All The Rage

Like muffled rain tiny snow flakes, frozen analogy of cherry blossom, fall in the middle of spring Frost dazzled the frogs in the midst of their amphibian embrace. Fantastic creatures in the depths of the pond with two heads and eight legs. Roses, ignoring the weather are filled with promises Periwinkle, Maiden Weed, Sorceress Violet, Blue Eyes, Blind Weed, Vincapervinca, embroiders with indigo the sumptuous white carpet. Under his iced cap the stone Buddha dreams of the Himalayas And with it all in spite of everything I, deprived of faith, get lost in origami of words.

...She said no She couldn’t make it, “Money a bit tight, it is quite impossible”, she left it at that. Why would I want to go out in a world of yielding knives and machetes in the Underground? The world’s unravelling. Every single day, from Monday through to Sunday a kid dying, flower wreaths proliferating on blood soaked city pavements, and mothers crying;   why should I go out? Cars mounting pavements and ramming crowds; a world where no one looks into another’s eye, but only over the shoulder. After the attack where a white van charged through a market one Saturday night, a summer night when people where just hanging out and ran them over, then three men jumped out of the back yielding serrated knives and proceeded to cut flesh, slash throats, pierce hearts, senselessly cutting the thread of young lives, she entrenched herself in her back garden amongst roses and ferns, robins and starlings; This little kitten has used up eight of its lives, she liked to say. But that evening

. “We all hold inside a tragedy that defines us, a rage like ‘raw potatoes’ “Raw potatoes?” “Yes, you know what Tich Nhat Hahn said about anger: that it is like raw potatoes, indigestible, so that you have to ‘cook’ it.  “It is a shame that it is never a joy that defines us, our life’s defined by sorrow, why? “Perhaps because sorrow is what makes us grow? So tell me, what event in your life defines you?    

Down the dark domed womb of my world, Insects flutter: little blazing miracles, symbols of hope, and of nostalgia for the light. In the cities, hummingbirds still fly, and bees with pollen laden wings spread life across the fields…still. There is yet song; there is still strife; there is yet love: all is not lost. Down the burning woods life trembles. Creatures are seeking sanctuary. And ferns that once boasted  the bounty of their fronds, today witness their own death. The acrid stench of greed permeates the smoke choked forest. Meanwhile the ignorant,  accomplice of the criminal, receives the calls, feet on his desk, and scratching his gold teeth says: “We’ll look into it tomorrow”. While creatures on four legs, and two, with roots, or wings, Or crawling, Wonder What, On Earth, Is going on? Special mention, poetry competition Nostalgia for The Light, London, 2016

A butterfly dances round a lamp. The girl bows over the bed and whispers into the old woman’s ear: if I am made of star dust, I live inside this universe which lives within me, then, no hunger, no pleasure, nor pain, are alien to me…”  Grandmother opens her mouth and the child’s eyes travel through an immense and timeless cave, which exhales a freezing breath. “Do you see that butterfly?” Says the woman to the child, the woman says: “at this very moment A mountain in China crumbles, And in other places, Where people have no lamps, butterflies flutter all the same out of nostalgia for the light. And when they bat their wings, wherever in the world a mother finds her child, a lover cries, or a tyrant tumbles.

This is another poem written during The Power of Language workshop lead by Kayo Chingonyi, as part of the Acts of Rebellion event at  October Gallery . And inspired by the image of Brittany Newsome, who climbed up a flagpole in South Carolina and pulled down the Confederate Flag, as she was being arrested. Woman so brave brings down the confederate flag Woman so brave. Like the carved statue on the prow of a ship, breast exposed to the storm and the stones That the centuries have seen poured over your blood and your race. As white officers, agents of hate come punctual to your arrest you remain entirely yourself acrobat of the skies free bird that was dreamt by the slaves