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“Refugees” by Brian Bilston

Brian Bilston’s simply titled ‘refugee’ poem won praise for recounting the pains suffered by those seeking asylum in Europe in unexpected fashion – and in just 24 lines.

Bilston is no stranger to crafting cleverly-composed poetry. In 2015 he won the Great British Write Off poetry prize for a poem disguised in a Venn diagram.

This video was first published on salmahasanali.com “Narrated by Salma Hasan Ali, Produced by “30 days 30 deeds”.

Here’s his masterful piece in full:

They have no need of our help
So do not tell me
These haggard faces could belong to you or I
Should life have dealt a different hand
We need to see them for who they really are
Chancers and scroungers
Layabouts and loungers
With bombs up their sleeves
Cut-throats and thieves
They are not
Welcome here
We should make them
Go back to where they came from
They cannot
Share our food
Share our homes
Share our countries
Instead let us
Build a wall to keep them out
It is not okay to say
These are people just like us
A place should only belong to those who are born there
Do not be so stupid to think that
The world can be looked at another way