There is too much male white power at loose in the world
There is too much male white power at loose in the world
The smell of Pretoria
The breath of the Pentagon
The eye of the Kremlin
How can I trap it
How can I embalm it
How can I roll it up
like a burial shroud
and put it away
Or at least
How can I persuade it
How can I dissuade it
How can I dissipate it
and spread it thin thin
across my loaf
which of course
would have to be eaten
There is too much male whita power at loose in the world
There is too much male white power at loose in the world
How can I cull it
How can I curb it
How can I muzzle the hound
Or at least
How can I bemuse it
How can I confuse it
and like the tower of Babel
bring it all down
O I am a cutter of cataracts
A salter of tongues
There is too much male white power at loose in the world
There is too much male white power at loose in the world
How can I rebound
the missiles and rockets
How can I confound
multinational octopuses
Or at least
How can I remove the ‘Big Chiefs’
from the helm
How can I put them to sit on beaches
quiet, sea-gazing, retired old men.
From Graces Nichols’ selected poems I have crossed an Ocean (Bloodaxe Books, 2010), previously published in Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman and Other Poems (1989).
Publish by courtesy of Bloodaxe Books: https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/
