My Poetry: Satchmo aka Satchel Mouth

Satchmo aka Satchel Mouth

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This is a poem about the jazz musician Louis Armstrong aka Satchmo (nick-named due his 'satchel mouth')

I blew a battered horn
From since I remember
Dressed in dusty rags
And holy shoes
In a country shack
The size of Rockefellers wallet,
While he sipped champagne
We had soul food suppers
And watched our bones appear
Through our skin.
I blew from dawn
Till the sun set agen,
The wind it expelled
Took me from the projects
To up town dining clubs
Where white folk tapped toes
And silver spoons outta time,
Those same ones
Whose friends banned me
From eating at their tables
When my name was writ small
And I was just another negro, so
I just blew that ole horn
All the time working
To drop a little revolution
In their coffee on the sly
'Cus a man with a gun
In his waistband told me
There was only two ways
To escape the south:
Either a burning cross
and a noose,
Or be a white man's nigger.

So I blew black and blue
Notes for anyone
And everyone from Africa
To rich white America
'Cus music understands
Nothing of apartheid.
And I kept blowing
Watching my brothers and sisters
Fighting for bus seats
Or the right to learning,
Urged the president
To take a coloured hand
Lead her through school doors;
Cut off the tongues
Of those who fight against
Civil rights of segregated souls.
Till those same starched men
Who bought my songs
Called me a commie
For opening my satchel mouth
For some other purpose
Than blowing
America's classic music
Into their homes.

But the years were kinda
To me and my kin
Till TV only saw the colour
Of my smile, and now,
Lied in white linen sheets
Blowing my last breath
I remind you
It's a wonderful world
If you look at it
From the sunny side of street.

 

It's a Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong

 

My Poetry: His Little Girl

His Little Girl

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Multi-coloured hearts
Blow on soft wind
Across the blocks
of town centre shadows,
like blossom shaken
From an apple tree,
To mark the marriage
Of original sin and love.
An ivory gown
Swollen with seed
Of live in lover, but now
Honest promises swapped
With vows made
Within golden ring
Turns little girl to bride
With a simple 'I do'.

Friends and family mingle
After the ceremony
Like oil on a puddle,
In ever increasing circles.
A woman brushes
Away a tear from dress
Dusted off for occasions
Just like this
When happiness is currency
And those broken and skint
Loan smiles from the lips
Of the bride's father
Who sips at hip flask,
Stood proud as a peacock
Hair preened and hands
Deep in pockets waiting
To say goodbye
To his little girl.

My Poetry: Introduced as an Old Friend

Introduced as an Old Friend

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We kissed, a wet kiss,
The last time we met
Our lips parting each others
With practiced ease
Outside a nightclub
Neither of us wanted to go in.

You pulled me away
From your friends
As I flirted with my hands
Though it had been months
And we'd both soothed our heartbreak
In other people's beds.

I only remembered it later,
After you'd introduced me
To your two girls
And the man pushing the pram
As an old friend;
We spoke of people and
Places who'd crossed our paths
Avoided all the parts
Best left to the past.

It was twelve years ago, you said
But for a second it felt
Like yesterday since you led me
Upstairs in a student house
Before we spent two years
Swimming in circles
Till you got bored and
I got fat as I mourned.

We kissed last time we met,
On the right cheek,
When we said goodbye again
As I wished you the very best
This time meaning every word.

My Poetry: These foreign fields

These foreign fields

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These foreign fields,
Where my Granddad once
Marched behind tanks
Rifle butt under
Regulation starched armpit,
Turned green to muddy red
With caterpillar tread and shot.
Where death was
A by-product of survival.

Beneath flat skies,
As grey as a December Sunday,
An army of farmers
Hid village wives and daughters
From foreign men,
Each with sorrow in his hands
Or on his brow,
Preparing to greet their fate.
Where my Granddad met death
For the first time, as he
Refused sons the right
To become grandfathers.

Now in nursing home fatigues
He remembers what
The booze and Alzheimer's
Has not stolen,
The old gang: Mick, Patrick and Ernie
Boys left in that field,
Who just months before call up
Were tilling wheat fields,
Now lost beneath bricks and mortar,
Where they turned mud to green
With plough and tractor tread.
Soon he will meet death
For the final time,
When he goes to that foreign land
And the old gang are united once more.

