To begin at the beginning:

‘My problem is that when people say the word 'Please' I find it difficult to resist. Just like when I'm in Tesco and pushing that trolley and I'm looking at the butter — Flora or Utterly Butterly — and I'm blocking the way. They say 'Please can you move' and I move.’ – Michael Adebolajo

the school bred up bit-players
see their faces bathed in hydroponic glow – children of the silence
within the South Circular
imagine sparrows peeping cautious murder the nocturnal charm
of blue-black hydrangea and the sudden inexplicable scream
the people who are and who are not like you
ever the vanity of small differences and knee-socks and religious school –
lower than Letwin or Platell as unable to identify a Hawksmoor but not all bad
no not by nature – they hate but no more than we all do

disaffection
is an interesting word, implying loveless and wraps
of speed and the babies born in Lewisham Hospital have it
like a birthmark or psychosis resulting from years of skunk abuse
twenty-two years old and the product of south east London’s
loving lower middle class

star sign? Aries in the ascendant
(and later "Muslims can kill/can die on honour of holy Muhammad.")
you see we invited censure
with this vanity of differences
where there are those who will/will not know/be granted access to
poetry politics terrorism or
the redemption of a hotel bath robe
where killers pay their parking tickets and cry
for what they’ve done

where angels remonstrate
with the bloody-handed man
who threw about the weight of his expectation

(the school bred up bit-players)

this is a photocall
politely ask about their interests –
but make it clear
you don’t really want to know

Amy Blakemore was born in Deptford, London. She was named a Foyle Young Poet of the Year in 2006 and 2007 and the Guardian named her one of its Top Ten Rising Stars of British Poetry. A pamphlet of her poems was published by Nasty Little Press in 2012.

Her statement on this poem: 'This was something I wrote anticipating the sentencing of Michael Adebolajo. It was largely prompted by the slight weirdness I felt upon realising we’re the same age, grew up very close to each other and had mutual acquaintances. The epigraph is something he said via video link from Broadmoor at his first court appearance.'

Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter.
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