So Many Things To Say - a #misfitlocal poem for @youcanhub

I was invited to perform tonight for Misfit Local, a group of social enterprise-minded folk who network in a series of excellent evenings in the ever-lovely Hot Numbers cafe. I offered to do some live-writing for them (like live-drawing, where visual artists produce sketches of an event based on what they saw and heard, but, well, the written version), and they leapt on that idea.

I’ve done this before at poetry evenings where I turn out something that incorporates bits of images/ lines from other people’s pieces, and - of course - there’s the rapid-fire writing of Poetry To Go, but this was the first time I’d live-written a non-artistic event. The evening was incredibly inspirational, so brought out a fairly epic length of piece, incorporating words and images from the presenters, Carrie Bedingfield, whose story formed the core of the first half of the event, and inspired many ripples in the rest, and the “Ideas Parade” where people pitch their question and get others at the event to help them explore solutions. Oh, and the announcements at the end, versified for the sheer challenge of it and delivered by me as part of the poem instead of by the hosts...

So here it is:

So Many Things To Say

It’s a dark and stormy night,
But inside we are warm.
In here meaning links stories,
People calling across spaces,
Making intimates from introverts.

We are permissive.
Only one rules defines us:
Our love for larger questions,
And hope for change,
Of all sizes.

We are recovering from a
Stone Age hangover,
Locked into a drowning cage,
Awaiting the tsunami while
Treading water.

We are caught in a
Cycle of burning,
Turning unstructured vapours into
Toxicity, choking.

These masks lend us speed,
Outstripping competition to be
Our own goad,
Gold lingering at our fingertips,
Gripping air, gasping.

Stop. Breathe.
The rules will free us.
We need to charge ourselves
Instead of charging at
Windwills, willfully ignorant
Of our own inching destruction.

Black and white at speed will
Only gift you greyness.
Wave at the horizon,
Summon colours,
Gloves off to touch the world.

Striving alone will not sustain;
A brain that grows needs
Feeding on something more
Than treats, greeting the need
For stimulus with discipline.

Listen to your instinct,
Drink down silence,
Violence against your body
Can only be dodged for
So long, and compassion
Will sing louder than
Competition ever will.

The grit under your heels
Will dwindle when your
Vision clears;
Nearing the next hilltop,
Remember to stop -
Enjoy the view.

Making music?
Remember: practice makes perfect,
Mixing this moment
To the next,
Collecting experts,
Turning silence into dance.

And while we’re listening,
Glistening with high notes,
We can strip back the clatter,
Tell the story,
Launch the tale on
Broader oceans.

Collective ventures
Connect together,
Blending complementary
Innovations,
Taking the long view,
Seeing ourselves as
Part of the lifecycle.

Let’s see through a child’s eyes,
Bright with wonder,
Summoning the colourful moments
In every day,
And making them visible
To the wide world.

Tonight we have painted
With words and light,
Igniting images in
Other minds,
Winding our way
Into tomorrow.

And now it’s over,
For the moment,
We thank you.
You have answered these gentle summons
And hopefully had fun!

Love spreads by conversation
So make the time to tag #misfitlocal,
Globally singing praise for faithful hosts,
And the one and only Hot Numbers...

This is your night, enlighten us
If change is needed,
And we’ll heed you until next time -
The 20th of January.

Further conversation beckons
For the next fifteen,
As meaningful as you like, but
Bright or dark, hark to your heart
And grant some peace to our neighbours!

Be safe on your way,
Make changes,
Don’t wait for January -
We’ll see you soon,
Keep doing what you love!

Hope in Dark Places

Poem written for Hammer & Tongue Bristol, November 2015 - inspired by the poems of the support act and the slammers, and with a pinch of Bristol itself thrown in.

Hope in Dark Places

We have gathered in the valley,
Growing slowly towards the sky,
Waving towards blue.
We twitch dream-tails,
Ancestral bones flowing together
In blood-waters thick as cream,
Leaving lonely alone for a while.
Because the beat won't stop.

And big pauses talk of
Big ideas, gleaming across
Broken glass reflecting red-hot coals.

Leaping over the perfect moment;
Meant to be? or only a blink,
A miniscule flicker of fate...

We reach to the stars,
Burn ourselves on the change
Of nature, consumed

Brewing confusion and black suspicion,
Sometimes mugging
For the sake of stability.

Committing to spicy variety,
Mourning meatier traditions
For the sake of serenity.

Short falls summon joy,
Tall tales flailing their ways
Into gifting hearts.

Dance steps teeter into
The next breath, beckoning
Yearnings for the rain's freedom song.

We shake free of tarry coils,
Boiling with bruises, losing
Nothing but weakness.

And we are super-powered,
Showering the nation with
Greatness, oblating haters.

We have come to the valley.
And we have left it
Better than ever.

Tell Me

Wrote this on National Poetry Day during an open mic at Anglia Ruskin featuring Daisy TG. It comprises elements of everything I heard this evening.

Tell Me

We started undone,
Uncovering ourselves in uncertain light,
Inviting bruises,
Perusing paths, tendrilling.

We explore the empty shell
Echoing around the bright, forgotten core.
Sprinkle us with petals, regretless
Of the scars that clasp us.

Hear us, we are lost, disconnected
From the reflected warmth of open palms.
Listen to the glittering darkness,
Spinning along inked-in fault lines.

We have found gaps between
Sweetness and verity, laughing it off,
Because we've got this -
Blistering our fingers on the frigid distance
Between here and the stars,
Hearkening to the shards of hearts,
Gasping in songs of guts
And final calls,
Beating the fade to black.

Harmonies tug us,
A suspension web, deft connections.
Our road goes ever on, but
Ultimately diverging, emerging from the mist.

