The Day Mr Zephaniah Died

after Frank O’Hara

by Jenny Mitchell

On the seventh day of the twelfth month
2023, at the National Maritime Museum, a minute
since the break began, I wish the woman in my class
would not look at her phone, tell us you are gone,
leaving this behind – a chill that traps
the room when freedom is our aim – to write
that poetry can open prison doors. Your voice was key
to that great task, Brummie to your core
with a prophet’s force, labelled worthless by police
when only a young man, growing strong enough
with words to decline an OBE, your stated aim
to bring empire down – rhythm and not guns,
rhymes instead of bombs.

We fill the break with Is it true? Perhaps
a dreadful hoax, checking every phone, the chill
ten minutes long – seeing it writ large,
your birth date and your death.

Now the class must share a poem –
Langston Hughes alive again – Freedom
will not come… through compromise and fear.
But the man who reads this out in a gentle voice
has to stop, contain his tears the day that you are gone.