My Poetry: Wildflowers II

Wildflowers II

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For Alice Denny

I do not know,
and please, do not say
what other poison rained down
upon the Wildflowers
the day the sun was lost
behind dull tongues
which spat sharp
scything words
to cut them down
where they stood.

Before that day,
before naivety was butchered
by barbed word,
I'd never met anyone whose
fragile shell was stronger
for the cracks,
whose shell was the lesser
part of the sum of their whole.
Someone for who
the war still raged
to be equal in the eyes
of those who only saw
big hands and a throat
with the kiss of Adam upon it.
Someone who fought back
as those ignorant of beauty
squashed stem and petal
under jack boot attitude
to repress Wildflower's bloom.

But we all know your heart
is stronger than fear
all seen you stood naked,
clothed only in vulnerability;
seen you retell your world
in poetic verse
with ink black words
writ big in tears across the night;
seen crowds soak them up
then applaud your bravery
as you held their attention,
while your red flower dress
kept them guessing,
because you are more complex
than poetry and fashion
or a simple word.

*This is a poem about people who are marginalised and oppressed, but who still stand up and refuse to be terrorised or kept down, people who stand proud and say 'This is who I am'.*

My Poetry: This Is Home

This is home,
where memories lie in dark niche
of lampless streets
older than the birch trees
under which we spoke
of our first kiss 
then played video games
into the night until we hit 
last base guided by cheap cider
and sleepovers of our teens
became reserved for girls.

This is home,
Where hedges I saw planted
are now head high,
hiding houses now home
to unfamiliar faces 
lined up in front of a TV 
throwing iridescent shapes 
onto muted midnight street
where silent foxes skulk
and we all pretend Monday
will never come.

This is home
where the big skies of youth
have four more stars 
looking down upon us
since I watched them
glaze over in smoky teenage haze
then later smudge with tears
so I raise the glass
a little higher tonight
in memory of those
who are eternal now.

This is home
where new faces are introduced
as old friends by friends
in pubs where our father's
fathers beat their way 
through weekend pub rounds
till Monday’s bruised knuckles
returned to building sites.
Where we now spend nights
mopping up whiskey to
escape everything the beer fails 
to silence, in company of people
whose roots have not yet took hold
in expanding village. 

This is home,
where we learnt that love 
not obsession rules the heart 
as the metallic summer sun
rose and fell with the leaves,
where green turned to golden brown
as we sat with stoned smiles
trying to outrun ghosts
of our childhood
but we all fell like Icarus,
and as we watched our youth 
race away in the rear view mirror
of old age we learnt
we could never completely leave 
our memories and tears behind.

This is home,
where memories lie in dark niche
of my lampless heart.

NB this is the sister poem to 'Docking' which you can read here if you wish: [url]http://www.thepoetryforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=57460[/url] Both poems are about the Norfolk village I grew up in

My Poetry: Wildflowers

Wildflowers

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They have dug up the garden
Where now shall those Wildflowers
Of our city bloom
And how will they now grow
Old with us and wilt
Within the arc of the sun
Under rainbow skies.

They stole a solitary corner of beauty
From where beauty hides
In the shadow of sky risers
Where piss snakes from dark corners
Where people hide in niches
Where roses and hyacinths
Only bloom on inked arms of hipsters
And poppies arrive in ten pound
Bouquets, drawing blood red tears
From the skin of the thin pale poets.

Now the Wildflowers are gone
We’ve one less way to find beauty
In tower block cemetary
To know nature's subtle cause
Behind the mourning eyes
Of those haunted empty beds
Which wait for life in silence,
Who know beauty is transient,
And so never chase the sun.

They have taken the garden.
Removed it from our reach,
Now how can we

teach the youth
That a tooth for a tooth is the same
As leaving hickies on a virgins neck
Like laughing at the freaks
Falling sideways down the street
As pretending life will call
After screwing you again.

They have dug up the garden
Where the wild flowers grew
The ancient worm licked soil
Which gave life to society's edge,
And fed them from its breast
Must not stay barren
Must one day return
Resurrected from concrete tome
For when they are in bloom
We are all wildflowers.