Compañero

in memory of Eric Levy

by Pete Godfrey, with photo above by Katherine da Silva

Assange is free – and how you worked
for that, fragile as spindrift, drumming
up a storm wrapped in your keffiyeh,
that badge of honour loose around
your neck and freckled black and white,
waylaying drivers with your flimsy
leaves of truth and digging in for justice.

Not the faceless walls of Belmarsh or
scales of the Old Bailey could hold you,
hem you in, as you climbed up the bare
staircase to your council flat – ‘I don’t
believe in property’ – sifting the thought
of Marx and Mao, a sea shanty – the song
of workers deep within your throat.

Nine decades on the picket line with
Robeson and Joe Hill willing an end to
lairds and labourers, the magnate and
his drones, quite clear that flunkeys
went out with the Romanovs – we must look
eye to eye. No ownership of vast estates,
bequests of daddy’s pile, but an arm

around our neighbour to climb higher
and bestow the spoils. We’ll have no truck
with hunger, will lift up the downtrodden –
every person’s sweat a treasure to be mined –
and make a land where each flower may
still bloom. Where friendship bursts forth
like a spring – we’ll call it Palestine.