Dedicated to my friend Singh, a nice guy condemned to a ridiculous sentence for money laundering, some of which I shared with him at HMP Highpoint and HMP Hollesley Bay. There are many plays on words for which you may need to read the text.
I used to read my poetry in the chapel and, indeed, write poems for specific events such as harvest time, end of year and spring holy days. The fact that I am an atheist/humanist came in useful for providing multi-denominational credibility. Nobody could accuse me of bias, although I do have some sympathy for Sikhism which is one of the most humanistic religions. For the uninitiated, the “Servery” is where prisoners collect their food to take back to their cells to eat.
Song to Singh
Our Singh is a singular Sikh
And no ordinary Orderly
This chaste and cheerful chap is of the Chapel
No Chapel could be cleaner
No Orderly more orderly
Let us sing loudly to the Lord, Singh
Lest He overhear the contents of our convict conversations
Let the whole Wing sing
Lest He hear of Singh’s humiliating habits
- The nicotine nastiness he nearly mastered
- The Gandhi glasses gruesomely discarded
- The books of blatant bawdiness beside his bed
This Chapel Orderly’s choice of literature
Would make many a Methodist Minister mindless
Oh, Singh! Heavy set, head shaved, hunched shoulders
Clothed in his conspicuous cardigan and woolly hat
Let us lurch, listlessly along the linoleum-lined landings
Seeking some serendipitous salvation
Let us lift our worshipful weights in the gymnasium of jubilation
Let us feed the disenfranchised at the servery of spontaneous solace
Oh, Singh! Condemned by the curse of criminal confiscation
Let divine
intervention determine the benefit
Though prosecutors may demand millions
Let his defence deliver hundreds
Our Singh is no simple sinner
He managed money in Lucifer’s laundry
A dastardly but daring deed, indeed
Worthy of the wrath of the Lord, perhaps
But not years of pathetic, prison, persecution
Let us give thanks to his supercilious smile
And his generosity of spirit His kindness and candour
And other admirable attributes Let us sing to Singh!
Our world be worse without him
Seek and ye shall find a Singh
Sing and ye shall find a Sikh