding is nowhere

To be seen. Food needs teach. But now the thick coalesce
Into a hateful mob, two miles distant. As they do now in all places

Google trouble’s map and you’ll see; how the Metropolitan day
Holds no Jubilee. It just circles back on itself, damning Districts

As the Central line of connection is cut at once by grown
Children; the kind who disgust me as they stamp and kick

At birds, happily. The Elephants in the Circus are trapped
Wherever they go. No-one’s welcome. I rue the days we have

Fashioned and the ways we retract decency. Everywhere looks
The same. It just has a different branch of Costa. And just like

The London Riots some years back, the planning of this makes
One see how the grand and holy cull now will come.

It isn’t about whether we can avoid it now, or deserve it; we do.
But surviving and uniting as one against this is practically

The only aim, were not for the others. By which I mean aspects,
Not those we should help, or assist in finding a home ,be it

For themselves, or with others. Israel’s murder of Haniyeh
As a singular now act illustrates that we have hallowed out

The notion of Homeland as both idea and location. If anyone’s
God is there, Its disgusted by love’s rejection in favour of this

New lust for hate. Centralise in new ways if you can. These days
The Middle of the Road feels like Heaven. But the roads are ripped
And around us the Circus tent has been torn. Ignorance manifests.
The Clowns are as they were in Moore and Bolland’s Killing Joke.

Clowns are crazy. Can you hear their laugh? Its like screaming.
And now each visceral night makes walks porn. We do not have

The will to consider anyone else inches from us. If I am wrong
I am ready to eat your shoes and each hat. We live in a land stained

And smeared by Suella Braverman and Unpriti Patel, shrill before her.
Let’s hope that Rachel Reeves heals us as she hardens now,

Each vowel flat. For we need fresh new ground and not
The strange streets we’re repainting with blood and anger;

With this lack of foresight, should it go on, we are blind.
The stunned lions stare, as the exotic elephants seek each shadow.

How does one rip through racists? How do we break the bind?
With which each new despot damns, be it Netanyahu, or Putin?

Or, whoevers out there, between Hillingdon here and ín Hayes?
It will be the ultimate ask. But the task is how on Earth

To tame suspicion and hatred. And how, having wasted whatever
God gave we can save something good, something true,

If not for us then those children who may not live to outlive us.
Will there be another American Civil War come November?

This week in London, and now tonight there’s the wave
That Noah first saw, and then the Dinosaurs before freezing.

Break down your borders. We are all in this air.
Share your cave.

Sunak's Sorry, Keir's Ear and the Ghost of John Smith

or,

58 and Not Out

by David Erdos 

Would John Smith be pleased? Yes, of course.
To see the Party in power. Or will his ghost trouble
Breezes across today’s rain and branches
In Abingdon slash College Green? As Westminster,

Having warped adopts a socialist stance to help
Straighten and iron out indendations pressed
Into the public psyche and lost dream
Of a political process in place that represents
Everybody, and governs sagely over the Jerusalem

Blake defined. It could never happen of course.
Each flag unfurled is mere patchwork, as loose stitches
Lease sunlight bleeding through hope’s design.
So what we want now, in having dreams and hope
Tempered is a return to some standard which bests

And crests compromise. Every new Government
Overturns the legacy and template left behind it,
But undoing those stitches despite the flag’s state
Can take time and it is in those intervals that a gap’s
Gain can widen and while now we all rally,

Will we take a deep breath and then rhyme
Relief with belief that things can change truly?
Say, as a Scot, would Smith bridle at the SNP’s
Losses now? He was something of a player,
Astute, but the begetter of Blair in his dying;

So would Smith have been the last Statesman
That I believed him to be, or the cow
Sacrificed so that Blair’s angel face,
Made demonic could start the standard,
Not of deceit, but wrecked vows
Which have damned the decades that have
Doused us all, post Thatcher, who simply made
Stipulations, if not demands on the State
Of play and of place; so what of the Tories now
Amidst rubble? Will they honour the previous

People who helped them once legislate,
From Churchill back to the Pitts whose name
Now becomes the location of where I’d cast Cameron,
And (thank God, at last) Braverman. Not to mention
Rees-Mogg. Slime away your greased goblins! Damn

