We’re an infinity of caramel limbs and cream cotton sheets.
Curtains curtailing hail and sleet
the world knocking at the window of our whispered softness.
The fan heaters on, you said you were cold naked.
Perhaps we’ll have pancakes for brunch,
Times moved on since you last entered my arms.
When you return I’ll make you chai tea, the one
your hands taught mine.
That’s the thing about drugs,
They seep to your core
a reflection of failure – the image obscure in smoke.
I enjoy the plastered amusement. The transient pleasure exhaled in a silent destructive whisper.
It’s all the same, it just fizzed with a velvet stroke.
My lungs swell exhaling a putrid air.
Tonglen, perhaps, a reversal of states.
I’ve years yet to die.
But I wonder if these years between freedom and cold expulsion draw nearer.
I’m the same as the year before
My inspiration stands unperturbed by the hanging tranquil haze.
Can this be what it’s become?
I know it’s not.
It’s been while since we’ve spoke,
I wonder… because if stigmatised truth or dearth of substance.
I feel it’s the subject, it turned an obscure ombre.
A minds regard of the quiet clandestine workings of a wandering eye.
And a relative conscious.
I read love poems of devotions and pure affection. They too like the gloss movies, a reality away from the compromises and warmth of daily love.
In fiction it vanquishes all, but I see it beaten by jealousy, pettiness and self pity.
A sacred pantomime we all dance to, I’ve found mine but still I wonder.
“The way I see it is all this race stuff is a social construction, an illusion used to divide and dominate.
If it’s constructed it’s made up by someone or some group, so we can choose to not believe it and perpetuate the lies.
Yes we’ll still and always be in the system but we can stop adding to the delusions it creates, delusions of worth, beauty and ability.
We having this conversation means that at the very least aware of it,
and at best we will start to pass our awareness to others,
slowly breaking the too long told narrative of race and worth.”
The sky ‘s a warm grey today.
I sit above it all in a leisurely replacement service.
Tupac’s lamenting his life to his unborn love.
I pass homes neglected and freshly built.
I do try to be a good person, but wonder…
– A friend once told me if I wonder I needn’t worry.
The Old Victorians hold witness to lives around and inside.
Again I wonder if I will ever be filled
with characters and stories
or a hushing quiet.
I see pools of sky blue, as the grey gives way.
I always wondered if rappers run out of lyrics and a painter water from their fountainous muse
Advice has always been the same, an unearthing of truth, a discovery of the preexisting, reforming it and presenting it anew
As a poet, artist or scientist we don’t discover but reflect our novel understanding of the All before us aloof to our existence …
and I see until the earth grows cold and dark no sooner will ink and paint
I suppose the division lies with Black etc. not being seen to have a culture of them own.
But instead viewed as unruly, their misbehaviour na’ following the hosts wishes.
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.
J.C. FitzDerick 