Poem

Just another Whale

Yogesh Patel

Like many a man of history
A wrong turn you took
Only to find yourself becoming
Naturalised as the Thames Whale
In the far distant lands
Of fear and grotesque noise
Now as disparate as one of
Us; Chinese, Negro, Asian
A dicey, damned undertaking indeed
By the deafening sounds, holler
Of passports, immigration controls, visas
Religious labyrinths, Nazi chants
Shouts of expedient morality

You, of course, won’t realize
This, until you’re a skeleton

A whale in the Thames
Not a foolish migrant at Faroe
Not a human migrant
At the banks of the Thames

An eccentric theatre of love
Puzzling to the ducks scampering around.