Yes, there's more comfort in the dole
than in his native Yardie hole.

He stands above me six foot six in his hair.
His dreadnought curls caught in a crocheted cap
exhale a memory of fern and forest lair.
The streets of Bethnel Green are cold
and paved with shit A SECOND GOREE
that clings to soles.

But there's more comfort in the dole
than in his native Yardie hole.

There
corrugated tin corrodes
beneath the torrid rain
and beaten floors cry out in pain
as stunted bantams peck for bugs.
It's good to feel a Smith and Wesson in your hand,
better to squeeze the trigger on a wasteful debt
and best to see skull fragments and the stuffing fly.
But he can't buy a Smith and Wesson there.
No, surely he can't buy a gun at all,
no gun at all.

And there's more comfort in the dole
than in his native Yardie hole.

Here
with rich pickings from the scarce-alive
and pocket money from the state
he can afford a Magnum 45,
a mortgage on a profitable estate,
in short defy the very Fate
that in Jamaica made him bottom of the pile,
a veritable granule of our Tate & Lyle.

And there's more comfort in the dole
than in his native Yardie hole.

A missionary forebear has bequeathed
the pallor of his skin
and knowledge of man's sin,
but in a past historically dim
they manacled his neck in Senegal
to other necks and marched him to landfall.
From Dakar on Cap Vert to Goree Isle
they floated him to join the slave parade.

And there's more comfort in the dole
than in his native Yardie hole.

They almost lost him, ballast in the bilges,
made sick and maddened, brine-soaked, burned with bile.
Some days they opened up a hatch
sending an offertory stench
to please the nostrils of their Lord,
unchaining dead that were aboard.
Sponges were squeezed above the live to quench
the raging thirst. This gentleness to match,
those freed they now with piety baptised
in full immersion. By sharks their bones were analysed.

* * * * *

Saved to cut sugar brakes,
his fingers bleed on cane,
his back on white man's lashes.
This black who is dust and ashes,
whose frame feverishly quakes -
his life is still dead bane.

And there's more comfort in the dole
than in his native Yardie hole.

There's a second auction in Jamaica.
His woman's purchased by a Yankee
and he by a righteous little Quaker
for the price of a cotton hanky.
He's new-christened 'Gift of God' or 'Theodore';
straightway he learns to pray until his knees are sore.
Another ocean crossing in another stinking hold;
more dead than alive he reaches Liverpool.
Chained in a second Goree by the Mersey mud
he's dressed in velveteen and periwig.
The crowd admires his breeches. 'Very big,'
they murmur. 'To hold sconce or serve as stud
will quite become him. Stand on a stool!'
The bidding's furious. A man cries, 'Sold!'

And there's more comfort in the dole
than in his native Yardie hole.

Novelty gone, he's back in Kingston with a planter
to serve his mistress as a page
magna cum laude -
learning to bow, pray! -
and all the while he's burned by rage.
He hates his ma'am but will enchant her.

And there's more comfort in the dole
than in his native Yardie hole.

Now he is here in Bethnel Green
armed with two centuries of hate.
His brother whites have shaved their pates,
donned masks of spite and brute despair.
'Give back our country!' they declare.
'This ain't your country,' Yardie states.
'Geography has never been a native right:
or if it were, slum-dwellers would evict
the Duke of Westmin' overnight
and courts summarily would convict
that lord of theft, his character indict.
I've come to colonise your country, man:
stand back or fight me for it if you can.'

And there's more comfort in the dole
than in his native Yardie hole.