Len drove Heavy Goods Vehicles
Twenty years in domestic haulage
Then at last he pulled the big-one
A multinational, with networked-storage
Amir was a farmer’s son from Eastern Africa
One of millions subdued by President Shula
His only desire was to make his life richer
By trying to escape the dictatorship-ruler
For three long months he’s grifted and drifted
Western Europeans would complain bitterly
Of the treatment he got in Libya and Egypt
Then a boat of near-death to the heel of Italy
Racial abuse when hitch-hiking through Lazio
He couldn’t fight back, hadn’t eaten since Naples
They took-turns to kick the carognesco negro
And if you’re incognito, you can’t get your cuts stapled
Len first saw Amir just-south of Brussels
One of four skinny black men waiting by a tree
The Federal Police started exercising their muscles
Next thing……………………. there were only three
The cute thing is that if you don’t officially exist
Then it’s impossible to be ‘officially’ dead
You can’t even be ‘officially’ murdered
And nothing will ever officially be said
But it wasn’t Amir that they laid to rest
The lad had started to undo a curtain-side
He had scarpered when he saw the unrest
And Len’s truck was his chosen place-to-hide
His destination was England’s bright lights
He had heard that it’s a very good country
Public Health Service and Human Rights
And just as important – a stable currency
They got to Calais on a Wednesday night
That’s when Len first noticed he had company
As he rearranged his load and secured it real-tight
Amir’s leg protruded from behind pallet-three
They looked at each other for a lifetime-complete
Len observed his wretched and pleading stare
Until finally, he returned to his driving seat
No explanation offered as to why he should care
Len spends the crossing considering ‘exposure’
The moral-maze of informing the Border Agency
Plenty of English jobseekers haven’t found closure
But it’s obvious this kid’s had enough vagrancy
The next hurdle, heartbeat-sensor checks in Dover
But much less-frequent, if truckers don’t flag-it-up
“We need more resources” say the border forces
“We can’t search them all for Africans down on their luck”
Then the M2, the M25, a drop-off near the M3
Another soul-less distribution depot
And, with no more than a flick of the head,
Len gives Amir his Instructions to ‘Go’
Back to Colden Common, to a modest rental
A few drinks with the lads every Friday
The cosy familiarity of the Cask Marque local
Four pints of Wadworth, in surroundings-untidy
He takes his usual place with his drinking mates
A plumber, a builder and local person-of-note
He observes their stories and hears them relate
How politicians betray them, even though they don’t vote
But next-time they are going to vote ‘Brexit’
To help-keep the scrounging bastards out.
Our Len thinks back to Amir’s pathetic stare.
And he just sits there………… and he says now’t.
Copyright Jody Redmires, 2016