only gives him work on the railways, and I’ve met elders

in the Yoruba club in Croxteth Street who came

in the last century as stowaways and seamen,

fought in two world wars for Britain, but believe

back home is paradise. I argue Nigeria is small time.

Why eat rice and stew when you can taste Yorkshire pud,

meat and two veg? You can buy anything here,

there are so many shops, pubs on every street corner

and houses have all the modern conveniences.

Many people are respectful but some idiots shout

‘Oi! Johnny! Sambo! Darkie! Nigger!’ at us.

The elders tell us to take no nonsense from them,

so if I am abused I say quietly, ‘Just call me Taiwo,’

and boof! I fight them. Even the West Indians say

‘Do you people still live in trees in the bush?’

Mama, in this country I am coloured.

Back home I was just me.

MY NICKNAME is Bill now, after William the Conqueror.

I have found that an African name closes doors.

You would not believe the size of London, Mama,

but people live like mice, scurry into their houses

at night and draw the curtains. The streets are quiet

as cemeteries. You think they are dead, but come

morning they unlock their doors, charge back down

the pavement as if life is somewhere else. If I say

‘Hello’ they are frightened or angry or cross the road.

When we coloureds laugh freely they scowl at us

and on the Underground everyone stares into space.

I need warm clothes because it is so cold and heating

is expensive: the sun avoids this country, Mama.

I found a room in Kilburn for one pound a week,

the family were nice, the wife gave me Sunday dinner

but now I rent a cheaper room in Brixton where many

immigrants live. The landlord is Polish, the wife – Irish

and strict. No phone calls in or out. No visitors.

It is so hard to find a good place to live here

because they do not want us in their houses.

Mama, I have not written you a letter yet but

you must know that I think of you and Kehinde often.

WINTER’S arthritic trees lace evening’s broody sky,

miniature waterfalls mid-motion frozen from sloping

roof gutters; window frames display icicles –

January’s modern sculptures; bushes drip ephemeral jewellery,

coughing coal fires steam quartered panes like frost.

Chimneys, ordered as sentries, discharge bulbous smoke;

buses crawl through blizzards past snow-filled bomb craters,

faceless back-to-backs, timbers dangling mid-air

like dismembered limbs, winds creaking, no-man’s-land.

For men are needed

to replace the fallen dead. In the War like cards

stacked one by one they fell. A clarion call bugled

the colonies, and to a city burnt out from doodlebug

and Luftwaffe, they doffed cap, donned greatcoat,

dreams of prosperity, milk and gold, they were sold.

Now the emperor’s disowned sons

congregate in Commonwealth dance halls.

At the Catholic Overseas Club, Victoria, Taiwo,