Welcome Home

The poems are about the Caribbean veterans and others who were invited to England to work in the factories after the World War, about the USA, migration, a Gurkha and his khukri and being thin-skinned

WELCOME HOME (Satis Shroff)

'Welcome Home' wrote the London Evening Standard,
As the SS Empire Windruch docked
At Tilburg in 1948.
On board were Jamaican veterans
From the Second World War,
Who'd fought alongside British Tommies.

The headline was never shown again,
Britain's door was soon slammed.
The Brits tried to forget their history.

The post-war labour shortage had seduced them,
To their colonial countries.
The first generation didn't have
A sense of belonging,
To the British mainstream.

The second generation had an ease of presence,
They married British girls,
Played socer at school and English clubs.
Black or coloured and British-feeling,
Despite the subtle cuts of the meanest kind.
The message dawned in them,
In the place they were not welcome.
Strange that some spoke
Of British heritage for all.

An elderly Brit veteran,
Who'd been and seen all,
Mumbled softly:
'Time will heal.'

* * *

THE CHAINS OF HISTORY (Satis Shroff)
The American pie 1776
Is a dream of the Founding Fathers:
Out of many, one.
The cohesion of a new nation.

All men are created equal,
All palefaced men was meant.
Alas, this noble ideal segregated
The Native and African-Americans.

Soon this vast country gave refuge
To immigrating Europeans who were melted.
What evolved under the Stars and Stripes,
Were real American values:
Justice, gratitude, righteousness.

Then came the nefarious Chinese Expulsion Act
In 1882.
To combat racial and economic concerns,
As we were told.
Ellis Island opened in 1892,
A machine to process people:
The good ones were taken,
The liabilities rejected.
Selection of useful manpower.

The melting pot of nations became rusty,
Giving place to the Salad Bowl,
Cultural Pluralism, American Mosiac.
Even American Pizza.
'Send the Chicanos back to Mexico!'
Was heard after the war.

The Salad Bowl people climbed up
The ladders of society,
The white-anglo-saxon protestants
Still run America.
Civil Rights Legislation gave African-Americans
Their rights on paper,
But what happens in the streets of Ferguson
Is obsession with gun rights,
The militarization of police forces.

It's still the olde racial wound,
That bleeds when scratched.
Multiculturalism still hasn't reached
The hearts and minds of the people.
Integration remains an alien word.

'Yes we can,' were Barrack Obama's words,
Which delighted the Inuit, Afro-Americans,
Chicanos as well as a pale majority.
Martin Luther King would have smiled,
Had he lived to experience
President Obama in the White House.
That was 2008.

Now it's 2015 and we're still at loggerheads,
Withe Republicans who're getting louder.
Obama sang 'Amazing Grace'
And American with him.
He broke the chains of history
And racism.

* * *

Migration Blues: FLEETING FRAGMENTS (Satis Shroff)

In every family there's a history
Of family members who wandered,
Moved to other places,
Looking for work,
Higher studies,
Or when they fell in love.

There's suffering, fear,
Disappointment, hope and plans
For the future.

There are people who've moved about
So often and don't know what home is.
Syrians battling with daily life,
Memories of war that haunt them.
The trauma of fleeing for their lives.
Women who have outlived Sebrenica,
Albanians, Macedonians,
Pakistanis, Afghans, Eritrians.

'Who are these people?
What do they think about the krieg
In their countries?
About Europe and their future?
What do they hope to get in Europe?'

These are the fleeting questions
That come to the European mind.

* * *

THE FLASH OF THE KHUKRI (Satis Shroff)

The bonfire throws shadows on the trees,
In a clearing below the Mahabharat hills.
The sun has gone down,
And a man unsheaths his khukri,
A curved knife used at home to cut vegetables,
In the forest to fell trees.

He walks warily around the fire,
Dances as though the Devil
Has taken possession of him;
As he slashes unseen foes,
With his trusted khukri.

The silvery metal flashes
Above his head,
In a fierce imaginary combat.
The Gurkha slices the thin air,
Again and again,
Moving in circles like a shaman,
In a rhythm of frenzy.

He lets out a blood-curdling cry:
'Ayo Gurkhali!'
Like generations of Johnny Gurkhas
Have done before him.
The Gurkha seems to transcend
Into a higher sphere,
As he lashes and slashes,
Lunges and plunges
With enormous energy
Of his manliness.

The rhythm slows down
And the soldier listens
To his inner silence.
His prancing and shouting recedes.

A faint smile appears
On his sweaty face,
As he cuts his thumb purposely,
To still his khukri and Kali's sanguine thirst,
And slips the blade in the sheath.

* * *

THIN SKINNED (Satis Shroff)

It's not about black
Or white complexion.
It's about being thin-skinned,
Vulnerable.
When you don't feel well
Under your skin.

It'd how you experience things;
You have to learn
To accept them
As they are.

To banish the formidable fantasies
That dominate your thoughts and life.
You have to learn
To close your eyes,
Breathe in and out deeply;
Go on a meditative journey,
To your innermost self.

To accept yourself,
With all your weakness and strength,
To grow within
And without.

* * *


  

Reviews

[Solar]

The theme of acceptance and alienation delicately and sensitively conveyed.

[Ashwin Thakur]

Great poem sir
Keep writing
The words of your life are your world.

[Satis Shroff]

Thanks for the kind comment, Ashwin. Have a good day, or what's left of it.