09/09/2026
An infamous MP named Enoch Powell wanted to run for prime minister and gave a racist speech, timing it to use tabloids to incentivise the nation. The speech is know as the Rivers of Blood Speech. Years after his death the historical society wanted to give the Wolverhampton MP a blue plaque of remembrance. This poem was to highlight disproportionate stop and searching of people of black people using the Rivers of Blood Speech and some of the MP's words.
Stop and Research
Hatred on faces amazes me in multi-cultural societies
Of so much variety, so when I see unevenly distributed wealth
On streets it causes me to frequently pause and breathe
Before stepping out into a stop and search of myself
Asking,
“Did this life that I’m living spring in the beginning in rivers
Of racist rhetoric, claiming a better logic for an indigenous
Population by lying or self-denying, but not giving us t
He true situation, because
The original Briton was of a darker persuasion.”
Considering this equation within my breadline estate of mind
I find I’m harassed by another kind of stop and search
Observing these exploding C4 words hurled out into the world
To be clearly heard:
“In this country in 15 to 20 years’ the black man
Will have the whip hand over the white man.”
Dam.
Can you see sweating fears from colonial hands slipping
From a whips slick grip trying to hold quick until the last
Grasping grasp of the past, because as sure as tax
This causes me to ask,
“Is it fear of a black man and racial class
The reason for me being so harassed?”
In aftermaths of Powell’s speech racial attacks and chants
Denied ideas from flying across segregating dividing lines,
Because tongues become tied and tired of an ignoramus racists deciding
To ask:
“Why don’t you go back to your own country?
Come see yet another stop and research highlighting upper crust
Imperialistic high-minded Romans foreboding a River Tiber foaming
And dilating breadline minds to climb right in:
“I’m going to make my speech here at the weekend
And it’s going to go up like a rocket and stay up”
Hold up, here comes another mental cop to stop and rehearse
Submerging thoughts under subjugating rivers of blood
From good lives that matter,
While a racial bantering demands I empty out the pockets of my mind
So I reveal strikers shooting shots to glide across tabloid lined goals
And rise up from IC3 minor roles,
Like models actors receiving Oscars accolades applause
And rising up to fight the poor people’s cause,
And of course singers are birthed to globally serenade souls
Of fans on every land and entrepreneurs
Are commanding millions,
But you will never see many IC3’s rise up out inner cities nitty gritty
And be knighted sir, and observe
The young and gifted are being lifted,
Harvested up out of inner-city’s
To be replanted in Flanders like foreign fields
To yield a bloody crop with no claps on the back
From the whip hands stained with blood of the past.
Blast, a cardiac-like arrest of progression because of complexion
Forcing thoughts to march between guards to chained down chairs
Where thorny snares snag the skin of a tongue
To drag ragged befuddled thoughts
Over ready-made baited seed beds
To grow home grown popular trees
Bright blood red, and then
Dangling ligatured words to hang and strangle
Another strange fruit dead.
