Windrush Poems
The Immigrant’s Lament
Natalie Fagan Brown - Chair of the North Wales Jamaica Society
I have spent my life reciting the perfection of the daffodil.
Even though for my words worth of the plant I knew nil
So with a determination and eagerness to discover
I packed my case with a fervent decision to fly over
One has got to go to the motherland
It didn’t matter that alone I would stand
So bag and baggage, blouse and skirt
Good bye to Palisadoes, you can keep your dirt
For to England and the streets of gold
I go to seek riches untold
So without a background glance I crossed the tarmac
Glory before me and the sun on my back
But somehow it seems that someone forgot to alert them to my arrival
For Mr immigration asked for more than I had for his perusal
Did he not realise that after walking from the plane for what seems like miles
I would have to be Houdini to keep on to my wiles
With stone-faced resentment my passport he did stamp
But only after I promised I wasn’t a scamp
So armed with an indestructible three year plan
I vowed to stay thin and not touch the flan
No fish and chips would pass my lip
From ackee and saltfish never to slip
For in my hand luggage was enough to feed a nation
So no need for their food I would always have my rations
My pocket would never again fit my bodily proportion
For I was here to gain wealth and educational promotion
I wasn’t going to be like others long pass
For whom ‘I shall return’ never came to past
For soon I would to my emerald isle I return
As soon as the money for luxurious living I’d earn
My salary was much, it sounded like such
An as for savings, I was could do that in a rush
But of TV licence I was never told
So you can imagine my astonishment when it I behold
Council tax came upon me, like a thief in the night
Leaving near penniless and in a plight
Now if that’s not all I think I have gone mad
For in this climate, I am always sad
For everyone whom I pass comments on the perplexing weather
Confused as I am you could push me over with a feather
For today my dear here is the forecast
All at once its snowy, sunny, rainy, windy and overcast
So now I moan my dainty Spanish needle
For leaving my island, there is no one I’d inveigle
For now after five years my belly is fat and my pocket meagre
To go back home I am so eager
But the only way that’s going to happen I’ll report
Is to commit a crime and then me they will deport
So when you see my long face about
Don’t turn up your nose or at me pout
I have had enough of your scornful looks
When I burst out laughing at your self-help books
For instead of this, a manual is a better choice it would appear
For before I came it would have helped me for England to prepare
Natalie Fagan-Brown
Check out: 'Windrush child' a poem from Under the Moon & Over the Sea by John Agard
Behind you
Windrush child
palm trees wave goodbye .........
