apricots

Love comes

like a lioness stalking her prey.
Poking eyes just above the fringe of the parched grass, seeking. searching.
Target locked - me, the unassuming
gazelle
who believes that she has found
safer pastures this time, birds sweetly calling out to one another overhead
still lakes offer reprieve from the
unforgiving heat of the Savannah.
I had already dipped a toe in,
felt the reassuring embrace of refreshment lap around my
love starved feet.
I had already scanned for dangers - taken the time to ask the 'right' questions
to make sure that truths were precisely that.
let hands embrace one another
felt kisses on the tips of noses - actions proving value over lust
and the discovery of someone i could 'trust'.
So i stopped looking around long enough,
put my face all the way into the pool, drinking in
salvation that resides in the arms of the 'other'
to leave myself open
to the lock jawed clasp of impermanence
around my neck - jagged, hungry teeth tearing through
the last bits of hope that made my blood so sweet to the taste in the first place.
Like apricots.

Flight 666

It's just my nature, I ruin love.
not the love that passes my way,
oh no. I seem to have
the wonderful knack
of ruining the love that sustains
others. the love that seems to be
keeping them on track.
For you see, I am the god of mistakes -
not the ones where you trip and fall
and end up with nose bleeds
revealing your clumsiness
to all.

No. I am the god of lustful ways -
of wandering eyes and
indecision
of lingering glances between strangers
who have already clocked the bands of silver and gold
on 4th fingers

I am the god of summer flings-
hot July nights when we have consumed
far too much drink, and
visions and versions of truth have been exchanged
for beer goggles of grey areas of
"what they don't know won't hurt them"

Yes, I am the god of all these things,
I bear the bitter fruits of man's other side
the raging seas of desire crashing into the shores of cerainty,
the calling of "what if's" and " if only s"
the twinkle in my eye makes all things seem
within the reach of possibility
when it's the season of my reign.

It's just my nature, I, ruin love
the antithesis to the virgin Mary -
the doorway to the life you
didn't choose.

I bet you didn't expect to hear that from some random man at the airport. 

daffodils

This dream of you and I is finally no more.
This morning i felt it rise and fall
take it's last breath to let me know I lived.
That last memory of us -
the august morning when we lay laughing
in fields of daffodils as happy as we were
no reason for sunshine
no reason for roses
in your absence it seems
this is now the landscape of my heart.

This is now the landscape of my heart
in your absence
it seems
no reason for roses
no reason for sunshine
in fields of daffodils as happy as we were,
the august morning when we lay laughing -
that last memory of us
takes it's last breath to let me know I lived.
This morning I felt it rise - and fall.
This dream of you and I is finally no more.

insomina

Old habits die hard,
old fears scream the loudest, in the dark.
I can hear the house breathing, she's settling into her bones - the groaning fridge, the popping furnace,
the snoring women for whom sleep has come.
My fear screams into my ears, boiling, agitated - what if?
what if?
what if?

I have nothing to tell her
no solace to give,
nothing more than to add the dripping of
tears on a pillowcase
to the sounds of a
settling home.

Dawn comes
peeking round corners and
sliding through the sliver between drawn drapes
and with it brings the promise of
something i practise
how to not look for
anymore.
And so, she weeps.
Weep, then - if weeping is the act
that gives you peace.

Fire

                                                Q: what did you do, with your Sunday? 

today i set fire
to
the entire room.

(accidentally/on purpose)

they say flames are the best way
to exorcise a
demon
the oldest ones die hard - lingering
around corners
and in between folded pages of
paper spent planning
new versions of self
well - self plus other
well, you plus I
papers i should have flushed down that same well where i
wished away my worth -
on pennies that some how summed to millions of
pounds of my flesh.

i let you build a house in my heart
brick by brick stained in
sex and
topped with rusted shingles -
sex/brick + water/tears + tin = the rusted,bloody house
that our love built.
you (all) took your time - so long that i barely noticed
what was happening until you had
hung photos (of yourself) on the walls.
well, don't you look comfortable.

(take your feet off my couch !)

but this heart, is not your home
just a house built with spotty craftsmanship at best -
you never paid much attention to the details.
let me take
a sledge hammer to it.

(no. wait.)

today i set
fire to the room.
i set fire to the fragments of
you
that lay lingering in the house you built
but you know, a house, is not a home.
at least, not for you, any more.

I used to say love was like friendship on fire.
fitting, with that same flame,
i finally send what's left of you on your way. 

