A Fire in My Head

by Ben Okri

  There were two Italians, lovely and young,

  Who in the inferno were on their mobile phone to friends

  When the smoke of profits suffocated their voices.

  There was the baby thrown from many storeys high

  By a mother who knew otherwise he would die.

  There were those who jumped from windows,

  Those who died because they were told to stay

  In their burning rooms. There was the little girl on fire

  Seen leaping from the twentieth floor. Need I say more.

  Those who are living are now dead

  Those who were breathing are from the living earth fled.

  If you want to see how the poor die, come see Grenfell Tower.

  See the tower, and let a world-altering deed flower.

  Always there’s that discrepancy

  Between what happens and what we are told.

  Official figures were stuck at thirty.

  But truth in the world is rarer than gold.

  Bodies brought out in the dark

  Bodies still in the dark.

  Dark the smoke, dark the head.

  Those who were living are now dead.

  And while the tower flamed they were tripping

  Over bodies at the stairs

  Because it was pitch black.

  Those that survived

  Slept like refugees on the floor

  Of a sports centre.

  And like creatures scared of the dark,

  A figure from on high flits by,

  Speaking to the police and firefighters,

  But then avoiding the victims,

  Whose hearts must be brimming with dread.

  Those who were breathing are from the living earth fled.

  But if you go to Grenfell Tower, that’s if you can pull

  Yourselves from your tennis games and perfect dinners,

  If you go there while the black skeleton of that living tower

  Still stands unreal in the air, a warning for other towers to fear,

  You will breathe the air thick with grief

  Women spontaneously weeping

  Children wandering around stunned

  Men secretly wiping a tear from the eye

  And people unbelieving staring at this sinister form in the sky

  You’ll see the trees, their leaves clean and green

  And you’ll inhale the incense meant

  To cleanse the air of its unhappiness

  You’ll see banks of flowers

  And white papered walls sobbing with condolences

  And candles burning for the blessing of the dead

  You will see the true meaning of community

  Food shared, stories told and volunteers everywhere;

  You’ll breathe the air of incinerators

  All mixed with the essence of life’s flower.

  If you want to see how the poor die, see Grenfell Tower.

  Make sense of these figures if you will

  For the spirit lives where truth can’t kill.

  Ten million spent on the falsely clad

  In a fire where hundreds lost all they had.

  Five million offered in relief

  Should make a nation alter its belief.

  An image gives life and an image kills.

  But the heart reveals itself beyond political skills.

  In this age of austerity

  The poor die for others’ prosperity.

  Nurseries and libraries fade from the land.

  A strange time is shaping on the strand.

  Swords of fate hang over the deafness of power.

  See the tower, and let a new world-changing thought flower.

  WALK IN A MOONLIGHT WONDER

  walk in a moon

  light wonder; white

  houses on cliffs

  of a magic sea.

  the sky drowning

  in blue; the white

  stones turn

  red and yellow

  and brown

  in the solitary stretch

  of the breathing land.

  woman walking

  in black across

  the henna-coloured

  earth. a green dog

  on a black leash sent

  from a wandering

  mind. one of the dog’s

  legs is blue in

  drenching moonlight.

  she is draped all

  in black. splendour

  of black in the brilliance

  of the dreaming walk

  in a moonlight wonder.

  About the Author

  BEN OKRI was born in Minna, Nigeria. His childhood was divided between Nigeria, where he saw first hand the consequences of war, and London. He has won many prizes over the years for his fiction, and is also an acclaimed essayist, playwright, and poet. In 2019 Astonishing the Gods was named as one of the BBC’s

  ‘100 Novels That Shaped Our World’.

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