Let Us Indulge -Day 4

Let us linger here in this room with the curtains closed with our other lives forgotten for a little while longer.

Let us not use words when our hands, lips and tongues can communicate our needs, our wants.

Let our breath be silken on our skin, let our bodies entwine still able to promise bloom and ripple.

Let us slow it all the way down, slowly, slow, so we can feel each stroke, each gliding smooth folding into each other.

Let us hear each others moans of joy, of wonder as our bodies wander together away from this room, this bed into our happy place where we can ride out the rest of our time here on earth.

Let us dream this lushness as we reach for each other, conjuring connection beyond the here and now, in the here and now.

Let us linger in the lingering light and just enjoy this afterglow, this pleasured pain like passing ships never to traverse these same desire lines ever again.

A Field Guide to Sheree – Day 2

Commonly known as Sheree, with the scientific name being Nigtum Deam, found mostly within coastal areas, regularly at sea.

She is able to listen with attention and sometimes offers unwarranted advise. Her heart is in the right place.

She thrives in green humid spaces, on mountain sides in solitude, often retreating to Scottish glens to laugh at the moon.

She starts to pale and fade in monotonous, negative climates where light is limited and restricted.

She can be lured by white chocolate lattes and any variety of breads. At which point, she will shift into the pleasure zone, all petals opening to receive joys with a smile.

Try to praise this chaotic world – Day 1

after Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare Cavanagh

Try to praise this chaotic world,
as the first of April dawns fresh,
with welcome light, and slight breeze of delight.
The blossom is waiting to bloom
as the fruit trees inch towards the sky.
You must praise this chaotic world.
You must keep hope when things go awry
while those few, usually white and male,
act like stewards for all humankind, communities
they have very little contact with
let alone care about.
You should praise the chaotic world.
Remember you are not alone, within you
are generations of people who have been here before.
Who did not moan or falter but protested.
They survived so we could thrive
in companionship with the trees,
seas, hummingbirds and ferns.
Praise the chaotic world
and the chance to emerge
as Spring light has returned
after when we think that all was lost.

Welcome to 30 Days of National Poetry Month

It really wasn’t on my radar. But I must have signed up for a co-writing salon with Lemon Grove Writers. And you know how it is, afterwards they send you they send you other emails, sharing the stuff to buy into. Well one such email was sharing that the Lemon Grove Writers were offering a free 30 day poetry prompt email send out for the month of April to coincide with National Poetry Month in the States. As you know I’ve tried a number of years to write a poem a day in April, some years more successful than others.

It’s free, what did I have to lose? So expect to find a poem a day here for the month of April as I try to create something to the given prompt. I begin today with the weather.
If you want to receive these poetry prompts in your inbox, just sign up here. Happy writing.

Endure

This wasn’t the way he promised it would be.

Bare floors, five to a room, babies’

faces lined with hunger, piercing

cries towards an empty oil lamp.

Love squeezes out of lives.

Boys shooting boys as regular as angel

dusting on banana leaves, long

and glistening. Violence standing

caged on corners with broken

standpipes, living next to dread.

The seething and faltering silence

as the dreamed for life

bobs on a distant horizon.

The moon is nowhere in sight.*

*Laventille, Smokestack Books, 2015

Stay Soft

Green Wattle

Do not allow those people who hurt you

Do not allow those words that damaged you

Do not allow those situations that pained you

Do not allow those occasions that destroyed you

To turn you into the person you were never meant to be

Mercat del Ninoh

Taken from Darkling

Morchella Elata- Black Morels

Fruits from March to June in copses, woodland and mulch.

To survive under such harsh conditions, is deemed a strength. 

Sometimes resilience and resistance can be tiring and dangerous.

Sharing Darkling

I share my new poetry collection Darkling, come 7 November, 6-7.30 pm (GMT). I’m excited about speaking these words aloud in company. There’s something magical happens when we give voice to our creations. Allow the words, language to reverberate through our bodies. We come to the words almost anew, a fresh and feel all the emotions and meanings as they enfold again and for the first time.

I know it’s going to be an emotional session to share as this book was a long time in the making. I’ve changed so much in its creation. But I’m ready.

I share a poem with you today from Darkling. And please join me in its launch next week.

found poem: we arrived here with stars in our hair and needles between our toes*

after drea brown

be autumn/ be siskin/ be slick

twilight licks our dark skin

deep within the forest

straining through spruce/ larch and pine

(trial & error I learnt their names/ names

are never easy on black bodies)

living within the unknown (out)side

where history is wet/ with memory/ & muchness

within the shadows/ within the wake

we search/ for a tenderness in the brokenness

breathing in/ in-between spaces

tongue locked/ tongue packed/ tongue tied

we be/ but not be/

unfurling like tight fisted ferns

brown bruised/ violence against ourselves

into the woods/ in flight/ in creep creek/

in restless/ motherless moan

shapeshifting/ combing the black air/

what would happen/ if we linger

in the midst/

/////////slow////////down////////slow//////motion///////

refusing to be absent for ourselves/////////slow///////breathing//////

together/ listening to each other/ listening

to this haunting presence/refusing to play dead/

stay dead/

*the title is inspired by something within Paul Taylor, ‘Black Aesthetics’, Philosophy Compass 5/1 2010.

<https://sites.hampshire.edu/blackaesthetics/files/2017/03/taylorpaul-blackaesthetics.pdf&gt;

Hey I’m just sitting here minding my own business but you still want my attention.

Still crawling up the back of me, lurking to steal my thunder and steal my power.

You don’t want me. You don’t want me near you. You don’t want me to shine.

And yet …

You can’t leave me alone. You can’t turn away because you know I’m mighty fine. You know I’m divine.

You know I hold the secrets of what it means to be fire. You know you can’t hide your desire no matter how hard you try to hide, to blend in, to mystify.

You can’t hide your desires because of your long, ugly, harsh venomous tongue dipping lies is always going to give you away, betray your cold and encrusted lying heart and mind.