Thanks - A Poem (#EdFringe2017)

Walking back home down Leith Street*, I Got Involved and tried to direct an American couple to an eaterie that wasn't closed (as opposed to the one they were trying to get into). They looked confused, told me they didn't understand, and I had to modulate to a slow RP before they got me. As I walked away, the first couple of lines of the poem occurred to me. By the time I got home, I had most of the first two stanzas down and was starting on a third which I promptly forgot (something about renegotiating sunsets, I think) and a fourth which became the beginning of what's now the third. And then, when I got home and started writing it down, it went somewhere completely different... Doubtless it'll evolve again over performances. If I perform it. Hmm... :)

And after I'd had a wee cry, I recorded a version of it here - maybe it'll help someone else as well:



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been speaking French again
Lending shrugs and stumbling syllables
To the ether,
Tangling the back of my throat into
Friendly growls
Adding an hourglass pinch to familiar vowels.
Retrouver:
"Tu me reconnais?"
"Mais, bien sûr, mon ami: voila, c'est Aout,
"Je retour une autre année!"

I've been speaking Scots again,
All glottal stops,
Dialectually exacting,
My mother, God rest her,
Would be ecstatic that so much remains,
Rooted in Liz Lochhead poems
From an early age, Rabbie Burns
Emerging with my England-buried Rs.
My hair reflects my rediscovered roots,
Blooming soft and wide
With birling curls,
Lighter. Enlightened...
Slightly frightening.

I've been swallowing my tongue again,
Humming needs into submission,
A prism of listening,
Delays, fears,
Anxiety like a weight,
The freight of Maybe dragging
Like a gag.
Travel woes and first-time fears,
The year gone, ambitions bitter,
Bitten back, tucked down,
Gullet clutched,
A hobble of mediocrity
While brainweasels gambol, their words
Given free rein:
"Too old"
"Not a commodity"
"Odd"
"Not proper"
"No longer hot property,
"If you ever were…"
"And worse - you're permitted
"Merely for the sake of all the things you do
"That no-one else wants to
"And you, too desperate to belong,
"Too keen to help,
"You people-pleaser
"Trudge, grinning awkwardly, on."

I have been killing weasels again.
Turns out they're blighted by kindness
And company,
And people who hail you in the street,
Smiles lighting their eyes,
And people who want to hold you,
Touch your heart,
Ask after your day's hardness,
And those who wait to walk the long way with you.
They're killed by soft water
And salt water
And tap water
And bottled water,
Drowning in a flail
Because they'll always fail
To seek the higher ground.

Today I have been learning to speak again,
Hear my poor, sore voice as sweet,
Hear it as they hear it,
He hears it,
She hears it.
When it sings,
No longer strangled by
Dangling weights,
Cast free for friendship's sake.
Thank you.

_______________________
* I get it wrong in the video and say "Leith Walk", which I even knew wasn't right at the time! :)

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.)