the most extreme rapist
a Russian madman
murdered sixty

the most extreme serial killer
Dr. Harold Shipman
murdered three hundred and fifty

the most extreme racist
genocides
that's five hundred people dead
for each one single victim
of Dr. Harold Shipman

that's all the souls you love
and everyone you've ever met

think of their faces now
family
the people you hello and chat
all the unnamed eyes whose glance you've shared

all of them
dead
skin the awful white of bloodlessness
throats ripped

five hundred times
five hundred times
five hundred times

that dread vision is where the racist goes
when some big history incites his selfish "mine"
and he dare not civilise his psychopathic fear
for the sake of sane life for those he considers outsiders

Nazi Germany
Hutu Burundi
De Montford's England

so how can you not detest
lord pisswater's clarion
for reciting a howling bigotry
at the desperate outsider

and how can you respect a nationalist
who doesn't comprehend the road of his belief

we know
lord pisswater's grandfather
used to suck the cock of hitler
but why does this modern fool
suck the cock of hitler's corpse

*Simon Weston on The Today Programme on Radio 4