In these challenging times, this limerick tries to capture the destructive force of all the "isms"—racism, antisemitism, extremism and others—shaping a world where security and peace seem ever more distant. By highlighting the deep-rooted nature of these hatreds, it emphasises how they threaten our safety and undermine the unity we desperately need. A call to action against intolerance, this piece...

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The dirty waters of nationalism

Are flowing freely nowadays

A narrow-minded bigotry

Pervades the racist's ways.

The filthy pools of fascism

Rippling steadily outward

Craving invented purity

The racist feels empowered.

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Taking my first girlfriend
to the pub at seventeen
Crossing the cobbles
of a gunmetal grey 
northern market town
Mitten in glove
warm in our teenage
prototype version of love
A chatterbox pint for me
a tipsy glass of white for her
and we’d find a quiet corner

Invariably, some red-faced
shaven-headed native
furtively eyes my companion
“Where do you come from?”
they’d splutter in th...

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Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!

(From the Masque of Anarchy by Percy Bysshe Shelley)

Below is what I consider to be a Manifesto of Hope, to whose motives and principles I wholly subscribe.

Public ownership of all public services and infrastructure, including ...

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DISEASE BREEDS DISEASE

_____________________

Strange new ailment

Giving pneumonia-like symptoms

Has a ripple effect

Spanning our globe.

Floating on the wind, harm to health,

Diaspora of microbes--

Point of outbreak:

Wuhan, China.

Within a month, fate's transmission

Country by country. Bad news travels fast.

Reported cases of Coronavirus

Breeds ...

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Where the oppressed are kept under white supremacists systematic control,

And an 89-year old woman is set alight, whilst taking a daytime stroll. 

The hate crimes on the Asian community is rapidly rising in toll.

We must fight against xenophobia until this racist infrastructure folds.

 If only people were judged by their true likeness, painted by their souls.

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A ferocious sea of red, white and blue
Sieg heils and swastikas, Doc Marten boots
Shaven heads, braces and distorted faces
Driven by fear and irrational hatred
You think you're superior, sophisticated
The master race, ha! But your views are outdated
With your big fat round belly and your face like a pig
Your snarled lips as you yelled and you screamed and you hissed
At me, commie bitch, n*...

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Blessed mother so blessed
To raise a boy so kind so giving
To practice forgiveness always forgiving
Blessed mother we thank you for the blessing you brought us
Praiseworthy son the message he taught us
Rare teenage boy with morals unique
Praiseworthy words Her boy he would speak
He still lives Blessed Mother..His greatness so strong
His Praiseworthy message through God's gentle song
Sacre...

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I am angry.

I am angry at men, and women
and children and mothers and fathers.
my body is full of unbridled rage, that the ones
I love and care about, sometimes even myself,
can turn a blind eye to the atrocities right in front of us.

Children ripped from their mothers
Young people blinded and beaten for speaking the truth
Men spewing bile, cruelty, poison to hide the 
depths of their...

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Hands up

On your knees 

It’s not an instruction 

It’s a threat

Because your skin

Your hands 

Your hoodie 

Are a weapon 

So you drop

You drop like Trayvon’s skittles 

You drop like Tamir’s BB pellets

You drop like Michael’s cigars 

Or you drop dead. 

Each breath could be your last

Breathe breathe breathe 

I can’t breathe

Please, please, I can’t breath...

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In a world that is broken and full of crime and hate

There are people who still have faith

Faith that can move mountains and make things well

There are people who believe with all their heart that things can heal

They believe that with faith anything and everything is possible

Through pain, death, and brokeness we must always remember to have a little bit of FAITH

Let God take th...

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Small town girl with your voice so low

and your hopes even lower,

you keep on singing just the wrong verse.

Why is it that you never care?

You keep on counting only on false friends.

Why is it that your heart 's so bare?

Small town girl with your history so long

and a record even longer,

huddled in your hoodie.

What is it that you won't see?

With your right arm s...

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Hate on Tap
 

LOCK HER UP!

BUILD THE WALL!

SEND HER BACK!

Three-word chant

Three-word chant

Three-word chant

Rouse the mob!

Rouse the mob!

Rouse the mob!

Hate on tap

Hate on tap

Hate on tap

Sexist Trump

Racist Trump

Mister Trump:

No more of that

https://news.sky.com/story/send-her-back-trump-fires-up-crowd-...

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No time for you, Mr. Robinson

Jesus loves you less than you would know

Woe woe woe

God help me please, Mr. Robinson

Heaven holds no place for those who hate

Hate Hate Hate, Hate Hate Hate

Here you are in Manchester spouting your pathetic shite

We'd like to help you learn to f*%# yourself

Look around you all you see are unsympathetic eyes

Stroll around our town but w...

