Homeless Poem by John Dowdall

Dedicated to Edward Snowden and all refugees to Europe.


Of all things that subsume and distract the mind lethargy is the worst. No culture shall stand if its soul is not purified by fire. Distractions abound everywhere. And now a righteous man is country-less.

The agony of his isolation and his fear of reprisal are felt acutely by him alone. Empathy can only reach so far. Turn away so and return to morose apathy. The officially sealed pardon is readily taken.

A professional journo stroke commentator condemns Papal empathy for the Islamic refugee. The commentator is paid. The Pope is seen as visionary as the prophet's Ummah receive aid from kindly Christians still.

Long ago, Abu Talib vowed to protect his nephew from harm. Fatima chased away the torment of Abu Jahl when Uqbah poured camel guts onto her father's back. Allah speaks in the Quran, the sunnah provides an exemplar.

Christ has died, Christ has risen and Christ will come again. The Mahdi will come from Mecca. And, of course, other nations have their symbols too. No common strands discerned, by those who read their signs with zeal or in consumable packages.

The workers kill the deportee.
The modernists infest the cinema.
The post-modernists are busy refuting existence.
The women are forcibly divided.
The girls are being shot at.
The popular vote irrelevant.

And fragments like these are shored onto all our ruin. There is no one voice anymore to arrest the human mind. Human hearts are in tatters. Decadence is gross. I could go on and on. But who am I to go on? A figure, a jaundiced jaded form, an old-fashioned speaker.

And Lenin returned to Russia on a train. Charles II gave his Declaration of Breda. The 10th Earl of Kildare rose up with his silk fringes at St Mary's. Muhammad (p.b.u.h) delivered his final sermon to many thousands. Jesus met John the Baptist. Queen Nefertiti ruled with Akhenaten and built Amarna. All yesterdays.

No todays. Just boys being force fed by the nose. Police bungling protesters into vans. Ire for the country-less needy. And here's ancient knowledge that is not difficult to understand. We cannot cause a man to be without a country unless we cause a country without true men.