Walk his craft down to the edge of the sound,
A quiet stretch near Greenwich.
He got in and pushed away into the deep
Lane and soon other boats showed up,
A tug, a barge and the surf they stirred
Almost sank him. He hurried back
To shore and picked more quiet
Times to go back to the element he loves,
Happy in his homemade boat.
6. For the Record
Caliban never had it so good with the crew on his island,
On his terms with his name and his words in Prospero’s book.
Ask him what he said and how he said it before he met Prospero.
He raids a continent for it to operate his vocal chords.
I ate root bulbs, drank from the swan-necked flower, scratched
My back against the bark of trees, whistled in reply to feathered glories,
Howled with baboons at the sight of a hyena tricking lunch
From a lion and the lion too lazy to put up a fight.
He looks up and reads cloud cover for hide and seek
Between sun, moon, stars, river turning over a new leaf,
Sea at the promontory folding volumes of laundry,
Waves flapping their mouths in the breeze.
7.
(St Clement Danes, London. 21st December 1675. Baptism: Charles, a black, his name Hercules)
Assume that he earned his name
with hard labour and matching physique;
that he had to be saved from himself;
rescued from his dark origins;
that his black skin needed to be cleansed;
that he wanted this blessing
more than he wanted to be free.
Assume one or more or all of these things
on behalf of a man who lost his tongue,
who counts on you for the righteous
in his name and bearing.
8. Unofficial Lido
My brother Andrew
and three friends
all in their teens
swam in the river
at Deptford
beside Pepys Estate
The trick was to stare
into the murk as if Thames
Tyne or Mersey
were outer space
pinpoint where wharf logs
jutted and where room trembled
free of splintered wreckage
for a clean dive
And in they went
one after another
entering clean and right
away swerving up
to avoid the shallows
emerge wide-eyed
with a whoop and a yelp
crawl back
up the jetty careful
not to cut themselves
on rotten wood
shaken and stirred
by the river readying
themselves swapping
versions of what took
place in front of each
other as they queued
for one more dive
9.
(Tyeburne tree, London 6th March 1663 A Negress or coloured woman hanged)
Black woman hold the city
as a lover would sans pity
For the city needs clothes and food.
The city is strange and misunderstood
Black woman hold the city
as a mother would her baby
For the city needs flesh and blood
The city is strange and misunderstood
10. Big Data
It was community
TV meets poetry
in a Words on Film
extravaganza
from Equiano to the present
The Beeb coughed up
enough for us to rent a river
boat, DJ thrown in
for good measure
sail from Westminster pier
to Thames Barrier
and back
I mean through that nest of shark
fins unimpeded
a truckload of black people
dancing to DJ tunes
spun to keep dance floor full
All you had to do was stand
there and let the current
work your hips
side to side
hold tight as tight can
to the nearest somebody
and in good time feel
that boat and all its cargo
spin out the barrier
one way and back in
another with hardly
a roil heave or riff
in the current below
Marley’s One Love
never sounded sweeter
than that October
night on that
compound-free water
11.
(Stepney London and Commissary Court, London, 1632. Grace, a Blackamoor presented by churchwardens for living incontinently with Walter Church, Stepney.)
Walter promised me a warm bed
food and his unwelcome attentions
I promised him nothing
At first we slept back-to-back
and in our sleep we turned to face each other
hugged for warmth I believe
The utility of a hug grew into something sweeter
I referred to him as Unwelcome Attentions
from that day to our last together
They dragged me
into their court
said I sinned
He stayed out
of the frame
They said my
crime was that
I slept with him
not his for inviting me
If only I could wash him off my skin
I would wash myself clean down to my bones
But he stays with me after soap and water
his smell and his embrace
his breath
rapid as his body tightens and he says
Girl I love you
Stay with me
And I say
Thank you Unwelcome Attentions
and we fall asleep back-to-back
wake in a full embrace
Francis Bacon
No relation to pig, to sty, to trough, to mud, to slavery,
to market, to market.
No friend to the foe, of the fee fi fum.
No enemy to the beast of the Easter bun.
No relation to nation, to nacho, to macho.
No friend to fee, no fi to foe, no fum.
To market – tek ram ot
No cab sic an rf
Heads, Hobbes; Tails, Descartes
1. Heads
Cat nights and dog days dog chases tail
cat coughs up hairball
lady gives a damn man walks into bar minus one plus two
Knick-knack, paddy-whack.
Pop goes the weasel. Chi-ching.