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He was a bit-part actor, he never dreamt of commanding his stage

He signed on as a walk-on character, a cameo role in a one-off play,

Each night he learnt his lines, the same words he would speak every day

Rehearsing his part word-perfect, in the hope that his public would pay

No one spelled out his name in neon, the only stars he knew were in the night sky

His costume was neve...

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I wrote this two years ago, long before the Windrush scandal hit the headlines.

When them set sail on Empire Windrush

Them leave behind sun, sea and sand

Yes, them set forth upon Windrush,

Them a tropical collection of hands,

When all them set foot on Windrush;

Next stop, the promised Motherland

So, them all on board Empire Windrush

All four hundred and ninety-two...

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SHAME

In a warehouse, in a cage a child sits

In bits

Clinging to her only comfort a blanket of foil

And whilst we all recoil

at the horror on display

Theresa May declares although it’s not ok

 She will wait and chat in her special friend’s ear....  only when he is here  

Whilst umbilical cords of family ties

Are severed bleeding out amid cries ..............................

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Half-Asleep

The street light casts a shadow on the bedroom wall through
partly opened curtains and for a moment I see Adolf Hitler
in silhouette and I know it’s my imagination but the truth is, hate
in an orange face scares me.

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Spic, wetback, beaner,

Border rat, pepper-belly, orange picker,

Names commonplace now

For Latinos and Hispanics,

Names,

Used to break,

Used to hurt,

Used to kill,

The orators:

Ignorance, Malice, Contempt

But most importantly

Fear.

Fear of what is different,

Fear of what is great,

Fear of what has always been great,

For the sun shone for centuries

On ...

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Intolerants not welcome - The battle of Lewisham 13.08.1977

An anti muggers march, called by mugs who wanted to spread hate

August thirteenth in ’seventy seven, history demands we mark the date

when South East London screamed out for black and white to unite and fight,

ensuring wronguns on right would never again be so bold or bright.

The backward Front was in for one...

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Let's unite in peace and make a plan:
a wily plan of mutual respect
to counteract the hatred in this man.
Let's do everything he won't expect!

We won't let goads and bigotry divide us
- let's evoke what World War II has taught us.
Don't let's patronise - let women guide us
when he slights our mothers, sisters, daughters.

And when he flays the vulnerable with derision 
let's answer bac...

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Xenophobe

centuries turn

witches burn

mantra

monsters

under the bed

home is where

the heart is

not like me

me not like

trolls

under bridges

bogeyman

is gonna get ya

spreading

like a virus

mantra

monsters

in my head

trolls

in the darkness

bogeyman

is gonna get ya

home is where

the hurt is

attacking

healthy

white c...

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Rattling through the low hills

in the darkness and the endless endless rain
the train is overcrowded
because the train is overcrowded
because the train is always overcrowded
and the conductor’s now a manager
a voice we never see
mumbling something through the tannoy
about weather and delays.
We used to have seats
now we stand
and this is progress.

Outside
the airwaves are full bey...

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Ku Klux Klan says

          "Brotherhood of Man"

as long as you're white

          it's alright.

Brothers in arms

          with crosses to bear

burn in hell

          for all we care.

barbecued brothers

          black as night.

Ironic that

          but it's alright.

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Lay flat and spun together you’ve always run  a town,

each  part is party to the next and  grown

separately  we conflict and seethe  from

it  and sneer from it, no one is happy in  slavery

wouldn’t  talking be a step, food too  and

work  unites us, it’s not them making us  toil

we  all carry the can and  mustn’t

need  to chase our own tale to cause  blame

each  ti...

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The Fury
Pitiful the morsels for the feeding of the rats,
Dished out unemotionally by vicious little cats,
Like vermin, out the rats they come and scurry back to hide,
Whilst all the while the fat cats feast voraciously outside.

The Persecuted
In the darkest corners of the high walled city streets,
The rank and rotten souls of human waste claw to compete,
Shuffling through th...

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Twenty years ago, 
he is waiting for a bus,
'Cos twenty years ago 
he is simply one of us.
But just twenty years ago, 
he comes under attack,
Just 'cos twenty years ago, 
this teenager is black.

Twenty years ago, 
he runs for his life,
'Cos twenty years ago, 
racists stick him with a knife.
Twenty years ago, 
this firework is far too fleeting,
And so twenty ...

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The Scratchers and the Scrawlers

We shall not forget

Signs scrawled by Neanderthals on almost every wall we walked past.

An N, in capital form with two lines added, which digressed to suggest a capital F.

It was scratched into a table

It was scratched into many a table

It was scratched into too many a table often by near illiterate authors who wanted to blame...

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This is the kind of poem a poet wishes that they did not have to write... this is the kind of poem that gives a poet the reason to write, its why God gave us the ability to write.

A Nigerian immigrant was murdered on the streets of Dublin, Ireland on Good Friday last. This poem is my reaction to the tragedy...

...

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