The Coloured Experience Exhibition At The Albany / For The Woman I Met Today Who Told Me What She Would Wish For (Poem)

                    The Coloured Experience Exhibition at The Albany (1st - 7th October)

For The Woman I Met Today Who Told Me What She Would Wish For

Give me a wish

and I will take it where the sky takes care

                                                        of everything,

I’m old enough to remember the world quieter,

    so give me another wish and I’ll be younger,

always with enough sleep and tickets in pockets

                                                   to take me onward,

beyond woods through days that are green before

they’re black

                       and I got no yellow on my spine.

             

Another wish and birds will envy

the smells I carry of other places,

they will envy the warmth

                                    in my air,

they will envy the view I found of our city

and the route

            I took to whatever it is I love.

Another wish and I won’t get my mouth

                                              out of her kiss,

the girl from the stars that fell to earth

     to discover

                       the planet I am.

5am / March 25th (Poem)

I dreamt you were an owl,

you kept leaving me for the night.

You said night made you wise,

it’s the kind of darkness you came from

                               that’s why  you go back to it.

 You called me pigeon

                Because I knew how to hide

                                     in the night -

              I puffed up my chest

                           slept with all my hope

                  balled on the ledge of a broken window,

                    

              I had to get warm without you.

 I woke

           still thinking I could fly -

knowing the closest thing to me

                                                          was your shadow.

Young Me (Poem)

I’m mixed Jamaican/British.

I went to school in London Fields, then Islington,

I was the only kid in class with a hearing aid,

I was the boy with the plastic ears.

The kids said I was black

because I wasn’t white like all of them,

but when I went to a school in Muswell Hill

the black kids said you can’t be black

look at your straight hair and nose.

Also, there were more deaf kids

and when they saw that I spoke

and that I didn’t know sign language,

they called me

mainstream.

The teachers said in class

I was always tuning out.

I remember that report,

Raymond looks like he’s a million miles away

but I was right where they saw me.

I like rap and I like writing.

I discovered a power in that

when I was six, my older sister bullied me

but said she was sorry after she read a story

I wrote about a horse that put down ponies.

My mum didn’t show me the school report

that said Raymond is incompetent at English

because she didn’t want to diminish the confidence

I had to put things into my own words.

my own words
came in the right colour.

Today its water under the bridge

but that water has been ice

its been steam

its been so much sometimes it doesn't know what it is,

sometimes it depends what someone else calls it.

On Being Ugly

often I walk into rooms as the loudest mouth with the least to say.

I talk like I read self-help books.
I talk like I only mean what I whisper.
I talk like I’ve been lonely.

if I look good
I'm standing a good distance away
from myself.

if I see myself differently,
it’s because other people see me differently.

I talk to myself more than I talk to anyone,
talking to myself is like talking to someone that won’t shut up!

my head is not in the sky, I talk to my feet a lot.

I’m always asking them why I can’t move on as easy as they do.

I look at myself in a broken mirror and see a thousand people that don't want to be me.

I go to parties and sit in the corner and read.

someone will come up and ask what I’m reading and I’ll talk about myself.

I think everyone here is thinking that I think too much.

I don’t know what I think about people that remind me of me

because there is always something wrong with them

especially if they fancy me.

NaPoWriMo. Day 30. Poem 30. Writers Stop.

I’ve stopped writing, I’m trying to ignore
my thoughts, the feelings, the walls, fences, doors
and ceilings, I just want to stare out windows
without analysing the condition of anything.

The bricks in those flats, those houses,
the lives between them, the gardens, the dead grass
the feeling I can’t fly, the sleep I can’t get to,
the nerve of a city boy who doesn’t write
about nature.

even
cars have more parks than us,
even
this bed is polluted with the stench
of a walking regret.
even
my bones are claustrophobic
in my body of work.
even
the noise is broken in my head.

NaPoWriMo. Day 29. Poem 29. The Good Die Curious

1.

The Arch Bishop of Canterbury
was at my poetry gig last night
he walked into the room with the smell
of incense on his white gown
hung around his thin body, and a big
purple wizard hat on his head.

A poem was read about gravity
being an over-rated phenomenon

YEAH! TELL IT LIKE IT IS!

He cheered joyously
waving his golden stick around
stroking his beard
like it was a white cloud
grown around his mouth.

The bouncers asked him to calm down.

He apologised and blessed them
with a glass of tap water.