                                        A:  oh you know, not much, just cleaned the house.

a martyr for nobhule

i push
into the darkness of my
known unknowns.
scraping and clawing against the
idols of truth
that adorn your walls.

i am wailing,

at your walls.


My master was
Mc Master

and London my lord
i clawed my way to the top of your tower

sliding and tripping over the heaps of bodies at my feet.
they look like me.

my brothers
sisters
mothers.
i see her smile, she shakes my hand.
i go - i am going, i am rising
where she cannot.

rise, she says
climb
whisper into the ears of the gods
who doll out
remittances.
for my children, they are starving.

so, quick, give me my crown of thorns
degrees will surely keep me warm
or at least the
slow
laboured tears that pour down my cheeks
they burn and give off some heat, while they 

sting the back of my
third eye
who always sees,
what i fight so hard to deny
that my deepest
fears are my
deepest truths
in the deepest
darkest
places of my soul
that sees and knows
some paths are meant to be walked alone.

i may not find
solace in
mantras of modern men
or in the kind of light that
radiates from such
'enlightenment'
but who else will seek to feed the mouths of 5,000
they so quickly turned into millions.
I cannot feed the multitudes
with my degrees
but I may whisper in the ears of the one who can
those lions in the Suits of gods
those self made Goliaths

i push into the dark
i push into the rage
this is my deepest
darkest
truth:
this is why i sold my soul.
this,is what i buried
my unborn babies for.
this is why i learned to love
i have been staring into the mouths
of lions and giants since the day i was born

i would have named my son David.

just give me my crown of thorns.
just give me my sling.

i have many tales to whisper.

Surely, now, i have earned the right
for you to call me doctor

air miles

i have travelled

6,373 miles to return to

me. 

with each mile i am unfolding

discarding petals of a dewy, fleshy

pink. 

with each breath another

falls away to reveal

my blackness -

rounded, smoothed glistening.

new to each of you who only

knew the passivity of my youth
which wrapped what you could not understand
in pink roses.

barbie always wore pink. 

with each mile 'i' am blooming,

breathing,

beating new life into the 

hidden selves that lay buried somewhere

deep within towers of ivory

and all the ways you wanted me

to be. 

don't be surprised, that i emerge fucking angry

doused in kerosene and rage, 

i dare you to strike your match first. 

i didn't know what else to be

no one taught me what black even means - and so i grew fearful 

of myself.

your lessons spread like venom, causing me to default. 

wait - apparently it's actually my fault, you said i read the signs wrong. 

 forgive me, i must have been looking in all the wrong places - but six feet tall advertisements 

adorning sky scrapers, really do catch your eye

and they don't flash faces of my own mahogany design.
except for maybe, beyonce.

beyonce sure does wear a lot of pink. like barbie did.

in case you were curious, 

it may only take you 6,373 miles.

this is the distance of a journey inward
through the wormhole of my soul

where i deleted from memory, every line i was fed.
and all the things that i read wrong.

all of this, to introduce myself to me.

hello. see?  i am black, i am beauty.

and i hate pink. 

we didn't even say goodbye

alone. alone.
(alone?)
there is only silence,all around you
that cannot be drowned out by rooms of vinyl.
and the aching of your hand - you will have to fill it with other things
(a pen perhaps? wine and whiskey)
alone. (alone?)
there is no whisper of the beloved
there is a bed, with that annoying cold part
where your body cannot warm (i can't be all places at once !)
no glancing up across tables
no dancing in kitchens
no beauty from the shared mundane -

don't you know the simplest chore becomes fodder for joy
in the company of  an 'other'.
(but, there is no 'other')
alone. (alone)

LSE for Gaza

I am lost in the trails of my
self indulgence.
meandering through darkened streets,
just so tears can dampen something different
today, let them beat the pavement instead
and mingle with the rain

my un-earned malaise is not as noticeable then.
and i can lean against lampposts and watch the pitter patter
of my past
slip and slide down cheeks and bounce of the curve of my chest
to connect with the ground. it accepts my pain when
others wont.

i'm not worried - my secrets are safe in a city of millions
not a single soul will notice the tears of
one little black girl
if she cries softly enough.
we're all too busy, buzzing, busing ourselves around
and shuffling past each others pain.

so, i can cry in peace
until
my wandering eyes and heart come across
vigils from people who still believe in things like
the masses
and the power of our message
and instead of tears, the're dripping pools of wax at the feet of
ivory towers -
LSE for gaza - counting bodies and raising fists.

so i pause. and stand
let myself feel what that 'feels' like,
passion. hope.
and for now at least, it feels like i'm crying about something real.
tears for a world
doomed to disaster
destined to demise

its almost the end of days they say...
and these disasters remind me it could be true.
i think we should be holding hands.
my eyes seek to connect with who i who i once was -
i am reaching out 
the cold is all that wraps round my fingers
working its way into spaces between bones.
and the empty space reminds me that i am still
a little black girl in a big city
where even in its practice of  humanness,
has forgotten our purpose.

a case of you

I can still remember
when your arms were branches
that rooted me to
places that i forgot
mattered.
                                            you rooted me to

my
matter -
pink and grey and green - colours of
                                     
                                            the earth and sky and all that lies in between.


is this what love is?
                                       
                                           do you still think of me?


