The Lights Of Lampedusa

"There lie the lights of Lampedusa,"

a voice it rose up from the crew.

Huddled in blankets, early October,

we dreamt of a better life than the one we knew.

 

I was an eighteen year old girl; I was so much older,

the journey was rough; the journey far.

Across the Eritrean border, through the Sahara,

what those men did to us, I still wear the scars.

 

Me and my friend Kismet, fled for Libya,

we found a boat; each a thousand pounds.

Packed like sardines across the Mediterranean

the smell of gasoline the engine's spluttering sound.

 

We fled poverty; we fled conscription, persecution

we fled slavery, jail and dictatorship.

We saw for a moment the dream within our grasp

But through our shivering hands it slipped.

 

The captain he had cut the engine,

Wait for the Guardia Costiera to arrive.

But the huddled masses saw water flooding in

and cried out in fear and surprise.

 

But the captain found he could not restart the engine

and he lit a fire to alert the shore.

The flames they spread, people fled to the starboard side

The boat overturned and I was overboard.

 

I could not swim like so many

and I clung to those aleady drowned.

Pulled out the water by local fishermen

But Kismet with hundreds of others had long gone down.

 

They buried the hundreds dead in Sicily

The dictators we fled, invited to attend.

While we were locked up in detention

not allowed to grieve our family or friends.

,

The voices chant: "Go back from where you came from!"

Though I'm no devil I have fled hell.

And when your life's a playng card; a fifty fifty chance,

You'll take your chances and take them well.

 

Now I sit in a detention centre

A lighter and a plastic bag in my hand

Ready to burn away these fingerprints,

Though I can't forget who I am.

 

And tonight I'll climb the barbed wire fence,

Head for Europe, the mainland,

And many like me will continue to risk all

To find a better life, if they can.

 

Fairwell the lights of Lampedusa

and fairwell Kismet where you lie

I'll keep struggling for the life we dreamt of

The life for which you died.

 

'There lie the lights of Lampedusa!"

A voice it rose up from the crew

Huddled in blankets; early October,

we dreamt of a life better than the one we knew.