Marc Hawkins

Updated: Mon, 31 Jan 2022 02:19 pm

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Biography

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” ― Rudyard Kipling I am a contemporary artist and poet based in Cornwall. My first published collection of poems, a chapbook titled, "BAD ANGELS", is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions. My art can be viewed here, if you fancy a look. www.marchawkins.org Some words here www.marchawkinspoet.org or you could come and say hello here www.facebook.com/Hawkeyeartist/

Samples

I was challenged by a member of the writers group I was part of to write a poem from a woman's perspective. I had recently watched a documentary on female genital mutilation which inspired me to write this, Type 3 being the harshest of the practice. TYPE III Colonial history will still dictate how the men around here Practice love through hate For aesthetic purposes; an ethnic marker Gender controlled by husband...son...father Against my will. I can let nature take its course, the uneasiness in how I pass Bears nothing to your immoral force with which you open me up Your gateway to a selfish pleasure And I once believed that being loved Was close to being treasured I am as trapped as a bird in a cage Modified and made ugly by your commission Disfigured by tradition and religion and holy wars And chained by the fear that renders me yours Against my will My sisterhood grows, from northeast Africa To the sub-Sahara Young and joyless and bound by doctrines No pursuit of happiness. No pleasure to come No great expectations. Nothing foretold Nothing that has been or gone Objects more of control than desire My eyes that once shone with innocent love Now burn with hate fuelled fire…and all because... You denied me a fall from grace, you denied me self discovery No different to putting scars on my face Or is that too much a public recovery? You denied me womanhood. You denied me choice I censor my thoughts and silence my voice And I think of our mothers and their mothers And of the honour and pride they felt When this exact same fate to them was dealt And why did they not feel humiliated? Abused? Mutilated? Used? Maybe when we live in a world without light We relinquish our strengths and fall prey to our plights Enlightenment and knowledge, I was lead to believe, Are the roads to freedom Our mothers learned nothing other than to serve and to please And here am I, enlightened but sedated Imprisoned, captive, segregated Dysmorphic now, a victim still And all of this against my will SPRAWL Veins, veins, length and breadth, intertwined beats to freedom or desolation; a terminus lost on a circular. An ebbing destination, unchartered targets, Follow the signs. We are a one way street, follow the signs on software maps. Stumped by sequential lights and us, caught in a dragnet within steely fish, gasping for air, choking on smoke, bilious coughs, hacking sputum, gobbing phlegm globs in interval gaps within gridlocks; nose to arse to nose to arse. The rage, the stares the shouts, the finger, the Grrr’s, the Rrrr’s, the honks, the blares, the bumper to bumper expletive shares. The rolling down, the alighting, the threats, the fighting. The falling down, the separation, reseating, the rolling, the thunder, the trudge, the stops, the starts. Follow the signs, follow the signs. Robotic conveyors for humans, mechanical fossil fueled chariots, grumbling, grunting, wheee-ing and screeching, and screaming and spewing and chuffing and guffing black plumes, air tarred, veins, veins clogged and bogged, viscous, molasses, liquid black blob. Road fogged, numbers logged. Veins, veins, follow the signs, slow crawl. Veins, veins, follow the signs, follow the signs, sprawl.

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