My Poetry: Rapper V Poets

This was written after a rappers v poets night. both parties had to 'battle' ie put the other team down. This is what popped into my head...

For context:
Boots is a UK pharmacy
Primark is a cheap clothing store
Jade Goody - was an media idolised idiot from the council estates and winner of Big Brother
Source is the US Hip Hip magazine
O Dog is a charactor from Menace to Society (a film about LA gangs)
GCSEs are high school grades
Waitrose is an upmarket grocery store
Queen Lizzy (UK's Queen Elizabeth) is on all UK banknotes

There's no need to diss us poets,
O' hip hoppers, we're not that different
the same things ococupy our minds:
words and bitches and guns,
except the ones who inspire my rhymes
leave me crying at Big Bang storylines
and the 10milli guns which protect I
come in pin bin boxes from Boots.

Your flows flavoured with beats
wankin over lyrical disses
and how many bitches you think
you should be fucking,
if only you didn't have weed impotence
from idolising O Dog from Menace.
Stinking up vinyl bedrooms with semen socks
used to mop the cover of a '94 Source.

Our bedrooms are just as musty
and barren 'cept we live in dusty sanctuary
of poetic page.
Reading dead scribe books
memorising sonnets and rhyming couplets
...pretending we're Shelley like that'll get us laid.

Who cares if we wear shiny, shiny shoes o leather
when your logoed sneakers and hoody
make you look like a Primark Jade Goody.
Presuming we're pretentious
'cus we got past the opening sentence
of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
and use the word in context
without needing a thesaurus
cus you couldn't sit your GCSEs
even though your mum's a teacher.

Presuming we don't understand the streets
and beats because you use hood slang
learned from Wu Tang cuts
even though the only corners you know
are the Mueller yogurts
home delivered by Waitrose.

And you say we're all middle class
but I'm on first name terms
with Mr Singh from our road
who sells me out of date loaves
cus its been three months
since I heard Queen Lizzy Sing.

My Poetry: If You

If You...

---

If you love,

                  You must understand
                                                   Nothing is forever.
If you dream,
                     You must realise
                                                Life's alarm clock is set.
If you care,
                 You must dare
                                        To give completely.
If you worry,
                     You must know
                                              Storm clouds are temporary.
If you try,
               You must accept
                                         Rejection as a given.
If night terrorises,
                            You must remember
                                                            The sun also rises.
If once you believed,
                                 You must again
                                                         And heal what cleaved.
If you forget,
                    These things, then
                                                 Know this poem is for you.

My Poetry: I Think of Her

I Think of Her

---

Sat listening to Billy,
ensconced in pub,
watching afternoon busses
through squared glass
pass pedestrians and bikes
along exhausted streets;
I feel the need to return
back home to her side,
leave these half started
monochrome days, sketched
with discontented pencils-
days erased by rising sun
only to repeat again, again, again.
And you continue to sing
but, oh Billy what strange fruits
this town bares, bowl empty
with promises unredeemed
by those naked branches,
sedate till next harvest?
What crop awaits I, a seed of
broken teen condom-
guess i was a fighter, once,
eager to escape captivity
of eternal holy womb, but
now I want to return,
to the mute Autumn colours
of a farming county
I grew through childhood with,
to her rattling chest, which
sings out mournful psalms
which date before black books of tradition
took its toil and toll
on her ancestor's bodies.
Home, where life taps her shoulder
as if to say
you are next to be served
in endless death queue.

My Poetry: A Gin Evening

A Gin Evening

---

"I don't read", you said,
I replied I did, then
On bare tree evening
Became Illiterate while
Leafing through the lines
On your face, during pauses
In pregnant conversation,
Noted folded arms,
Right hand raised to bare shoulder
Then a touch of ear,
As you slid back your hair;
Trigger movements, maybe,
Between cucumber sips
Of botanical liquids
Drained hi-ball refilled.
Your red lips, smacking tongue,
Was still yet to release
Fears and neurosis, then
Later, you leaned inside
My arms and surprised me
With a cool gin kiss.
So I took your hand,
Led you through dark morning streets,
Where the only stars shining
Were outside late night bars,
To once barren bed
And as we lay naked,
but for candle light cover,
I finally stopped reading.

 

 

My Poetry: That Old Low Moon

That Old Low Moon

---

That old low, white gold
button moon, mottled
by the seas of our tranquillity,
sits as if holding up
the ink blue fabric of the night
from falling, suffocating
our evening's dreaming.
And like the red head's dress
I wonder what secrets hide
behind that fabric;
what would be, if
with twitching fingers I flicked
the golden button,
relieving soft cloth from stella,
then slipped it from the shoulders
of the universe and gazed upon
the infinite magic
of her celestial body.
Would the secrets of life
reveal themselves?
To I a humble servant
of Eros and life.