It's sunday and i am lying in pools of my tears and
can recall when
                                         

                                            you were the gates to
such floods
of time
and
                                            truth and honesty.
                                         
honestly?

                                         i still fucking love you.

dreams of my father

Is it because
it's always 'you'?
there is something in a call
this time of night,
its muddled.
not quite right and reminiscent of
a heavy heaving white rum lined
breath
laughter and a smack "lookin' like you're getting fat"
strange ways of showing love.

and now some 30 summers have passed.
and heavy, heaving gin soaked kisses
leave me moist and anticipating
love?
i am recognising self in other - joy decomposes
into fear
am i recognising him in you?
the worst part is, he's within me too.
pause, please pause -
move no further.
I need to know
if is this is the actual reason why i
will 'bravely' defy all of logic's plans
and chart this route, to unveil to you
life and love and the liberty that comes,
from breathing in the good of this world?

because in the end, she never rescued him...

i am the same. 30 summers, not a thing has changed.
she is me
he is you.
making this something we definitely should not even
attempt to do.
right?
for at least, those 30 summers taught me one thing as truth:
one-sided love is not the kind of magic that can undo
broken men.

but if that's true, why, am i still here?
maybe, this time

it's just about
me and you
and shared miseries;
are the only kind of magic that matters
if it's the stuff that leads us to truth.

fat enlightenment

i have forgiven you.

i see that you are thick, with worry
worry is often soft in the middle - from the cupcakes.
i know they bring you such joy, that beautiful
escapism.
just enjoy the damn cake.

i forgive the roundess of your thighs
the pressing of strong calves into too tight jeans
i know that they do the work to help me reach those books
high beyond the reach of all 5'3 of me.
so perhaps it's an apporpriate price to pay
a brilliant mind earned in exchange for an ass that extends for 'days'.
besides,
sitting on bare bones hurt.

i have forgiven you.
you don't fit, and yet
you work.
you are soft, without weakness.
and warm.
because fat maintains body temperatures,
and means you wont freeze during winter storms.

i forgive you. you beautiful round thing.
so now, will you please, forgive me?
for all the work i did to change you?
when i ignored your magic
pumping you full of poisons and poitions
grinding you into oceans of
powders and protiens
to make you 'better'. thinner.
mostly,weaker.
whiter.

will you forgive the unkindess of my eyes
they couldn't see the beauty of rounded curves
and shapes that come from mother earth
you are the earth. brown and breathing.

will you forgive me?
i just... didn't know any better.

a reason for having children

"i spy with my little eye" - she says,
and i smile.
every day i spy something new,
when i play these games with you
through eyes that once were lost to me
cold and grey and hardened by
years of dreaming
and hours of praying
and millienia of loving - to no end.

but with you,
clouds are new.
buildings are mountains and bridges are
magic.

"i spy with my little eye"- she says
she's laughing and it's ringing like
churchbells on wedding days.
her hand is small, and warm and suddenly,
all the science
falls away, and only 'god' remains.

"i didn't even SEE that tree !"
god. i do love when we play
and your joy somehow sets
'me' free.

let me explain.

last night i dreamt that i woke up
covered in blood.
don't make that face - let me explain.

last night, i dreamt i woke up
covered, in blood.
the force of me was not - in me
now staining sheets, smeared across my walls
along my arms and
my favourite shirt - the one that belonged to the partner that never was
blue and stripey with the hairless doll pins on the pocket
was now purple.

purple is my favourite colour

and in my dream, i was awake
and searching for my fear - the fear that is supposed to come
when one wakes up covered
in life.
but then, i paused, i did the math.
and blood + heart some how summed up to love
and i began to rejoice-
like women of  yesterday who once taught daughters to dance
at the altars of life.

i began to make snow angels in me
rolled around in the liquid of my heart
lavished myself, in my self
i tasted like...gin.
for finally, it seemed
in this strange dream,
that i had learned how to love
me.

i had learned to bathe
in the love i willingly
bleed to others with no recourse
those who felt no remorse when i am dry
but it seems, not this time.

last night i dreamt that i woke up
covered in love.
i wish all dreams were so wonderful.

a loss for words

I am trying to write you.
words are eternal and i fear that your flesh,
which first taught me
the treasures of warmth and love,
does not hold the same magic.