We are our own lines,
A mighty vibration taking us
Into mythology - ash-born,
Walking on coals, rolling our tongues
Over notions of hell,
Beckoning escapes from age.

Make your choices, raise your voices.
Ask.
Don't Stop.

Vaulting

This is one of those "tribute to everyone who performed before me tonight" poems from a gig at The Vaults in Cambridge last night that I headlined (and accidentally hosted - long story, all a bit strange). Poets included: Robin Lamboll, a lad called Nathan, Mark McGivern, J.S. Watts, Steve Oldham, Janis Ford, a lass called Katherine, and a feature set from Riaz Moola. In that order. Enjoy!

Vaulting

We have shuffled expressions,
Clocking spontaneity;
A hero strides,
Wider than widescreen,
While we curl into plumes
Of Utopian smoke,
Delicate as eggshells,
A clutch of hillside skies;
Butterflies dance,
Shy as snails,
While we are intoxicated,
Rose-blessed, accompanied,
Blissed-out in nature
As the colours turn.

And we turn in salt-rimed
Darkness, harkening to
The past, gifting history
With prophesy,
Making our own music.

Marker

This angry poem needs some work but, whoever and wherever you are, it’s for you, and it needs to go out today. 

Sixteen years today
Sixteen years and grey hairs
Salt me,
Multiple choices mock me:
You’re recategorised.
Never mind,
I think she’d still recognise me.

And I’m joined every year
By more companions-in-grief
Reaching out,
Each one bludgeoned by
All the memories -
Sweet and bitter -
All the feelings -
Hot and cold -
All the exploded notions
Of continuity dashed,
Record houses now ash.

And she’d want to know,
So sometimes I tell her -
Even the things I never could
For fear of her fear,
Cringing from her pain.
And the rage gains ground
On these days,
Teeth worn to stubs where
None can see.

And I’m imagining the talk:
Me trying to outline
What we’ve got now
And what we’ve left behind.
I’m finding modern culture
Quite hard to describe,
Winding fists into
Minefields
In high definition

I’m surrounded by sound -
Some of it music so profound
That I’m lifted higher than
I ever thought I could reach,
And I’m preaching redemption
At every soul:
It gets better.
And it does.

Mummy, I’m a poet now
And yes, I still sing,
And I’m happy in my life,
And I thump drums
To guide others’ footsteps by
And - okay - no child -
But I’m proud of what I’m
Passing on.

But some of the chatter
Is noise for its own sake
And hate still holds sway
In too many hearts
And I worry that we’ve
Parted ways - those who
Sing of common spirit
And those who bang gavels,
Gabbling “common sense”
Rhetoric of division,
Flinging new walls higher

And while people are dying
Others are crying about lions
And decrying the desperate:
Let them eat cake
Let them bake in their own ovens
Let them them scramble and fail
Let them be inconvenient
Let them be the graffiti
On the marble bank fronts,
An affront to propriety,
No ladder for them -
Let them stay right there,
Let them bear the marks of our
Boot heels

We can clean that stain off
We’ve got all the chemicals
You could possibly want
And we’ve dropped taxes
And edited credits
And let everything that was fought for
Be no more than two pages
In a textbook

And look! The cat is dancing
Look! The puppy’s laughing
Look! The meercat’s grip tightens
We’re enlightened -
We’ve got an app for that.

And in the meantime
Changes are grating,
Prating ingrates
Scraping more for themselves
Off others’ plates
And we’ve seen this
Sort of thing before -
We can grade the score,
Draw the lines from
Then through now to
Eventual rebellion
We’ve got to draw lines,
And draw the line.

And I’m so psyched that
Love won,
But there’s still a lot to be done
Like: a metric fuck-ton
When equity is sneered at
As unfair,
Where religions who preach
In love’s name
Declaim against each other
And prop up ancient laws
And pour scorn on
People’s safety.

When rapists of all genders
Are engendered in silence
And nurtured in shame
Where game-players
Rake in cash that must
Make nurses sick.
Where pricks think
That hoisting a hastag
Will make more of a
Difference than this
Fucking poem.

(Because at least it’s more
Than seven score letters
And pre-packaged emotions.)

But you know what will
Make for change?
You know what will
Heal us, make us free?
Actually, it’s not a question:
You know how redemption goes
And how love flows
You know you’ve got to show
That - instead of tribe,
We are a species
Instead of species,
We are creatures
Instead of creatures,
We are the breathing,
Bleeding, needing,
Reaching, yearning,
Learning, teaching,
Evensong of starflesh,
The coalescence of
Scattered suns,
Spun-glass perfection in
Every cell and
We are all relative
And who fights more than
Family?

And that’s why we’re feeling
Jealous, see -
We know that we could have
What’s held up
As aspirations
And we flail at neighbours,
Those within our grasp
And it’s not fair.
I know. It’s not fair.

And maybe we can’t reach
The thieves
Who fleeced us yet,
But we can spend every second
Of the next set of years
Being the people we can be,
Arms hard around each others’
Shoulders, boldly loving
Everyone who needs it,
Staunching those who bleed
Instead of aping eejits
Clenched in greed.

“Pay no attention to them”
My mother always said;
She meant well,
And, to a certain extent,
That works,
But we’ll be cursed
If we let our gaze drift
Too far.
Too long.
Because they’re not them -
They’re us.

This is forty -
Caught up in all the things
I haven’t done
And am still yet-to-do,
Brooding on inequities
But feeling that I’ve got more
Power than at twenty-four,
A bigger voice,
More choices,
And more responsibility
To share out the equity
Of my comfortable life,
Strive for verity,
Stand firm,
And affirm love,
Even to those who have
Eschewed it.

Sixteen years to the day.
You told me you were proud of me.
Now I am too.

(But - like I said -
We’ve got some work to do.)