We don’t know it yet, but our streets are being lined with mutants
That’s right, Cyclops, iceman, angel and storm
Are reborn, unworn and not yet torn,
And they walk between you and me,
They sit beside you on the bus and the tube,
They man CCTV and fight adversity
They guard gas stations, sell us commodities
They help us when our dishwashers break
And save us when lives are at stake
We never thank them – barely acknowledge them
Sometimes we even try and fight them
And you know, some of us don’t even know they exist
Yet they persist, assist and insist
On anonymity, secrecy and public decency
They don’t inform us that they have different DNA
Chromosomes creating new characteristics
Flaunting evolution’s logistics
Statistics mutating in the face of the future race
Imbued with gifts and talents unknown
Powers not yet shown
They’ve grown into hybrids
They all have stomachs made of diamonds
Caught in the liminal, still experimental
Only first, second or third generation
Still nestling into a new location
Not yet credited with integration
Struggling to lay some sort of foundation
I’m not talking x men I’m talking immigration
You see our immigrants are superhuman
They uprooted, traded their lives and stepped into
the shoes of ghosts
All for security, for safety, and the myth of no more poverty
They sold their soul to Beelzebub for a British passport
Now they’re cutting teeth on keys with locks in faraway lands
Like spores they were strewn across the world
The diaspora
And they are mutants
Because they are an amalgam of here and there
Enacting a marriage of mannerism
They keep cellophane on TV remotes
And won’t take the plastic off new phones
They bear the pain of leaving brothers behind
Events that time cannot rewind
They watch tackier soap operas
And collect call cards like stamps
Some of them build empires
Some build pyramids
Some dwell in wasteland
Some lose their grip on it
They struggle to say where they’re from on their Facebook profiles
And they circle ‘other’ on the NHS race forms
They introduced Divali, Hanukah and Eid to Christmas
They sat Yom Kipur and Ramadam next to Lent
And they gave thanks to God knows who
They work twice as hard to be considered half as good
And they are the brave ones
Where we speak one language they speak two three four
Mother-father-brother tongues,
Where we only know the sun to set in summer
They’ve felt the monsoon’s wrath and the sun’s strength
Where we only know skin white as moonshine
They know men with eyes the colour of rainbows
And lands were women with hips are considered beauties
And where we only have one identity
They have a plethora, each laid onto the sediment of the last
And they’re not called wolverine, Shadowcat or dazzler
But Patel, Mohammed and Muller
But in this version, there’s no professor Xavier to unite them
To nurture and support them
He’s not there to prove that these mutants can be superheroes
Westchester Mansion is hidden in Bromley, Bradford and Brixton
Now ladies and gentlemen we’ve arrived at our trouble
Magneto’s brotherhood of Mutants appear out of the rubble
They now control our newspapers,
Our radio and our publishers
They lurk in Parliament’s committee rooms and the City’s Boardrooms
They have BBQs with our neighbors and sort out ourtaxes
They think evil thoughts, speak poniards and every word stabs
They insult our intelligence with their falsities
And upset our children with their dualities
And I hate myself for saying it but I reckon not even Mr. Cameron can save us now
We got into this rut and we don’t know how
So fight, though the mutants’ genes are not our own
Throw them a bone
Let them call this Marvel Universe home
And for heaven’s sake, just leave ‘em alone!
Cos we are born, we live we die
The years keep on flying by
And the thought of hating seems so silly when the remedy is educating
We created passports, borders and ethnicity
We invented race and dichotomy
So sit on the tube with your head held high,
Realise that that guy by your side
Like you looks to the sky
Realise that though what he says may be unknown
by discriminating
You’re alienating one more superhero from the throne
X Men Immigrants
