After Auden

by Jenny Mitchell

About suffering they were never wrong,
the slave masters: how hard they whipped
until the humans, trapped, were made to kneel;
how it all takes place hidden in the Caribbean
whilst Great Britain – rolling hills, dappled fields
placed in front of dread machines – calls itself enlightened,
the revered dead carved in stone placed in city squares
where those descended from the once-enslaved
are forced to do the service jobs, children trapped
in failing schools, piled on a heap of unemployed.
Where dogs in Parliament go on with their doggy lives,
scratching their arses with what should be a helping hand.

On Question Time, for instance, how they turn away
quite leisurely from disasters of their own making – foodbanks
emptied out. A refugee has heard the splash, forsaken cry
behind him, hardly daring to look back. As the sun sets
in blue water ambitious blacks and browns pull up the ladder.
No one sees the people falling from an island
sailing calmly on before it sinks.