Malvern – Parliament Square – Wembley Police Station, September 2020

For the people sitting in silence

With their love and their faith and their grief

We need you to listen

For the ones who are dancing and singing

Drumming their passion and rage on the streets

We need you to listen

For the hills and the meadows behind me

Threatened islands of life in my heart

For the trees and the woodlands you’ve bulldozed

For the destruction of life in your path

We need you to listen

For the wild things running and dying

As the buzz of their life force fades

For the lands degraded and burning

And the debt that will never be paid

We need you to listen

For the grandiose facades of your vanity

Speaking only to each other’s power

For the cruel web of lies that entangle us

From your faceless and heartless glass towers

For the elders, the youth and the children

Who are shouting that they want to live

For the deaf ear, the blind eyes, the beaten

Who feel they have nothing to give

We need you to listen

For the dirt on the street that I lie on

With the bones of our one earth beneath

For the blue sky above the pollution

And the hope of a life that can breathe

For the police who are carrying my pain away

It’s too much to carry alone

For the black skin of the officer bearing me

And the centuries of harm I have done

We need you to listen

For the statues of freedom and slavery

Voices silenced in marble and bronze

For the love and the strength of my people

Which cushions the slam of the doors

For the hollow grand houses we pass

As they hide in their luxury and fear

For the grey streets of ordinary millions

Where life is just something to bear

For the white tower, green heart of Grenfell

Where the souls of the dead cry our shame

For the refugees denied our asylum

For the voiceless who shoulder our blame

We need you to listen

For the vast and glorious planet

That vibrates outside of my cell

For the words I don’t have and the stories

That I am unable to tell

For the people who sit with my silence

With my hope and my love and my grief

We need you to listen