First they came

by Steve Pottinger

after Pastor Martin Niemöller

First they came for the hospitals
and you did not speak out
except to say they wouldn’t, and anyway, tunnels.
Then they came for five-year-old Hind
and you did not speak out
except to say, regrettable, but anyway, hostages.
Then they came for journalists, professors, poets
and you did not speak out
except to say, awful, but right to self-defence.
They came for schools, mosques, aid workers,
anyone in the sights of a sniper
and you did not speak out
except to say, yeah, but most moral army.
Now they come for starving people in tents
and burn them, and you do not speak out
you do not speak out
you never speak out.

When they come for you
expect nothing but silence.

Talking with Mr Strummer about the nature of the world

by Steve Pottinger

“They’d send a limousine anyway…” - The Clash

You were right, Joe.
More right than either of us could
ever have imagined. It’d make your
blood run cold to see how they welcome
his private jet into their airspace,
send a fleet of the biggest blackest
cars, roll out the red carpet.

And then, Joe, they give him the mic.
Up he strides, this little man, Narcissus
in a bloody suit. Spits out the old lies:
lebensraum, victimhood,
the whole shebang.
You know how it goes – subhuman
enemies, forces of darkness.

The press, Joe? They love it.
Good copy, endless headlines,
ten minutes on TV from now till forever.
It’s a gimme. There’s a career here, a fast
ride to the top floor if they play
their cards right, make sure not to ask
awkward questions about camps
they can pretend they haven’t heard of.

Us? Oh, we’re still here, Joe.
Outside, as always. Protesting,
as always. Our voices echoing
in cold streets, the sky above us
ablaze with stars. I know the Milky Way
doesn’t care a jot about us, Joe, but
knowing it’s there gives me some kind
of hope, and I’m grateful for that.
And you were right, Joe, dammit. More
right than either of us ever knew.

A Beginner’s Guide to 4-D Chess

by Steve Pottinger, with image above by Martin Rowson

Play the man, and not the ball.
Sneer about 2019, the impotence
of protest. Say nothing of slaughter.

Talk tough on benefits
in your free suit, glasses, shoes.
Mention veterans. Stop boats.

Glastonbury tickets trump digital tax.
You have a right to watch football.
Let me be clear. These are facts.

Your team, a snout.
Taylor Swift, a trough.
Isn’t it nice, the quiet?

At the helm of our nation’s photocopier:
grown-ups. Sensible. Beige.
Pastiches of Cool Britannia.

Your vision of the future?
A tribute act. Stamping
outsourced. Hail profit. Forever.

Euro 2024

by Steve Pottinger

the bees dropping into the poppies in my garden
do not care that Saka’s scored a screamer
that the mood in the Red Lion over the wall

has spun on the proverbial sixpence
that the players who were not fit to wear
the shirt are now halfway to being heroes

drunk on pollen they float in evening
sunlight to salvia, lavender, and lupin
ignoring the debate about the strengths

– or not – of Trippier at left back
Kane up front, the balance in midfield and
what the hell do pundits know and they are

busy all through a penalty shootout watched
from between fingers, hearts in mouths
they do not care whether football has

a home, or if it’s going there, and when
the roar goes up, the celebration,
when the chants of Eng-er-land ring out

the bees are humming their own tune
head down in the nasturtium flowers
their view on Southgate remains unchanged.

the columnists’ hypotheticals

by Steve Pottinger

what if doormats were suddenly sentient?
what if elephants nested in trees?
what if your gran was a Toblerone?
what if locomotives had knees?

what if Tuesday was really a Welsh cake?
what if the Atlantic were slices of toast?
what if the King were a Dalek?
what if the M42 were a ghost?

what if snakes could be worn as neckties?
what if pasta was made out of lead?
what if childbirth was just like a train strike?
what if you had feet on the top of your head?

what if cheese were an alien life form?
what if children were made out of hay?
what if milkshakes were deadly as bullets?
what if I had something worthwhile to say?

