Sarah Sarai

Boris Johnson at the Comedy Cellar

...Johnson preferred to insist a history of what might appear casual racism was in fact just a man ‘trying to break the ice…’ The Guardian

Boris Johnson is casual
like his racism.
Boris breaks the ice with his casual racism.

Have you heard the one about…?
Work the room,
you crazy-haired goof.

Play with set-ups, punch lines,
all casual, all racist.
Boris is on record:

If the racism in a joke
is casual racism, that racism
doesn’t signal racism.

In a casual manner he
dismisses liberal ideals so
he may float above

historic brutality like
a balloon casually plump
with hot air.

His time onstage over,
Boris calls for Another round
of knee-slappers,

garçon, scanning the room
for a fellow traveler
with whom to share

a knowing wink,
casually,
as awful humans will.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/apr/12/boris-johnson-commons-tributes-prince-philip

Sarah Sarai’s poems have been published in Moss Trill, Boston Review, Barrow Street, Okay Donkey, Big City Lit, Pine Hills Review, and many other journals. She is author of That Strapless Bra in Heaven (Kelsay), Geographies of Soul and Taffeta (Indolent Books), and The Future Is Happy (BlazeVOX[books]).