Them all and God damn them, not for being Tories,
But for still sipping sulphur from the masonic cup,
Or passed pan, of exploited blood, that their
Stolen silver spoons would have stirred into chilli,
Or flambed while breathing the fires down

Into flan. They were bland but blasted by flames
That have raged for aeons as 14 years became endless,
Perhaps what Rishi sought was escape. In ignoring
Advice from his Grandees and supporters.
Was a so-called intelligent man so persuaded

That after the dominoes fell he could scrape
Victory? No. His was a toll and poll to be toppled.
A friend of mine taught him, and while near
The top of his class, no true win came his way,
Especially between May and Truss, and the slashing

Of tax for Akshata, this whipping boy made from women
Is now an Asian Christ soaking sin from what
Has been wrought in the social sphere as religion;
With political priests as abusers fucking fake news
Across spin. And the world we have now has been spun,

So much so that we’re dizzy and can, or so it seems,
Never settle and never attain equipoise. I wouldn’t
Put it past them to try and beg bad Boris back,
If I’m honest, with Nadine Dorries as siren,
Imploring him, both breasts heaving in a burnt

Bikini, sunbed scorched, for big boys.
But ‘first and foremost,’ he said, and said to us all,
He was sorry. And so he should be with a glint
In his eye and sad frown. ‘He had heard the anger.’
Most do. But what is then done to resolve it?

Or do we fan fury, until it hurricanes
And tears down all of our structures, each dream
And therefore, each drama. Can Starmer storm,
Watched by former leaders like Gaitskell, or Atlee
Of course as PM? Or will he just swish through

A panorama of puddles? Can Sir Keir tame
The tempests which today pitter-patted and made
What’s historic, stilled tonic in glory’s gin.
Will the stem of his glass full of gain snap
In twain as the tastes and tangles of complication,

Which are wrought from a broken system now spill?
How keen is Keir’s ear? He said he was listening
About Gaza. After the Anti-semitic slur within Labour,
Which rumours now will he kill? May his legal skill
Lead us all away from the skirmish. After talking

To Macron and Yelensky, will he still stall Palestine?
The ghosts of Smith and Tony Benn glare. Kinnock
Was on hand last night hosting a no longer empty seat.
Clear all cushions. Today, tests are opened in the ongoing
Examination of Time. Jeremy as an Islington independent

Will now sit opposite you in the Commons.
So now, I wonder, on both sides of the river
Will the socialist stream fully flow?
And where will Marxism mix as the tide turns
From the Tories. Will the common cause carry

Swimmers, or will we now surf from sun-kissed waves
Into snow? Farage’s Reform now has seats.
Which means that even glory gains gristle.
By this coming Winter, Trump could nuke us all
From his cell. Sir Keir, as I write, your car is easing
Into King Charles’ Court. Sunshine simmers.

The Socialist stream strains for oceans.
As Laura Kuenssberg and the public breast wait,
To swell. Keir, keep your ear to the ground.
And make our polling cards keys to hope’s chamber.

Make fireworks out of beacons becalming
The beaches once blasted. Your speech must mean
Something. So, make today, torn like others
Be one we can reaffix, and in times to come,
Genuflecting be one we can once again proudly tell.

Sunak left in rain. Starmer stalks sunlight.
The clouds still seem undecided. But then what clouds
Allow once made magic. Some said this landslide
Was loveless, and yet today, there’s elation.
Polish your wand to perfection and may those clouds
bestow modern spells.

Cameron's Crawl

by David Erdos 

Somewhere in Chess sits that secret moment
When the board turns to fire as the predetermined vision
Ignites, and when the parade of each piece before the gaze
Of fate proves astounding, revealing how what’s decided
Is framed by both the cosmic black and star white

The moving of politicians perhaps is much more
Than just the opposite of that process. The phrase cabinet
Reshuffle is the desperate pose of the checked,
For this moving of mates is arbitrary at best,
Not strategic. It is an attempt to hide behind order

As the Rat Ship slides into sinking and as chaos
Flames below deck. It is worse that wankers
Who frot inside their own pockets. And is not
As calm as cards who slice cleanly between fortune
And decline. It is a last turgid act in which

Unable to plan, you move madly. As if you were
Cheating at scrabble or leaving and losing your
Shit. It’s a sign. As recently as yesterday Sunak still
Supported Suella, sadly another Indian woman
Who made her boorish predessor seem astute.

