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What It Means To Be A Refugee

Crispin Thomas

Saturday, April 2nd, 2022

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 there’s no football in Ukraine this weekend
rivalries abandoned for a while
stadiums and streets lie torn and empty
no-one can be seen for mile on mile
women watching husbands go to battle
knowing not if they’ll see them again
in their shattered crumbling homes and cities
some of them we never knew their names
from so many countries they are leaving
this is what it means for them be
lost and homeless on a road to nowhere
what it means to be refugee

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 saying their goodbyes to friends and lovers
leaving with whatever’s on their back
danger lurking there on ev’ry corner
on each bombed-out road and railway track
dodging tanks and fire from young Russians
some of whom don’t know why they must be
killing for a tyrant with no concept
of what it means to be a refugee

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 caught up in a world that’s not their making
caught up in a War that make no sense
caught up in the chaos of this madness
praying ev’ry second it will end
here within the nightmare of this moment
can we really grasp or ever see
as the Spring is wakening around us
what it means to be a refugee

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 meanwhile in our towns and in our cities
we’re as far away as we can be
while they’re stuck on subways or on highways
like some scene from world war two or three
and there’s no football in Ukraine this weekend
rivalries abandoned for a while
stadiums and streets lie torn and empty
no-one can be seen for mile on mile
but if we are able and are willing
we can open up our homes to be
shelter for our brothers and our sisters
forced to be a homeless refugee

Notes

Football and Football Poets Stand Together

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Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/what-it-means-to-be-a-refugee/