 

 

 

My Poetry: So Tired

Don't you know?... im tired
of chasing rainbows,
ass, drugs, false careers.
Tired of the hangover
of a year bent double
deflecting constant blows
to bruised ego, which left me
longing to climb umbilical noose
back to the shelter of my mother's womb,
which took 24 years to cut, and
almost took my life as i fought
for the sort of internal peace
only oblivion or death can offer.
Im so tired of texting,
stupid words thinking it will make her
drop her drawers and point
that holy hairy cnut in my direction.
Im so tired of hoping inspiration
will take me from this place
I never planned to be, and
stop me poisoning a body
already weak from late night recoveries.
Im tired of hearing
pavement evangelists insisting
God knows Me,
but can only answer simple questions
with practiced homilies
while trying to slip me salvation
verse pamphlets promising
to bear the weight of parent's cross.
But if He doesn't know,
after so much praying,
his flock knows,
the sea knows, the empty glass knows,
the cut magazine wrap knows,

my bank knows, salt cheeks know,

 now you know,
I'm so tired.

 

 

 

My Poetry: By Candle Light

By Candle Light

---

         S      
               O      
                   L      
                         I             
           T
         A  

            R        
Y
waning candle
casts orange light
across the ceiling
the walls, her face
which lays with soft
movements - in, out.
On this black morn
waiting for rising sun
she looks like a child:
no fear, hate, prejudice
lines her face. I imagine
the whole path of life
unfolding in small flickers
beneath her gentle eye lids,
and for the first time, I want
to take her hand, be led down
that path so far as to forget,
so far as all I remember
before her fingers found mine
are those summer country
months of youth; when fears
lasted minutes and a day
was found in every hour.
My heart beats fill the silent candled room,
And as the sun creeps through the cracks
In makeshift curtain, waiting for her to wake,
I cup lightly her delicate white hand
And dream a long, simple
Dream.....

__________________

My Poetry: She Now Rests

She Now Rests

---

Wind whistles against window,
warm duvet hugs paling corpse
but sleep is no friend
to I, or monotonous minute hand.

As deep night closes in ,
my love's ghost creeps,
to and fro, piercing
consciousness like a corkscrew.

Nefarious nimble night, still
dances lightly round the bed
singing ghostly indigo verses, full
of gravest memories, which fall

Into shadow shaded room
while heaving howling wind cries:
'oh, woe is he,
that dresses day with dreams

'The pitching, rolling naked night
will not make manifest
lest promises pledged to pagan witches
stewing heathen magic brews come true.'

Insomnia song repeats till
madness starts to sing:
''oh, woe is me, who mourns
till dawn for return of she,

'She, laid sadly in salty dirt,
with worm and three and thirty rose
to hold cold body warm,
now sun shines on her no more.'

And so this spectre, nightly haunts
with soft incessant songs, which fill
the spaces left between the clocking ticks
where love, and sadness and she now rests.

 

                              

My Poetry: When Christmas Missed Us

When Christmas Missed Us

---

Pyjama clad, in duvet wrapped,
he lay meditating on expectations
inherent in the most holy
of consumerist days,
when families gather around
to compare gifts received
beside silenced TV and plastic tree.

Child still, till silence tempts patience
from crumpled bunk-bed sheets;
so in secret slippered steps
down wooden hill, he tip-toes,
to check if, to eldest son,
Mum's mournful tongue
had spoken truth, when,
with wet cheek confessed
Santa would not stop this eve,
‘cus pennies were scarce
in single parent's purse.

So he creeps to catch a secret
peak beneath and behind sitting room
sofa seats, but all that hid
was tortoise shell kitten sleeping.
So back to bed, and flooded pillow,
not for lack of action figure,
but because he knew
who it hurt the most,
when Christmas missed us.

My Poetry: Notes From a London Bus

Notes From a London Bus

---

Bare trees reach up from small islands
Where tarmac refuses to grow,
Knotted, callused branches
Like an old man's finger,
Point towards an iron sky
Lined with ornate gold bauble roofs, and
Black glass high risers, which
Harbour the dark suited whores,
Sat in window boxes, at electric desks
Sucking up to bosses they diss
Biting lips cus of double dip recession fears,
Smile and continue to tap screens,

Renting out their lives by the year

Till carriage clock pensions yeild.

Meanwhile, Friday night saints and sinners
begin preperations for weekend absulutions,
Who will either kneel before
A folklore character or false pop idol
Before Monday arrives, carrying
A suitcase full of stresses, and
Five quid M+S mel deals for one.
Believing promises of happiness,
Will come true if they sacrifice
Their time on wealth's alter
Ignorant it will be the only god
Certain to let them down
When that eternal night falls.

A plumber's mate sleeps in passenger seat

As bus crabs alongside white van men
On congested four-way inner city streets
Where people move like crazed ants:
Across pavements, on foot, on crutches,

On scooters, in wheel chairs,
Searching for the end of their rainbows,
But the sun hides today
In deference to rain and fog,

Besides all precious metals paving the streets

Is just fool's gold for minor men.

Meanwhile the bus battles on like a ship
Chasing the minute hand, till
Metal fences turn to hedges,
Buildings become lower, cleaner,

nuclear incubators of suburban dreams
Till even they fade from the horizon,

Into a thousand different shades
Of green and browns

Decorated with silver ribbons, winding
Long and smooth from distant mountains.
Tired eyes follow flashing white lines,
Refocus on reflections on tinted window.

This side of the city divide
Some trees cling to leaves

As if the fight can be won in the country,
But their fallow branches must relent,
Just as an old man must repent,
And smile as he goes toe-to-toe with his fate.