I suppose we all think of the decisions we made or didn’t…
Unaware of their innate fate.
Your days where you’ve learned hard lessons; their impossibly unique circumstances.
The world then lead up to the fact,
and it still didn’t happen.
Writing
Group Chat
“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.”
Replacement
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.
Art & ink
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
Sxhool
There seems to be a nouveau management style – a bullish approach
Destroying the hard fought scraps of legislation pieced together with the blood, tears and years of lost pay.
Our gaze no longer leaves our own vicinity our group our perspective our pay.
32 staff left my school last year. Natural Wastage.
Refuse considerately ridding themselves it would seem.
A narrative preferable to mismanagement and resignation.
Bullying is everyday
mundane as air in an exhale
1st Thing
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.
Untitled London Poem 18/1/17
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
26 – 27
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.
J.C. FitzDerick 