Extract from An Abolitionist’s Fairytale
White Master is artist is lover is prophet is dealer is teacher is nurse and butcher. White Master is banker is plantation owner overseer overlord king of kings. White Master is ground sugar is loaf of bread is the bricks and the air we breathe. White Master is Mecca Bingo. White Master the City of London. White Master the monster under your bed the Chief Constable of Police. White Master laid the table before you were born and he will clean you up afterwards too. White Master is mist is flotsam and tide. Our Holy White Master is pestilence.
Fairies of Flame want to speak with your manager. These Fairies live, love and laugh. The fairies want to know what you’re doing here? Like, where do you really come from? What are you doing on my property? Where’s your permit? Just who do you think you are? Go back to where you came from. The fairies spent their gap year building schools for the cute kids in Africa! The Fairies are calling the cops. Fairies don’t want any trouble. The fairies would really appreciate it if you didn’t speak in such a harsh tone. You’re just not understanding where the fairies are coming from. They didn’t mean it like that. There’s no need to think of yourself as any different: it doesn’t matter if you’re purple, green or blue! Fairies are colourless: monochrome magic. All working for the same sisterhood. The fairies can’t help that they’re crying. Fairies lean on their rifles and squint. Fairies pull the trigger.
INTERLUDE: The Fairies of Flame Speak for Themselves
“… If I take your race away, and there you are, all strung out. And all you got is your little self, and what is that? What are you without racism? Are you any good? Are you still strong? Are you still smart? Do you still like yourself?… if you can only be tall because somebody is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And my feeling is that white people have a very, very serious problem, and they should start thinking about what they can do about it…” – Toni Morrison
We fizz ………………………………..tear out our hair
…………bite our lips bloody
………………………………………………….something gone
before our minds
………………………. were a million more
in which we come to be. A million more
from a million more who built our creation
destroying it………He says we came through
to please. Our bodies
……………………………. …..his instruments now.
We must all make sure White Master’s not cold.
Feed his swarming belly. Stroke his blood soaked hind.
Without him we’d be stuck
in that old light of water. A droplet ripple
……………………………………………………………………outstretching
on each nub of spine in the sun.
The warmth wandering aimlessly.
We lost ourselves in ourselves.
Now discs sit in place chained
crystals of salt crusting bone.
We crack. Colours don’t
move, no pure place left
to paint. We obey and know
where we fit in this play
………..White Master’s many tendrils burning
feeding our flight with fire.
We keep on moving so…………..we don’t feel it.……
……That distant light
so transparent untouchable
………pretty……..useless
really. This fire motivates
you hop and jump on hot coals
paving life’s inferno. Grabbing snatches
of what we have
been allowed. White Master that flash
in the corner of your eye. We play
what little influence we have
to make ourselves worthy.
White Master likes it when we make you blink hard.
The uninspired thickness of your skulls sturdy
walls for White Master’s protection.
How you block out the screamings
your own fellow children
your children’s
…………………….fellow children? Your desires
detonators launching bullets and bombing
Mine………..out into the universes
……………like bouncy balls
we catch them. Our abominable game.
We juggle sparks and make them burn brighter.
Or we do nothing
………………………………………………………..let it burn.
We sit and watch……falling to rest
the thud of a petal.
………………………………You wince
look under your feet.
……………………………………………..The bones beneath
……look straight back at you.
We witness
descent……….but do not hear them speak
………………………………….their names.
We know you have seen your siblings slipping
from this realm
……………………………to another. You exile them
before that one final death
………..before it all begins again. X marks the places
you bury them.