of water/ waves/ ocean
The Middle Passage
water/ chains/ bodies – sweat, vomit, shit
and blood/ blood on so many hands.
The little boy asks, ‘Are they still swimming?’
PAD/ 028 – A little boy listening to the audio recording
space
PAD/ 027 – Taking a risk
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
PAD/023 – empty
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.
PAD/022- You have a choice
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.
PAD/ 021 – Let’s say …
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.
PAD/019 – i am becoming my mother
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.
PAD/018 – the sense of togetherness. That sense of hope.
My real name is submerged
laid down layer upon layer,
year upon year.
Yesterday my name was hushed
Like a dark memory hidden from view.
Today my name will be honour
as torch-beam tight recognition begins.
Secretly, I know my name is a subtle ripple
of time passing, making strange the familiar.
PAD/ 017 – for god’s sake, we must stop this coloured invasion
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
Reading Poetry (ish)
As I mentioned earlier in the month, reading and writing/ writing and reading go hand in hand. As I’ve tasked myself with a poem a day this month, I’ve also tasked myself with reading poetry and wider as it all feeds into the creative process.
Dal Kular, a dear friend and awesome imagineer, brought Foluke Taylor and their writings to my attention. I’ve been taken by Foluke’s writing around creativity and repetition so when Dal mentioned the book, Unruly Therapeutic, I knew I had to pick this book up and read it. And I’m so glad I have done just that ( well still reading it in fact!).
This is a hybrid, break down the structures kind of book in terms of how it’s written but also how it centres the Black woman’s experience. It’s music to my ears on so many levels. More so in being real, and allowing the thoughts and concepts presented to meander. To double back and repeat. There’s even a music playlist at the end go each chapter as an indication of what Foluke was listening to while the book was under construction.
I’ll return here with a review of length, but for now I just wanted to mark the reading of this text and a recommendation to get out and buy your own copy, as I’m not lending mine out!
Living Wild Studios 