by Andrew Barker

Our Right to comment on the world’s events
Is based of weight of thought? Ability?
Upheld by facts we’ve sought? From here we get
The confidence to raze uncertainties?

Our Right to castigate, to criticise
Is built through time spent in community?
Or how our comfort can be compromised
By claims to voice the crowd with clarity?

But Right’s the wrong word here! For who need ask
Permission to articulate their theme?
And who could give it? Whose test must be passed
To prove a speaker’s suitability?

………Our own at least! And I stand unashamed
………Of bruises on skin I’ve in the game.

Andrew Barker’s description of the poem “Skin in the Game”: I currently live in Hong Kong. “Skin in the Game” is me mulling over my right to speak on what’s happening in HK at the moment, partly because as I can leave whenever I want I accept that I am not as omphalically connected to the situation as those who cannot. My *risk* is not as great and the self-accusation is that there is a degree of personal grandstanding should I pretend that this is not the case. Plus White Saviour Syndrome is simply not my style, and I don’t think people need it or want it. That said, I have lived in Hong Kong for over twenty years and am invested emotionally, financially and by blood in the current situation. I do have Skin in the Game. That’s the though process being worked through in this one.