My Poetry: The First Fist Flies

When silent blue lights arrived
On forgotten council estate,
I was still crying,
Don't know who called it
Or how long I'd been
In the arms of a neighbour

The clocks had stopped,
IT lay stillborn limp
As the uniforms bound it carefully
Before moving IT
From foot of stair to ward.
You went with IT,
Which confused me more
Than why we didn’t leave.

IT began with shouting
You retaliated in kind.
Then the first fist flew.

Twisted from the blow
The second crunched
Your bone, clean as a crack,
Screams silenced the house.
Screams silenced the house

You bounced from couch
To wall, fist slammed
You to floor, then dragged
You up for more,
Click of kick to nose
Thud of punch to gut
I don't recall the blood.

Time’s not dulled the feeling
Pit of stomach ache,
Like leaning over building
Wondering if jumping
Would hurt— as much as not.
Remember the feeling,
Struck sob dumb in kitchen
Rooted to where I stood
Hugging doorframe to that room,
Old enough to know
Too young to understand

Then the horror stopped

Your punch drunk toes
Moved up the stairs
To wash away evidence
Of another afternoon beating,
But IT followed you there
Like a jackal sensing a kill

I can still hear blunt booms
Like distant battery of guns
As IT fell down each stair.
Then explosive silence
As we waited for the ambulance,
Me hoping IT was dead.

My Poetry: Strange Shells

Turkish beaches bear a strange shell
Blood on the stones and blood in the sea
Foreign bodies lay still in Agean breeze
Strange shells laying on popular beach

Pastoral scene for the gallant West
Scent of salt-water wind blows fresh
Stolen breath from within life vest
Then the sudden smell of bloated flesh

Here lays infant shell for gull to pick
For sea to claim, tide to lick
For the sun to rot, for West to muse
Here is a strange and bitter truth.

Poem based on Abel Meeropol's song 'Strange Fruit' popularised by Bille Holiday After seeing this story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ish-coast.html

My Poetry: Rush Hour Crush

Starved of kindness
We turn a smile
Into a fantasy
As we fill the minutes
On the rush hour commute,
A shared cookie becomes
The plot to a Renee Zellweger movie,
The packed carriage
The setting for a story
To melt hearts at our wedding.

“In a city of millions
Where is my Mr Wright
Perhaps its you?
Tall guy with the coffee
And a cute toosh
On the 6:40 District line
Who looks like the hero
From a Holywood blockbuster.
Let me take you out
Where the lightings just right
To hide my wine complexion
Honed from Friday nights
With a glass and my cat D'arcy”

"Perhaps it's destiny
Which brought us here
You dressed for success
Me in the grey suit
Coffee stain on the breast
Where is my Freya?
Could it be you?"

“Petite blond with red lips
And Betty Boo bag
Who smirks each morning
As I flirt behind the Metro

If you're reading
This page fifteen plea
I'm really not creepy,
That's just how I smile.
Drink sometime?”

So why be coy
Say hi, don't just grin
And pretend it's a win
For the shy and the needy.
Start the new-year
With a date, then perhaps
Who knows two more
You could make your way
Into each others head.

My POetry: Let Beauty Be Mine Once More (swear once)

Who is this man
Staring back?

Who doesn't understand
The past lives he sees
In the strange lines
Around his eyes,

In the corner of his mouth
Pulled by the gravity
Of empty days.

How his craving fingers
Reach for her.

She, a ghost from yesterday,
Haunting his today
As he folds sandwiches
Into metal blocks;
In the CDs stacked in silence
Mocking, like old photo album;
In crackling fire which roars
In his spine when frustration hits.

Who is this man
Who sits beside me?

A stranger whose ego
Tells him thinner, wealthier,
More success is better.

He speaks in tongues
Which fork the decaying land
In which my heart is planted;
But the land is dead, hollow seeds
Wait for germination by
Diseased ants with flaccid cocks;
My soul hibernates, till the day
Of my execution,
When my torn body can return
To the worm licked soil
Where ancestors remain.
This is me; the I who rests
On my shoulder, is he.

Who is this man
Who longs to escape his body?

How can I manage her absence
On days when the blue is bleached
From cold sky?

