When is the last time you took a risk? How did it work out?
oh it’s so sad/ she said/ when reading about slavery
oh it’s so wrong/ she said/ to anyone who’d listen
I listened/ to her going through the motions/ performing
they say peonies are showy flowers/ blousy bursting blooms/ for the show
at least peonies sense when it’s their time/ chance/nature to keep shut and wilt
The last thing I emptied was my heart
I emptied my heart of lies and shame.
Took out the crammed spaces and rot/
carried them all out to the trash.
It was decluttering to the max of my heart/ of my love – for others/ for myself
I tell, you I haven’t felt better. Heart beating full-blood-red.
Like a new lamb to the slaughter, I’m showing up in my day to day/ jumping/
Springing/ heart open and bleeding.
You have a choice.
Like the dandelion
flowering within the edge
of a verge or between pavement slabs,
you have a choice.
Arousal. Finding joy
in life, is not something
someone else can give to you.
You must take it.
Like breathing.
Like the tulips coming
up for air, right here. Right now.
You have a choice.
An electric current swirling
always, through you.
Between you and the cherry blossom
bursting into pink glory.
To live from this bounty,
you have a choice.
Let’s say you find yourself going down to the sea shore each day. Each day you’re there at a different time. At the sea shore, you find the space to let go, to surrender yourself to the moment.
The sea pulls you like a magnet, a magnet you cannot resists or pull away from even if you tried. And you don’t try because you feel as the light touches each crest of wave, rolling them with gold that your soul is fed love.
Let’s say, along the sea shore, you also take off your shoes to get closer. You might feel the damp sand between your toes. You might also feel the cold bitter water tingling your toes. You prefer the warmth yet you move further into the ebb and flow. You allow your ankles to be caressed. You allow your flesh to moan.
Commentary: years ago I wrote a poem titled ‘ i am becoming my mother’. I think it’s in my first full collection Family Album, Flambard Press 2011.
A few weeks ago while attending one of my late night across the Atlantic poetry group workshops, I had an inkling to revisit this poem with the intention of bringing it up to date. To try and incorporate all the ‘Sherees’ that have developed, spored since the first poem, since my mum’s death and teachings have passed into decades gone by.
So I created this piece. Same title but definitely more expansive.
i am becoming my mother
Dehumanising the Black woman. Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire, Bitch.
The black woman is seen as one dimensional; the mule of the world, carrying the heavy burden of mothering all others except her own.
Her own children are lost; lost to the auction block, the ocean, the noose.
A Black woman is a source of strength and love. Passing on power as well as pain.
Her body carries stories, carries histories, carries an archive.
as a black woman,
resting deep within the meadow,
held in softness,
grass tickling shins,
dress billowing about
like blossom,
is a political act.
a white banner shifts against Nelson’s Column, ‘KEEP BRITAIN WHITE.’
a bright white suspension of unwelcome and hate
ladies and gentlemen with heads turned up as if taking direction from God himself, listen to the message
from a man, on the platform, with Union Jack legs
as if whiteness and rightness runs through him like quickening sap/
the threat is real murmurs through the crowd/ a gathering searching for answers to stop the invasion
let me enter the scene/ from the extreme right/
let me mingle at the back/ near the man in a flat cap
let me feel the heat of the air/
let me sense the crackle of fear in their white, wholesome bodies
my body would be one of those coloured they want to stop
my body would be one of those aliens they want to exterminate
but what they don’t care to know is that this body belongs to a love evangelist
who’s at pains to show them how love can save us all
if only they’d part their ways and let me through
“There can be no repetition because the essence of that expression is insistence, and if you insist you must each time use emphasis and if you use emphasis it is not possible while anybody is alive that they should use exactly the same emphasis.”
“That is what makes life that the insistence is different, no matter how often you tell the same story if there is anything alive in the telling the emphasis is different.”
Gertrude Stein—from “Portraits and Repetition”
the sky feeds us continuous greys and harsh words from ugly white mouths, and yet we enter the frame
clasped hands in lap or right hand on chest, like in allegiance, mouth forced upwards as best clothes stiffen backs and resolve;
a practised pose, easy to send back home as proof of promises made good, mother country come good, it’s expected
the camera will point and lie for generations; the flash will blind us, to our naivety, to their hate and ungratefulness
Cinnamon sky rumbles
as electric clouds jag
over glass shop fronts.
Scarlet waves fire street
corners, claiming them forever.
Coppers and politicians
worry the faultlines
left behind.
In the garden, warmth of sun on right cheek. Dark skin soaking up the heat.
Other cheek caught in the shade and cool breeze.
Body experiencing so many different sensations at the same time.
Gratitude to be in this body in this present moment. Present. Visual journaling outside.
Page black paint and collaged blossom papers. The light catches upon the pages, illuminating the wisdom and joy within.
Gratitude to be in this space in this present moment. Present. Visual journaling inside.
Soul dark hued and sadness rage collaged. The light catches upon the soul, remembering the true nature within.