2. Tails
Who put de cart before de horse put de harness before de furnace
walled up with brick and concrete
after de factory gates closed for de last time in a mean time
but not him oh no not him no good boy-o worthless thing
that man kept himself warm
all winter curled up in an oven so that he could think tanked straight
Spinoza
Wanted more from reality than a knife and fork carved up and served to him
mainly because he swallowed his food without chewing it or chewed sixteen times
for each mouthful, which turned food in his mouth
liquid then gas aka methane
Could be worse, could be gas you cannot smell and can see only as a side effect
too late to do anything about but lie back and observe it doing dirty work
somebody got to make
mess for everybody else to clean
Leibniz
Light poured from pint glass to pint glass as tea pours
from one cup to another held an arm’s length to cool
pint glass drained by parent as tea is fed to baby
Never the other way around thank goodness
on a merry-go-round that spins too fast to hop on or off
where everything comes around twice
Baby laughs parents cry
dry eyes meet toothless wonder
hugs kisses make up sex
Liberals
Got it wrong
got it right
got it wrong again
until two wrongs
made a right
Never threw up
hands kept
those hands thrown
to the side for
balance stuck on
a fence until
name turned
from dirt to dust
to pollen riding
every insect wind
Locke Meet Hume
Slavery works so long as slaves do not know
the full extent of their condition
which darker skins prevent those slaves from ever
knowing as if reason were a membrane
unless black turns white and whites bear
black cross Ham curse skin of both impermeable to reason
as much as rhyme in his era and ours separated by a hair
whose ends split static fall hide behind teeth
Hume Meet Locke
Played the same unmistakable tune on a pennywhistle
hollowed bone from his enemy
spontaneity a tune that sounded like his instrument needed
an enema or his audience could use beeswax plugs for tin ears
two fish scales work overtime as covers for eagle eyes
and they do not fall no matter the time ozone
Romantics
1. Mary & Percy
Bombastic
as in da bomb
dream monster
machine desire
walked like one
talked like one
halfcocked on
cooked laudanum
doing things monsters do
being human
2. Byron
At the bottom of a pint glass is a carafe
out of which pours a string of octaves
measured up the joints of an index finger
knots of remembered bones for every conquest
At the bottom of every remembrance
is a carafe filled with some ferment
that whiffs of hope and despair in equal parts
down in one-be-merry head thrown back
3. Blake
Got his hands dirty
not just with lead ink
To illustrate my point
I ask all fathers
swallow a morsel
of the afterbirth of each newborn
you shoot up during a hey ho
sweet jesus come for me
4. Coleridge
Each day turns over a new leaf
eyes alone cannot tell
fog this morning on a roll
brought to the boil
by a sun climbing over hills
as much as clambering my skin
It’s weather to be called away in
from a bed or desk to an errand
as one who leaves a cottage
in the middle of Kubla Khan
only to return to an absence
made by air with flesh not there
5. Wordsworth
I push through pebbles
my breath adds to what’s here
I leave nothing behind me
that cannot be found later
what I chase remains hidden
with each step I might draw near
what keeps its distance
from me and multiplies with each step.
Pushkin
How far ahead of my time
can I get without losing
touch with both time
and my gunpowder self?
Answers by Thursday’s last post
Please.
Take this drum
my dark skin stretched over wood for bone
tight so that insults bounce off
light sinks in
water-soaked drum
walking talking drum
ready for long nails fingertips feathers whips
not bullets
Answers by Thursday’s last post
Please.
Rousseau
Vintage champagne bottle, candlelit dinner for two,
Corner of lazy eye catches harpist, heard, not registered,
back room of a mansion for a mind.
A meal for the age, where at least one hand clasps another,
no bed, empty, dead, for more than one night, no two
nights the same, till everyone wakes together,
time subtracted from some other soul, positively leaps
through fingers, so that body shivers, backtracks,
leapfrogs dazed, utterly alone.
Kant
Can
can’t
won’t,
can-can
tried to
failed
or failed
for want
of trying
Is every damn thing
going to be measured
against old man fat lady slavery?
No
yes
hell yes
well maybe
Hegel
Played the hole to Marx’s bagel
so the ice-lolly stick joke goes
watched a mill next to a stream
saw a production line of automatons
who walked like children left to wander
little people who talked in tongues
made of lead laced with arsenic
forked and with a lisp
How wrong can you be about hot metal
pressed against flesh that brands a company
name on a body is not a question
so much as a formula from his time
down to mine and forwards into a black hole
I have seen things I cannot talk about
things I did that I am ashamed of
people I hurt whose names and faces
haunt my sleep and wake
though I profited from them verily,
thoughI gained nothing in the end
etcetera
just drink the damn poison and get
it over and done with for nobody listens
and somebody
the last body to leave
forgot to turn off the lights in a building
earmarked for cellphone captured
demolition
Equiano
Near water so much
it seemed you could absorb
water through your skin
For the strength of Samson
if black skin could outdo
hair of biblical proportions
Your book of exploits
made tea for two volatile
dispensed with table manners
One pull on the tablecloth
disturbs things set there
in one flourish
In a Durham Cathedral window
stained glass lauded troubled
cautioned against distress
But the two qualities in me
twinned as they are cannot be separated
in a photo finish or split by time
Schopenhauer
Think of something small
akin to loose change pulled
from a shallow pocket
with one foul scoop
Think of a glance
picked at picked out
piece by piece
from a wishing well
whose mirror never lies
whose glass wavers and stands
still just long enough
for a shadow to tiptoe across it
set
tle as if pooled for trust
negro trans on catwalk please
lower your face
drink your reflection
see how your shadow looks harder
than you and wonder how this
can be and you not be dead
on your feet buried standing
how ceilings become floors
made of glass or why that
glass reflects and is seen
through seen on all at once
Nietzsche
I pushed through turnstiles doubled
as revolving doors, stood shaky on discs
spilling blood, seasons, mass graves,
filled over slights, or gaze.
Not before I spit in my cold food
seated at a strange table, saliva stops
bullies from eating what’s rightfully
Translations from Memory Page 3
