“Welcome, dear friends, please be seated”

I loved that line by the poet Nazim Hikmet

when I first read it when I was only 22.

It was in a remainders bin at the Poetry Society

and sounded so different from the usual

Rupert Bear lectures about blossoms, Philomela,

holidays, spirit etc in a language no one speaks.

“Welcome, dear friends, please be seated”

It felt like he was talking to me about things

I knew nothing about – prison cells and death

although I would experience both much later.

Life scared me and I was only 22

married, a child, a job I didn't like, a bike,

a square of carpet in the lounge and a suit.

“Welcome, dear friends, please be seated”

Nazim wrote in 1946 when my father returned

from Burma weighing 7 stone, violins played near him

and God leant over and said to Nazim

your friends Haskim, Yakup and Ahmed Jemil

will have to wait 60 years for Rodney's father

and six million years for justice and freedom.

“Welcome, dear friends, please be seated”

That's probably the best line ever written

and now I'm the same age as Madonna

wars still happen, Death is a friend on Myspace.com

who sends me an update everyday

and I'm waiting to write a line half as good as

“Welcome, dear friends, please be seated”