As a kid, Zephaniah was the first person i looked up to as a proud Brummie in the public oi. On being offered and rejecting an Order of the British Empire (OBE), he said: "I get angry when I hear that word 'empire'; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised".
I've already sung his praises as a working class hero of Brum on this blog before, so won't again as i have nothing new to say, but he died this week so i thought i'd share a poem of his.
I could hav been a builder
A painter or a swimmer
I dreamt of being a Rasta writer,
I fancied me a farmer
I could never be a barber
Once I was not sure about de future,
Got a sentence an I done it
Still me angry feelings groweth
Now I am jus a different fighter,
I sight de struggle up more clearly
I get younger yearly
An me black heart don’t get no lighter.
I will not join de army
I would work wid malt an barley
But here I am checking me roots,
I could work de ital kitchen
But I won’t cook dead chicken
An I won’t lick nobody’s boots,
Yes I could be a beggar
Maybe not a tax collector
I could be a streetwise snob,
But I’ll jus keep reciting de poems dat I am writing
One day I’ll hav a proper job.
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