should an agency cleaner in the basement

of the British Museum find
in some forgotten room
an old earthenware lamp

and choose to rub it,
rub it with the sleeve of
her overall, gentle

and curious, knowing this
is not strictly within the T&Cs
of her employment, but

should she do that
and lo! a djinn appear,
stir itself to life and ask

Yeah? What?
and should she, thinking of
her neighbours in the flat

next door, the sobbing heard
through a shared and common wall
whisper Gaza. Peace

and should the djinn nod,
fade, vanish, the lamp
a dusty artefact and

she alone with the dead
hours of the night, miles
to tread before she sleeps

should she finish her shift,
wait, half-awake, for the 6am
bus that will carry her home

to newsrooms, airwaves, screens
in meltdown, jabbering the endless
Who? How? Why?

should a prime minister’s son
cower in hospital scrubs
in the ruins of Al-Shifa

a diplomat and her family
flee down Salah-al-Din Road,
searching for safety and water

should, in Khan Younis,
a pundit with a white flag
stumble into the sights

of a sniper, the president’s
mistress beneath the rubble
of a building, buried alive

should all this come to pass
there will be ceasefire before
the cleaner turns the key

in her front door,
trucks of aid in their hundreds
before the sun has set.

Tomorrow, we will begin to rebuild.

Imagine

by Steve Pottinger, with image above by Alix Emery

To the apologists for genocide who choose
to walk in no-one’s shoes but their own

Imagine all this happening
to your children. And to your
neighbour’s children. And to
the children who play football
up and down your street, in the
dust and the heat and the rain,
whose joy and whose laughter
has been a gift all your days.

Imagine all this happening
to the mother of your children.
To the mother of your neighbour’s
children. To the mother of the
quiet boy three doors down
who dreams of becoming
a journalist, or businessman.
To a whole street of mothers.

Imagine all this happening
to the mechanic in the next block
with the missing tooth, a ready smile,
who can make any motor purr.
To the musician whose name
you never learn. To the couple
whose shop opens late into evening,
who sell the best mangoes.

Imagine your home, gone.
The dress shop where
your sister worked, flattened.
The hospital that looked after
your father, nothing but rubble.
Imagine all these futures,
all these possibilities
extinguished.

Imagine being told
by those of us who believe
our children will always be safe
will always be blessed
will always be healthy,
imagine being told
that this is complicated,
that you have brought this on yourself,
that we are content you shall feast
on concrete, on grief, and on death.

Imagine us telling you
that when you cradle the
broken body of your child
you are showing us a doll.
She was only ever a doll.

Imagine that.

Slip on those bloodied shoes.
Imagine.

Darkening

by Steve Pottinger

for george

under a darkening sky
we sit round a log fire
out there cities are burning
the planet is burning and

i can’t breathe

out there people are dying
in hospitals in care homes
alone in bedsits with the knee
of a cop pressed into their neck and

i can’t breathe

out there pepper spray nightstick
rubber bullet rage
the same wrongs the old injustice
complicity complacency and

i can’t breathe

in the darkness we search
for each other for hope
for the glimmerings of dawn
for words but what words are there
we haven’t used before?

listen     fucking listen

i can’t breathe
i can’t breathe
i can’t breathe

Glass collector

by Steve Pottinger

Let us sing of the mouse-quiet collector
of glasses, clearer of plates, wiper of tables,
he who returns sauce bottles to their
allotted place on the worktop
he who takes no space at all
asks no space at all
who is seventeen
who will surprise you by butting into
your conversation about the Milky Way
with an extensive knowledge of cosmology
who will shrug and say he taught himself
because what else is there to do here
really, what else is there to do?
Let us sing of the mouse-quiet collector
of glasses, his slow orbit round tables,
of sauce bottles and wisdom
and no space at all.
Let us raise our glasses.
Let us sing.

This poem was one of the winners of the 2018 Bread and Roses Poetry Award, sponsored by Unite.