I long for her, for her kiss
To warm dun blood.
Embrace me, embrace me, embrace me
Nocturnal witch cast your spell
Make happiness and sadness,
My mauve smile and rouge frown, merge
Like spilt water colours.
Kiss me, and drain the ink blood
From my veins
With your golden brown mouth,
Kiss me and let beauty
Be mine once more.

My Poetry: Times Are Desperate Now

We re-read old poetry

In lilac attempts to decipher the present

Carving retaliation prose

in Brighton rock

Only to bury our words in unmarked graves

To one day be found

By hipster archeologists

As they blow dust off the tombstones 

of Kerouac, Bukowski, Steinbeck, Miller, Moriaty

Fictional idols of itinerant America

And Us, who were colossal in our pretentions

Us, who declared genius dead

As we stacked pennies

Under mattresses stained with what could've beens

Us, who recited apocalypse prose

Suckling from the breast of squalor

Till our souls were fat

With the milk of suffering.

Times are desperate now

Throw down cancerous newspapers

No government ever told the truth,

Instead turn an ear toward volcanic verse

Let molten masculine words

From bordello and barroom prophets

Erupt a truth into your cold lava eyes

Poets who sate thirst

With neat whiskey tumblers

Whoring out emancipated words to illiterate Johns

In electric jive cafes

Jack tell me about getting high,

Hank lets go for a beer

Miller molest my wife with your barbed tongue

Then, perhaps, that great golden-brown angel

Will spare us of this monochrome sanity

And reveal the real truth

That there is no ready-made furnace

In which to cremate our tormentors.

My Poetry: Her Apron Strings

With a finger I scooped

the chocolaty goop

from the whisking bowl

into my mouth

The theft was sweetly swift

no time for a spoon,

like gull swooping to nick

your battered fish and chip

The grainy mix a short term fix

while waiting for

that three-tiered treat

but for a second

I returned to apron strings

back to being a kid

at grandma's Sunday knee

while mum went off and hid

Handed whisk, I'd hold it high,

a reward for culinary verve

and licked the twisty

metal clean but for that bit

no tongue could reach.

Joys were simpler then

as I am simple now.

*Dedicated to my grandmother, whose cakes were among the best I've ever tasted

My Poetry: Late Night Apology

You once handcuffed me

with daisy chains

under weakening skies

as the last pale blue drained

from summer hum

in a suburb of a city

I'd never heard of, 

till we moved here.

Now atop that lonely hill 

in a lazy field

I empty foreign beer bottles.

I finish the first

but my rage is till thirsty.

Drinking alone is better, I think

than not drinking at all

and I think of you

how you were right,

I'm just a Freudian cliché

with no alibi

for my behavioural trends.

But long ago I stopped

questioning myself

over such petty crimes

as I've no excuse, anyways

so know my buckled tongue

never meant to twist your insides.

Before you offered me a wing

to hide beneath

I survived on bread and booze,

so as I get drunk

on this lonely hill in a hazy field

I remember how

it could've been

all those years when,

we strived to survive with dignity intact,

wasted youth spent experimenting,

and those goodbyes elicited

with low singing and beer swigging.

Suppose some lessons are learnt

the slow way.

Suppose someday I’ll drink wine

but for now the beer is working fine

as I pretend my soul is not up for rent

and the past is just an illusion.

My Poetry: With The Sugar Came The Taxes

I

With the sugar came the taxes

Before we were happy

With the sourness of our lives,

Now we measure our worth

By what we don't have.

With the taxes came the coin

Need more for pots and cane

And things you cannot see

Like fines for living today

On ancestral land.

And with the coin came desire

For man’s sin and greed

More to hoard and trade,

Then when we have nothing

Left to sell, we’ll barter

Our freedom for some more.

II

Fancy cloth cut into fashion fad

Make our rags look outrageous

In their design and savagery,

Why have I not

While those across the river have?

Men impose taxes 

From hill-top mansion 

Built on land they stole 

With sword and pen.

Poor forced to down tools

To work on oppressor's plans

Our seeded hands once toiled

Field for food or hunted game

Grazed cattle on parent’s lands

Spares shared in brotherly feasts

Now we aspire to hollow excesses.

Inspired after reading the section in 'Dreams From My Father' where Barack Obama discusses his African tribe, the Luo