9th August 2011, London
the ninth of august is a holiday
and i’m watching as the night sky gets set ablaze
by an Audi slowly bursting into flames
outside the gutted mama shop kids are running away
with beer and porn magazines and fresh milk.
the ninth of august is a holiday
and i’m warming myself by a car set ablaze
sipping on beer some guy’s giving away
watching my friend skip past police lines in the park
theres no law against skipping yet, we’re still in the UK
and it really has been such a beautiful day.
the ninth of august is a holiday
and i know the moral I’m supposed to take away
something like, thank God that won’t happen back home
which is, that would never happen over there, no way
which is what everyone said about this street before yesterday.
As Tony Blair once said, we are a peaceful people
therefore we have to bomb the Taliban state.
the ninth of august is a holiday
or feels like one anyway,
the shops all closed, the streets all empty
we can stay home and play
I’m standing in my primary six history textbook, page 28
the bogeyman nightmare of chaos and anarchy
filed under Maria Hertogh, Hock Lee, General Naughtiness
what could happen if we had no strong state
and i would be lying if i told you it didn’t feel like a movie.
and i know the lesson i’m supposed to take away
this is what you get from your liberal Western Democracy
which is, too many dark skinned people running amok
amok: that’s a word that you don’t hear a lot of these days
its a word strong enough to freeze blood in your veins
its a word sharp enough to cut the lines of old trains.
the ninth of august is a holiday
and the best selling item is baseball bats on amazon uk
there’s a hundred Iphones for sale on ebay
the man reinforcing his shopfront tells me to go home quick, it isn’t safe
with the right tools and connections, even you can be a vigilante.
The ninth of august is a holiday
This old Irishman’s telling me why my country succeeded as a state
Two ingredients: self-interest and fear, all you need to control a populace
I guess this is what happens when people have been stuck in a place
where they have nothing left to fear but self-interest
The ninth of august is a holiday
What movie shall we watch today? Conan the Barbarian or Captain America?
and maybe it is a bit of paranoia but I do think that guy’s turned the reggae in his car up a little higher.
the ang mohs look over their shoulders all anxious, dismayed.
the dark youths are walking in packs through the nice parts of town
smash restaurants they couldn’t pronounce the name of, burn mamashops down
but we learn to put common good above the individual every National Day
that little shop will be put out of business by Carrefour anyway.
The ninth of august is a holiday
we wake up to clean the post- riot streets because the UK
unlike us, doesn’t have an efficient enough
road sweeping system to keep its capital’s face all sweet
because we don’t like to see our faces in the mirror the morning after
it makes it easier to pretend the night before never happened
and after every National Day parade, its simpler
to pick up the litter
than to ask yourself why
and why here.
the ninth of august is a holiday
that I mostly spent following Twitter updates,
and you say if this was our country the army would just open fire
to make everything okay,
but ‘amok’ is not something that starts and ends with one shot
it started with all of us, it won’t just go away.
the ninth of august is a holiday
but we’ve been so well trained at looking away
Is it wrong that I am warming myself by someone’s car set ablaze
sipping on the beer some guy’s giving away?
I am not saying that any of this is okay
but violence doesn’t ask for anyone to condone or condemn it
it just happens when too many people had something to say and no one to listen.
There’s police cars going past my house every ten minutes
there’s a Turkish gang on my street to keep the looters at bay
it isn’t quite fireworks but we all need a change.