I’ve used this joke before but I cannot resist
Its repeating as this shrill sounding siren
Kept singing a sick c for Canute. Make light
Of those letters to read what I think of these people
Who strive to lead us, just as the Pied Pipist

Led rats. And lets not forget his dark price
And who he took back to the mountain. Which one
Of us will stay beach bound when survival’s song
Resounds flat? The walls are closing in, made of sand,
And Rishi soon will slump, buried. Alarmed by Starmer

Who is somewhat surprisingly on the rise, Rishi
Returns from under his rock, the crab Cameron
Who has been licking probably the same pearls
And Oysters that Sunak’s tax-free wife must assize.
No doubt there are living the dream of past days

Creamed by glory. Which in Politics can last minutes
Or a half score of years; which the public will never get back,
Pawns, priests and even Queens sacrificed, or soldiers dead.
Pensions frozen. Alan Bennett was right, live to 90 and still
Be able to boil an egg you’re held dear. This happened

With Oswald Mosley and soon, it will happen with Boris.
Though God forbid he continues his toilet squat for that long.
But TV will soon have him back, which shows how we should
All make our returns quick to reading, or to the piano placed
In the parlour, where families once fused around song.

When it happens it will show how stupid we are,
And clearly how guileless as we allow the erosion
Of standards like Suella’s empty sea to suck shores
Of their welcome and sheen. And so Cameron crawls,
Lobster licking, with crap and caviar soon combining

To stain and stink step and door. Behind which Sunak
Steers towards the After Dinner Speech Circuit.
Not to mention the book that by Christmas 24 or 25
Will feed trash, whether placed in the shops,
Or languishing in a dustbin. The print of another

Displaced slim-hipped shadow placing a fat-faced fool
There beside him as the sinking ship does a wheelie
To become our next fatal car-crash, as we careen
Between choice and the lack of it bequeathed to us.
Under his storm, Sunak’s steering is not a safe return

To bland bays but a mayday signal at best, the wave
Of a soon to be anonymous arm in its drowning.
Even if he wins, it’s not worth it. As it seems no decision
Made while aboard that careless craft can convey
What needs to happen. And so Cameron’s call

And each news unworthy item is another nail
In the coffin that has already been thrown out to sea.
We just have to secure it, that’s all. But have you ever tried
To hammer hard through wild water? It chills chance,
Hands and motion, stopping it dead. Are fish free?
Or just biding time until we can trap them.

It’s a good job Democracy’s broken, and that equal
For all cannot be, or else the elite would be unable
To roam, forget and then net us. For just as we are
Cod-driven, they would have us with chips, easily.
Politics now, today is what Pop was in my childhood:

Cannibalistic. Music sweetened. But this is sour stuff.

Spit back. Checkmate. Unvote. Change.

Condemn.

Flee.

Gaza Stripped

by David Erdos

War is raw in reverse, which is the state of foul play in Gaza.
Now, more than ever is the wrath of God reinvoked. As those
Once chosen now choose to persecute their close neighbours
In methods as lethal as the holocaust’s harsh killing joke.

For a joke can be seen as something separate to clear reason.
As with what Hitler decreed; all that followed was seeing how far
That tale spun, which is clearly happening now, as over seventy
Years of resentment breeds hatred, stemming it seems from

The sharing of what was thought at first to be won - after both
Tribulation and trial, Exodus and excoriation, but which has now
Become to my horror and to the horror of all the next nail
Hammered into the hands of the Palestinian born boy Bibles

Worship, whose equivalent today bleeds in Gaza. As his children
Are torn, truth’s impaled. One would never believe that so called
Holy Land was fought over. Or that the same soul stained city
Would be rendered in twain and reduced as being the homeground

From which the Palestinians are evicted by Israeli force
And by soldiers, as what we thought we were falls traduced.
I write this now as a jew and in a near state of panic, for while
Irreligious I am proud of my heritage, which contains survival