2.

This morning I woke
with the feeling of travelling.
I could either read a book
or go for a walk.

The streets were warm
under my feet.

I saw a little boy on a scooter
rolling past a small shop, painted black.

a placard was put up outside

“FUNERAL HOME UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT”

me and the boy stopped outside
and stared through the black windows.

Life should walk in there and ask
to speak to the manager said the boy.

We could have done that... but we didn’t
we just looked at each other
admiring our youth.

3.

On the same road I came across another shop.
It was boarded up and painted bronze.

A sign was painted in big white letters on the door.

Haircuts £4

Then below in brackets it said

(FREE Hair Cuts For The Homeless. You don’t need to look good for anyone except God)

I wondered if Jesus ever used conditioner in his hair,
Maybe, but
I doubt sacrifice ever smelt like Citrus Fruit.

NaPoWriMo. Day 26. Poem 26. All Things Haiku

“It’s amazing what we keep in our brains,
some we want, some we don’t want” – Barbra Antrobus (Still amazing at 95 years old)

Our mind is a place
We learn to look at all things
with the arms of eyes.

NaPoWriMo. Day 25. Poem 25. Feild Of Rape

You are in a car
You are sitting in the passenger seat
the sun is out
You can smell it in everything
the windows are up but You want them down
the air is a dirty heat
but Sarah is driving
she wants them up.

You drive past a field glowing
yellow with flowers,
so bright it makes You dizzy
Sarah says look a field of rape
You can’t believe that rape has a colour that
kicks and screams in Your eyes
louder than the M25.

Sarah takes one hand off the wheel
to point at a bird in the sky
Sarah calls them tits that are blue
You ask Sarah why we call a bird a tit?
Sarah says most birdwatchers are men.

You don’t laugh
You just sigh.

NaPoWriMo. Day 22. Poem 22. Hipster Haiku

Hipsters everywhere
only place you don’t see them
is in the ghetto.

NaPoWriMo. Day 21. Poem 21. Adventurous Heart

I am Sagittarius

And that’s meant to mean I become wildly adventurous when someone breaks my heart.

I guess it’s true.

The first time my heart broke I decided to stop looking both ways when I crossed streets.

If a car hits me it was meant to be

It’s funny how I can be superstitious and an atheist.

Once I nearly acted on a suicidal thought by joining the Army.

I’d just sent off the application but I met a girl just in time to rescue my self esteem.

When she broke my heart I became a communist.

Every time I saw someone wear a Che’ Guevara shirt I’d run up and test their knowledge on the Cuban Revolution.

What I was actually looking for was a fight.

One day I got it.

I ran up to a guy and saluted him the way Che greeted his Guerrilla fighters.

He looked puzzled then told me he thought it was Bob Marley on his T Shirt.

I threw my fist right into his face.

But he took it well and whacked me in my ribs.

Still, it didn’t break my adventurous heart.

I was going to go to Cuba as a activist but I met a girl. Just in time to rescue my self esteem.

When she broke my heart I became a poet.

...

Disclaimer: I'd like to remind people that these poems are ideas/first drafts. NaPoWriMo is a celebration of the process of writing poetry... there... I became defensive like an amateur.

NaPoWriMo. Day 20. Poem 20. A Dream About John Hegley

I saw John Hegley in my dream
he was on his hands and knees
sniffing the concrete.

The street was busy
people stopped to gawp
they couldn't believe what they saw.

Once again I had to defend
the strange behaviour of my poet friends.

I said don’t mind Hegley
He’s a poet see, he must be working on his imagery.

NaPoWriMo. Day 19. Poem 19. Have you ever met a Brain Surgeon?

I have. It was a woman and she said

she cut into a brain and it leaked goo
making the room smell like raisins.

She said she laughed at the idea
that we can be reduced to the smell of raisins.

I was sitting on my mate’s sofa the other day

He was rolling a spilff when he said to me

Pain makes people feel important

I nodded my head and asked him if he’d like to live
like his existence is hypothetical?

He said he already does

Then he opened a bag of tobacco and put it under my nose

Smell that he said

I did.

it smelt like Raisins.

NaPoWriMo. Day 18. Poem 18. My Voice In The Mirror

I went to America.

It took four days for me to stop pronouncing the T in water.

Can I have some wadder please?

I met women who liked me for my accent
so my voice became a new lover I introduced
to everyone.