And i need you.
so i am trying, to build you with turns of phrase,
that cannot be undone or erased
somehow trying to explain how sweetness bleeds
through all of you.

but i can't remember... how.

when i was young, i breathed you in, slow and deep,
so that i could always follow my nose to find my way home.
Vanilla and honey - dusty florals. The bottle was labelled 'beautiful,
And thus I and Estee Lauder named you so.
But there is something else that i have always known to be true:

that beauty lies in far fewer flowers,
and within the power of your simplicity.
And your shoulders, though they are so often squared straight
a careful glance will find that they are heavy with the weight
of decisions made for all, but self.

So I want to tell you that i saw it all.
use metaphors to prove
that nothing was invisible to me,
let personifications unpack
the multiplicities of  our family's mendacitities.
so you can be sure, that it was you that i drank in,
my glistening oasis in a desert of his untruths.

And as his words wrought lashes across your back,
I watched, and knew you would not break,
though venomous tongues coiled round your light
seeking to suffocate joy
with hate.

You looked at me, and smiled,
while forgiveness shined its halo round
your face and this, is how I learned to live
and laugh another day.

So now I am trying to write you,
as champion.
I seek alliterations that personify your grace
to make idols of your smile

But i find this language useless.
Perhaps I require words from another realm,
places we have yet to discover.
For now, I will simply call you love.
for now, I'll will just call you, mother.

The first time

The first time you don't really
notice
that it's happening. it's slow
insidious, sneaking round
corners and lurking
in shadows.

and the strangeness of it all is
mostly
strange
and suddenly i'm tripping over tongues and losing my place
losing my
mind

and all that once was
crystal to me -
glass like pools, visions of still silent seas
the oceans of your eyes
turn to storms
raging and
angrily tossing me from tranquillity
the space I once mastered is
under new management

and it only took three seconds.
no blinking-
slow smiles working like warm waves
welcome,
crashing into my peace.

the first time you just don't see it coming.
this thing, they call
'love'.

This is not my thesis.

I watch time
intersect with his hands
that are weathered, worn.
The fingers are heavy, and thick, a labour to lift
each one making a distinct click
words are loudly shaped to screen, lacking the melody behind
my own.

He's watching my hands, floating above the keys
and i watch his brow wrinkle at a new found inadequacy
the product of worlds suddenly so remote, where
participation is predicated on mastery of
magic that translates words to wires, to ping to life in the
purses of granddaughters
a million miles from where we sit.
The 25 min that pass on the journey from his hands to her smile
happy sweet 16, from grandpa, rings warm and sweet.

My smile secretly seeks to congratulate,
though I fear he'll only read condescension
for time has suddenly made me master
and left him him, mostly
lost.  

Body Clocks

Seven Sunday runners passed us by.

This, is how we kept time.

How I, kept time,

for tears flowed too quickly to be counted.

And I hurriedly erased them from view with the edge of my sleeve

so you wouldn’t see the truth behind my disguise:

that I wanted more than what was available to me -

Less sunsets, more sunrise.

That I was pretending, not to love, your lust.

The whole thing, felt useless anyway. 

So I watched the runners, keeping time –  it shouldn’t have taken so long

to end something that never started. 

That ring, never left your finger.

Above Rocks, Retirement

These are the places that time, forgot.

That history and memory etch into emerald canopies over mud floors.

Cast iron burns hotter, in dutch pots that wear scars as old as

Her hands and mine,

which after all this time, still cannot scrub as hard as

hers – so smoke smears and stains still remain

on dresses and drapes.

Breezes call me to gullies deep

so I follow nature’s litter.

Trails of coconut leaves and gourds –

empty caskets that we once drained in refuge from the relentless sun.

My childhood is repainted through eyes that remember

her hands, at work

and the time it takes to

turn nothing,

into something,

and her story

into my own. 

untitled

I'm sorry.
But it always rains here.
always.

And when it rains my glasses blur
and I can't see the faces of those
who pass my way.
And I know, that today
was meant to be 'special'
But I just couldn't see.

And I think I just let you walk right on past
everything that you dreamt 'we' could be
babies and birthdays and basketball games on sunny Sundays.
I'm sorry. But that's what happens
when it rains
and it always rains here.