Source Browser ?

1% poetry, music and typesetting
2%
3% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB8_2Yuj8Og
4%
5% Published on Nov 1, 2016
6% Taken from 'Poetry versus Orchestra'. Album by Hollie McNish and Metropole Orkest, conducted by Jules Buckley.
7% Released on MO Black, fall 2016.
8% www.mo.nl/poetry • www.holliepoetry.com
9%
10% Poem written by Hollie McNish, music by Jules Buckley
11% Artwork by me studio, Martin Pyper
12%
13MATHEMATICS
14
15he said
16“those goddamn pakistanis and their goddamn corner shops
17built a shop on every corner, took our british workers jobs”
18he said
19“those goddamn chinese and their goddamn china shops”
20i told him they’re from vietnam, but he didn’t give a toss
21i ask him what was there before that “damn japan man’s shop?”
22he looks at me and dreams a scene of british workers’ jobs
23of full-time, full-employment before the “goddamn boats all came”
24where everybody went to work for full-time full-hours every day
25“a british business stood their first”
26he claims
27“before the irish came
28now british people lost their jobs and bloody turkish they're to blame”
29i ask him how he knows that fact, he says, “because it’s true”
30i ask him how he knows it’s fact, he says, he read it in the news,
31“every time a somali comes here they take a job from us
32the mathematics one for one, from us to them, it just adds up.”
33he bites his cake, he sips his brew, he says again he knows the plot
34“the goddamn caribbean’s came and now good folk here don’t have jobs”
35i ask him what was there before the “goddamn persian curtain shop”
36i show him architectures’ plans
37of empty goddamn plots of land
38I show him the historic maps
39a bit of sand
40a barren land
41there was no goddamn shop before that pakistani came and planned
42man - i am sick of crappy mathematics
43cos i love a bit of sums
44i spent years into economics
45and i geek out over calculus
46and when i meet these paper claims
47that one of every new that came
48takes away ‘our’ daily wage
49i desperately want to scream
50“your math is stuck-in primary”
51cos some who come here also spend
52and some who come here also lend
53and some who come here also tend
54to set up work which employs them
55and all thosebalance sheets and trends
56they work with numbers, not with men
57and all this goddamn heated talk
58ignores the trade the polish brought
59ignores the men they give work to
60not plumbing jobs but further too
61ignores the guys they buy stock from
62accountants, builders, on and on
63and i know it’s nice to have someone
64to blame our lack of jobs upon
65but immigration’s not that plain
66despite the sums inside our brains
67as one for one
68as him for you
69as if he goes ‘home’, they’d employ you
70cos sometimes one that comes makes two
71and sometimes one can add three more
72and sometimes two times two is much, much more than four
73and most times immigrants bring more than minuses.
74