They’re all on strike today and the day before that too. The doctors, the teachers, postal workers and the late Southern workers.
the radio says they’re selfish, caring about them own, devil may care about the repercussions.
we’re all fractured, aspiring for a togetherness, in spiteful factions. Blind to other’s pleas.
Croydon doesn’t have any new council houses, but we’ve got a new council building
and someone built us all a lovely new Box Park.
Of the most forgiving of us
it is to turn the other cheek,
Only be slapped anew.
Perhaps soon we’ll turn to Che
or those solemn folks from the IRA
learning lessons of fire and ice.
When did I become a black writer?
Was it at birth with deviant skin
Or when I found my voice -mirroring my sight.
My poetry somewhere between Heaney & Rage (Against the Machine).
I hear the black only adjectives again today,
but I’m already well too aware
Escape,
A dream I guess to be usual.
A tearing departure from the ties and debts
which all but depict the future
that’ll soon pass.
My dad said avoid being that guy
the old man in the corner of the club.
The guy nursing cherry wine or a more contemporary courvoisier and coke.
1Xtra keeps me musically on trend, though I question its taste more daily.
Future’s drawl’s too dank for my De La ears.
My playlist, it’s turned more club classic than new bangers.
Brandy, Jahiem and Tribe doing concerts to my demographic.
Didn’t they used be called SWV, Soul II Soul & Sade?
My classic playlist speckled with now cringey R&B…
… the odd Blink 182 I used to hide in my youth,
It’s overdue teenage angst now aloud.
It’s not contemporary
but it has the honest sound of a new old black man.
I wonder
do I see
more homeless,
more hopeless
and more clueless than ever before.
Or is this just the clarity
that adulthood offers?
When did Fetty Wap
replace stevie Wonder,
with an infinitly more sight
but a sliver of insight.
I read somewhere that parents spend less time with their children than 40 years ago.
And this thought spins in my head as I see your daughter in silence,
Her hands plaited on her lap. Her mother the other end of the 312.
Partisan extremism seems to be on the rise these days.
We all want to be part of something.
J.C. FitzDerick 