Sewing the hours of life

The humming needle ticks the hours

As soft rolls of multi-coloured fabric

Flow across floorboards

Like rainbows caressing the grain

The stitches make maps, tracks to follow

Seams to explore, zips to open and shut

And open again just to hear the sound

The foot lands with certainty then lifts to disembark

To make darts of warp and we...

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Cryptic  9 down 1 across – after Malika Booker

Poem inspired by “The Golden Shovel” technique - A Parable of Sorts by Malika Booker the line used was “Us black rats with our rouge swagger that spoke.”

The title is taken from the number of lines in the golden shovel but also based upon the fact that black people are 9 times more likely to be stopped and searched in this country.

We knew th...

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In that year – Inspired by Kim Moore’s amazing poem of the same title

And in that year my mind turned into a chrysalis

I liquefied my preconceptions

and turned them into butterfly soup

And in that year I picked up a pen

and my hand slid across the page like a gliding swan

the white lie feathers of self-deceit became black truths

And in that year I prayed at the ...

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Neverland

Peter Pan got sick of Neverland / turns out to be a land that never was / It was all in his head

Hero worship, pirates and treasure / Fool’s gold his therapist told him / perhaps it was all that pixie

dust he had been snorting / which way to go now? / the only X remaining marked his personal

conundrum /Wendy had left him / she’d found out about the affair with Tinkerbell in t...

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Damned love

I wonder if you think of me

the way I used to think of you

in that youthful glimmer

of sequined untainted hope

I wonder if you dream of me

the way I used to dream of you

lying in love-soaked sheets

charged with electric sweat

I wonder if you search for faces

the way I used to search for faces

desperate glimpses in a lonely crowd

singling out similar ...

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Love Hope.  

           If I were made of chocolate                                                                                                    

  I'd break off parts of myself                         

to give to you

I’d wrap them in paper

as delicate as a spider’s web

seal it with cellotape and a kiss

I’d tie around a ribbon

recycled and sculptured

into a heart s...

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Today……

Today the sun is shining in a different world

one where the busiest creatures

are the butterflies and the bees

the streets are quiet

and real people feel strange

alien, another land

some wear masks like they cannot speak

some cross the road and look away

some smile and give each other knowing looks

it feels like we have been given a glimpse into the past

a ...

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If you read with a critical eye

A literary equation

Then you miss the words on the page

That don’t fit

Your notions

Of what good poetry is

If you hear

With a critical ear

Your needle skips the tune

The meaning

Of this person’s record

Scratched

If you close your heart

To the emotional lexicon

Of arterial verse

Pumping raw feelings

Downstream

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Look at Mother nature on the run……..

She just wants to get

                                                                                                                     As far away from            

                                                                                                                                      humanity

As she can

And who can blame her...

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Music of the waves

As the music of the waves

washed over me

like dancing wolves

wildly undulating to the flow

I smelled the mixed broth of the sea

I tasted the flavour of the waves

Like salt wash on my tongue

I touched the froth

And it melted away

Like a sunset in my hand

Gone

I wonder where did it really go

A memory lost to the sea

A memory of the sea

...

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This poem was written outdoors in a park about a weeping willow tree, planted in memory of a 17-year-old boy who tragically died in 1993, innocently caught up in rival gang fight and stabbed to death.

The Weeping Willow

I wonder if you weep at night

Like the family of Grant Jackson

I wonder if your burdened branches

Hang heavy

Like the sorrows on their innocent shoulders

Does ...

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Little Me

I remember days spent staring at clouds

And looking for 4 leaf clovers

I was all cartwheels and insecurity

Too busy sometimes just being told what to do

I got told I had a smiling affable manner

But that I used it to get out of trouble

Like that was an effective armour

A bit like cladding yourself in a daisy chain

I was scared of my teachers

I...

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Liquid gold they called it

Sweet dripping and viscous

I stole mine from a local hive

When I knew it’s days were numbered

I remember the faint buzz

As drowsy bees tickled my hand

They didn’t sting me

It was as if they knew

They’d given up the fight

Nothing left for them to fight for

I dug in my curious fingers

And scooped the warm syrupy liquid

Cradled in wax

...

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