Bewabs and Mozzas

He hawks as we pass;

she drops something

into the folds covering

his crossed legs. Hand rising

in salutation, his eyes

busy scrutinizing light

trying to squeeze through

the closing door.

I, aghast: but why?

She smiles -

he’d tell the world

I’m a whore and you,

my love, even worse

a naswangi- womaniser.

I’ve saved your Western

face - now get upstairs!

Our bewab: cleaner

of my Mozza’s purse

gate keeper,

moral arbiter,

since she started

staying over.

Her reputation assured

with Egyptian pounds.

© Michael Ray

The doormen policing Egypt's morals

Michael Ray  is a glass artist living in West Cork Ireland. In 2011 he won the RTE John Murray National Poetry Competition. His work has appeared in The Moth, Asylum, The Independent and Cyphers.

Slippery slopes and thin ends of wedges.

Looks like
it isn’t going
to go missing after all,
as across the pond, linguists
have started raging at our infestation
into their cool and far-out reinventions.

Since
the president’s
been chuffed to bits,
their chattering classes
have become mightily miffed
as more and more Anglo-Saxon
jetsam is washed up on their shore.

It seems
we’re still
wearing the trousers
and their drip drip drip
into our culture could be slowly
drying up. We clearly haven’t reached
our sell by date quite yet. Soon they’ll be
doing the washing up, maybe moving house,
as we insidiously creep back into their conversations.

© Michael Ray

Britishisms and the Britishisation of American English

Michael Ray  is a glass artist living in West Cork Ireland. In 2011 he won the RTE John Murray National Poetry Competition. His work has appeared in The Moth, Asylum, The Independent and Cyphers  

Ferrymen

Old Mr Loteef crosses the Buriganga
sixty times a day.
He dodges cargo ships and gravel barges,
his single-oared sampan earning him
a two taka  fare –  too small
to register as currency
for Mr Colin
enjoying a ferryman’s holiday.

His river is the Thames.
But today he sits beneath
a black umbrella
as Mr Loteef, tired of forty-degree,
fourteen-hour days
and sometimes navigating
by the moon,
slowly carries him across.

'If God gave me wings I’d go back
to my village and mark my father’s grave.'
He tells Mr Colin he owns a plot
of land, too small to feed his family.
If he could buy two cows
they wouldn’t have to live
in Dhaka’s slums, but one cow
costs more than a year’s rowing.

At home in London,
Mr Colin is staring at the moon
thinking about small steps
and mankind.
In one crossing he earns enough
to buy two cows.
In Bangladesh, Mr Loteef makes
a giant leap back to his village.

© Michael Ray

The fearless ferrymen of Dhaka's Buriganga river

US astronaut Neil Armstrong dies, first man on Moon

Michael Ray  is a glass artist living in West Cork Ireland. In 2011 he won the RTE John Murray National Poetry Competition. His work has appeared in The Moth, Asylum, The Independent and Cyphers