Calais

This is the place.
This was part of England once.
English kings fought here,
And English soldiers died here,
To conquer a country that was never theirs.

This is the place.
Camps of refugees have been here
For centuries before these tattered tents
And their tattered needy
Fleeing from the wars their kings brought them.

This is the place.
Where the English raped and pillaged,
An uncomfortable cliché of history,
Where fortress walls burned and fell
For the sake of idle men’s greed.

This is the place.
Humanity lies forgotten here as England
Pushes its borders out and fortifies its island,
As foreign becomes an alien word,
And real history lies forgotten
In piles of teeth and gold and bones.

R, 24/10/2016