And strain, the pyramids, yes, and Shylock. Hollywood,
And a culture of tailors and towns long pillaged. So this has
Always felt like revenge, of the sourest sort, and more bitter
Than the pungent root sucked at Pesach to remind us of course

Of the past. I can taste and hear it today as Hamas fire rockets
And the threat of War like the virus and after Trump sounds
Like signs storming out of the earth, as a burning bush
Reconfigures, but which remains unseen when surrounded

By so much fired faith and crossed lines. If God is indeed
Speaking there, then no-one close can bare witness,
Or indeed hear the calling as the shouts of life and death
Clash. For just when the top end of the west thinks its free,

The Middle East carves fresh chaos. And what we thought
We knew about people and other places on earth fall to ash.
This need now for land, which seemingly can’t be shared,
Creates ruin; the kind that runs from the desert all the way

Towards overload. In our green and once pleasant land
There’s been plight that no-one ever dreamt of. The last few
Years have brought scandal once more around jewish codes.
But is anti-semitic feeling still that, or solely concerned now

With Israel? Zionism for me is as separate as the trainer is
To the road. I wear them not only to run, or rather to walk,
But for comfort. And yet once applied there’s a process
That others would call exercise. So, what has it become

Over there, but a set routine they can’t loosen. And what more
Will it take; how much horror, before they finally recognise
That unlike the knife Abraham placed against his son Isaac’s
Throat to test favour, these brutalities will not save them,

And nor, will it in time, bring them peace. For there can be
No true peace once there’s war. Everywhere’s raw once
That happens. For peace to come we’ll need Noah, or fresh
Tablets to form and release some new unknown truth

Belonging to Mohamed, Christ, or just Moses. And then, latterly,
Buddha, though only of course from rebirth, and at a time
When one’s race and one’s place as well is location and where
Each faith is the journey that with no destination reached

Achieves worth. There are protestations today.
Temples fall, raised. Lives are bartered. If one child cries
Is religion , or humanity itself doused in dirt? This is the question
Today: what do we live or die by? What do you believe?

For what reason? Look, Gaza is stripped. Like all earth.

David Erdos introduces his new collection of poems, downloadable below. The collection is illustrated by Max Crow Reeves, who also made the image above.

Coronic Irrigation: An Introduction

by David Erdos 

If an irritation is seen as something that disturbs
The smooth surface, thus came Corona to rub
And to warp settled flesh. I started setting my thoughts
Into verse as February sought its foreclosure, and by
The time of my Lockdown on the 23rd of March

Words were dressed

By the rhythms and rhymes

Echoed within this introduction,
As my pen tried to tidy the chaos
Of what I feared and felt coming next.
And so it has proved,

As the simply unconceivable came to dream us,
Making our past lives the fiction that a sedentary
State came to write. And so I posted each day
Each written text to colleagues and friends
On email and textbook and then started

Recording on Youtube from the my own Psalm 23
To cast light on some of the issues I felt
Would spike and stain everybody; Johnson
As Bete Noire, and Cummings the stain
On each night. Or the Cabinet Corons as a whole

Who have stumbled by day and through darkness.
In the clash of information they’ve given
The fight to feel free has begun. What has been
The true contagion; Covid? Or, the fact that we
Have become almost nstitutionalised in our houses?

As BLM and BAME batter, to master the murders
At hand, who has won? This is what these poems reflect,
Along with Max Crow Reeves’ stunning photos.
Each entry is a diary, and a novel, too; a small film.
Poetry I would hope for those unversed in it.

Monologues with a mission. Fires first found
In thought’s kiln. The hope is they will speak
And soothe or stoke irritations, and that as these
Striving words wound oppressors, the scars
On screen and on paper may in some small way

Soon reveal the rising heart held beneath
This book of me written for you.
Life after Lockdown will sequel.
But here’s the first feature that tries
To describe what most feel.

It was written in my garden each day
And recorded across the day’s music.
As the birds sang their warnings,
I lucky to have light and space,
Wrote towards darkness as I tried to

Contain our new real.

The downloadable pdf below is free, but if you want to make a donation towards our costs, use this button. We hope you enjoy reading it.