How long Before the Next Bus? OR Fear on the Streets

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Although this poem was not written until 2003, Stephen Lawrence loomed largely in my thoughts as the death toll among young people subjected to violent, sometimes fatal attacks in London continued to rise; it is still rising. The awful irony is that all the while knife crime remains prevalent, the more young people feel it is necessary for their own protection to carry a knife. 

Stephen Lawrence was an 18-year-old sixth form student. The black British teenager from Eltham, South-East London was stabbed to death while waiting for a bus on the evening of 22 April 1993. It is only recently that two people have finally been convicted of a murder believed to have been racially motivated.

Racism, like homophobia and all hate crime is invariably fuelled by a prevailing gang culture and/or those less discerning socio-cultural-religious bigots among us without whom societies worldwide would far better served. Education is the key; in  schools, colleges and universities, but first and foremost in the home. Tragically, it is far too often the case that education is found wanting in all of these.

As a gay man, I cannot help but get the feeling that homophobic crime is rarely afforded the same high profile as racism among the press, police, politicians or parents. Oh, and why is that?  Does a person’s sexuality make him or her less of a human being than the colour of their skin? Whatever, discrimination in any shape or form is unacceptable in a civilised society.

HOW LONG BEFORE THE NEXT BUS? or FEAR ON THE STREETS

Blood on the pavement where a body lay

and later someone knelt to pray for the soul

of another youth struck down violently
long before his time; utterly senseless crime,
harsh indictment of a society as inclined
to pass by on the other side as rush to the aid

of anyone being attacked, since it could be
for the sake of not being able to buy some acid,
coke, crack, weed, designer gear, the colour
of their skin, a suspect sexuality or even simply
getting kicks out of attacking, maybe killing
someone, given the chances are some in-crowd
says it's 'cool' to look good, act big enough
give old ladies a heart attack, snatch a blind man's
stick for a (sick) joke. Why tempt fate. risk
pitting ourselves against wolves in sheep's clothing
for any of that?

Years on, the pain still tearing at modernity's 

flimsy fabric, as hate ripped a young man's jacket

whose blood at a bus stop tells its own story,

plaque meant as a memorial but also recalling
the vainglory of a fraternity never properly brought
to book, justice gone to ground so we'll never,
walk down any street without a fear shadowing us
that’s persistently perverting its course; no peace
in a sad world likely to stab us in the back any time,
no matter our ethnicity, creed, sex or sexuality,
(easy targets for the perversity of cowardly thugs)
on a street that could easily be mine or yours,
leaving yet another mother, father, sister, best mate
left grieving us, missing us, forever questioning
the ethos of contemporaneity, feeling abandoned
by a society, left watching anxiously for the next bus

that never comes

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2019

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in A Feeling for the Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]