I’d say

Hi I’m Ray... as in Ray Charles.

And they’d tell me their names and if they didn’t say something like

I’m Amy as in... Do you want to sleep with me?

I wouldn’t care.

My voice was becoming proud,
It used to keep to itself but now
It wants to get out more. It wants me to repeat
everything it says,
I talk in my sleep and dream in my talk.

I had no dreams for years. Suddenly
I was in one every night
doing voiceovers in all of them.

I dreamt I met Barack Obama and he accepted
The Nobel Peace Prize in my voice.

Sometimes my voice makes my face feel inadequate
and I wish I only existed as a radio personality.

People would hear my political speeches and say my voice
provides the directors commentary to their lives.

After a week back in the UK I pronounced the T in water but lost the T in “later”

I’ll see you lay-der!

I’m not sleeping with many women anymore
I think it has something to do with my voice.

British women get very jealous when I talk about myself.

Did the sound of your voice replace all your ex-lovers or just some?

I go home alone most the time
so I can write really long poems
just to prove I have a lot to say.

NaPoWriMo. Day 17. Poem 17. Lateral Thinking Crabs!

I’ve started thinking laterally
while walking into rooms like a crab.
No one thought it was weird.
The English see stranger things
Like Lions on European flags
people reading books on trains
and the sun proving its existence.

I see people walk like crabs without a single crack on their face.

They spend half their lives making their crab walk look effortless.

I bet those smug bastards have never made anyone smile for free.

That’s what I’d say while I walk past those crabs like a pink Lobster.

NaPoWriMo. Day 16. Poem 16. A Conversation With A Waiter.

In the cafe’ people ask me why I smile all the time?
They tell me it makes me look foreign.
I tell them happy waiters get happy customers, no?
And I say that in Portuguese and they just smile
Like they understand.

NaPoWriMo. Day 15. Poem 15. Ego Therapist.

OK Ray. Get your ego out your pocket...
put it on the table and let’s have a good look at it.
Well... it’s certainly grown a bit hasn’t it?
What have you been feeding the bugger? –
Oh’ you took it to America – that’s normal then.
What are those purple marks on its neck? – love bites?
Did you do that yourself? Hmm, yes, they look good but I think
we should have a look at its teeth. Open wide and say
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeee... Good, that’s a beautiful smile.

OK, lovely. you can put it back in your pocket Ray
but I want to continue these sessions.
No major concerns. I just want to watch it’s activity around other egos...
OK, that’s all for now Ray.
Take a lollipop and I’ll see you next week..

Oh’ cute poem by the way.

NaPoWriMo. Day 13. Poem 13. Warm Machine

Every foot in my poem walks
down halls, looking
for dance floors in
other people. It’s a party
in a foxhole. Invite yourself.
smell the tarmac
shift the gravel. Hold
breath like fire
in the heart of your hands.
Operate your spirit like life
is a beautiful industry.

NaPoWriMo. Day 12. Poem 12. Sonnet

These are the sounds of you that cannot sleep
Inside the noise of my tormented mind
I try to not exist as if I keep
Shutting my eyes to see how my dream rides
And when I wake with a lie on my lips
One that unties my tongue from the bondage
My only question is how I can live
Through a time where something about you comes
Like a summer of guns that come to fire
Before I am ready to leave our fun
The quiz of you holds me slightly tighter
Than the fevers that I have tried to kiss
Again, I am holding another’s hand
Again, I pretend to be who I am.

NaPoWriMo Day 11. Poem 11 - Ray, Are You OK?

In the past 3 months I have received sixteen text messages
that say the same thing... word for word...

Ray, are you ok?

For some reason these are the only messages in my inbox.

Some of them came completely out of the blue and others
are replies to messages I sent.

I do remember sending one message that said

I want you and not because I’m lonely.

almost immediately Ray, are you ok? was received on my phone
at 2.14am.

NaPoWriMo. Day 8. Poem 8. The Women I Meet When I Walk Around Calling Myself A Poet Can Tell...

I’m full of shit.

often I walk into rooms as the loudest mouth
with the least to say.

I talk like I read self-help books.
I talk like I only mean what I whisper.
I talk like I’ve been lonely.

If I look good
I'm standing a good
distance away
from myself.

If I see myself
differently
it’s because other people see me
differently

I think I think too much but how much is enough when
we question everything?

The question here is what is everything?

I told you I'm full of shit.