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Poems Walking Home after Dancing

1.

Did you ever succeed in selling it off?
Did you ever succeed in selling off
bloodlines,
or songlines,
or little white lines
between your head and mine,

did you ever succeed in constructing
a time,
built here on the brick out of scratches of song,
Why are there shoes in my bag
if the rhythms have gone?

2.

This town is a crisis,
with dances
in glass palaces.

(The construction of sound or of space –
Building an echo,
If the room were a hollow,
a hollow, the room,
and the beats
imitations of hoofs,

There’s jazz in my head,
But I’m sure it’s a ruse.)

3.

We trespass in
night gardens over  the street,
which
the lamps show the fall – -
unforgiven
precipitate change;

revolution

(means only return:
coming back to set out,
this time
with a ladder.)

4.

I’m happy, and kick-stepping home
through the light in the street
after maybe a kiss
or maybe just feeling the pulse in my feet
and a hand on my back,

I don’t stop to think,
and I wish it would all stay like that.

5.

Just to wonder
how high
was the moon,

And to orbit the palace with
lights showing green through the mist
in the centre of town.

6.

There was a fox,
and a trumpet -
in summer you came here,
and laughed even though we were sad.

And that was the filter,
the music,
the dance,
and the city was open,
the city was real,

with the rhythm of home.

In The Night America

No llores mi querida,
Dios nos vigila
- Bob Dylan

In the night America
has passed dust over us.
Waking you return,
your hand over your head.

The Mexican outside your window sweeps the shop-front
in the neon dawn,
The motel clerk offers a prayer -
he walks like there’s a pistol by his side.
By your side, in the night,
America dreams,
and the trucks roll by.

In the night you see America,
Cry Albuquerque and we sing
into movie-screen darkness
projecting, onto your eyelids,
shadows of faces
that you ought to know.

In the New Mexican mid-afternoon of the day I realise that I am taller than my mother I look out of the Days Inn window across the flyover to the city. Our Old Town and Rodeo Hall speak nothing to your Downtown and university dorm. What I see in fact is a stuck-on skyline, a city held in place by force of will; there is nothing due north before the Rocky Mountains and even Eldorado to the north-east is beyond the horizon line. Crucifixes stand out from the flat tops of churches all over the city.

The Rio Grande is a stinking gulch, and no-one even talks about the dust.

In loving memory of Patrick Rolfe, our Joe Hill, our tree-climbing boy.

The sun came up again this morning.

I watched it with Decca, and
at twelve o’clock, I swam with James.
Ali phoned from France,
Faith was well, and Naia and the children,
all their lovers counted in their mad edenic nest.
Benjamin and Theodora are I think
in the Ukraine,
but they write often.

The course of things went round
with coffee,
Noah calling from a tree
when I walked past
and tossing apples.
For a while
I sat alone beside the river,
walked it off with Edward
after having lunch with Edd.
In the evening I was dancing in the Oak Room
with Jacob, Daniel,
whisky and the dark,
and we were yawning.

At dinner, Elly, Anna, Chris, Anyetta,
Rob and Gemma,
Natalie,
another face or two
I try hard to remember,
Joey, Lucy, Hannah, Dickie,
Thomas and the rest
at Catherine Street
at night-time,
breaking bread.

I saw everyone today
before the sun
went down again this evening.
I want to write their names
and never leave one out.

I count them
in the hollow
of my holding hands,
missing a finger.

And Mutiny: Violence on Trial have announced MORE PERFORMANCES at the end of tomorrow’s event, so it’s going to be a real whirligig of excitement. This London place really has it going on, huh…

xx

So Thursday was a big day for me. Little hick from the provinces (albeit relatively big, and artsy, provinces) did her first show in Capital City. It was at Night of the Story-teller, run by the wonderful Tailspin theatre company, at The Miller in London Bridge. Everything you need to know about the monthly NOTST gigs is here.

I dressed up nice for my big city debut, which in my world means looking as much like a 1960s folksinger as possible, and I was feeling bright and vibrant and good – before I made the mistake of meeting a friend from University (undergrad) who now works in The City of London, in recruiting. I love her dearly and it was good to catch up, but city bars are not my natural habitat. Needless to say I left the bar feeling less like a fresh-faced young performer with a job to do and more like a creased-up underdressed hippy outcast – no change there I guess.

Night of the Storyteller couldn’t have been a better antidote to the suited and booted city crowd. Cat Gerrard (or maybe she’s Catherine, when she’s all official and at work…) compered the night beautifully, banishing cynicism and welcoming experimentation from the intro. In fact it was a very experimental night all round, they had never had a poet on the stage before. I enjoyed myself enormously, and I hope I lived up to expectations. It was interesting, in that environment I felt that my performance was much more… I suppose dramatised, than at straight-up poetry readings where I stand up, turn pink, look nervous and read…

There were shaggy dog stories and dark French folk tales, singers and musicians and a just utterly inspiring telling of Echo and Narcissus, with Narcissus being voiced by an electric guitar (Emily Parish and Filipe Gomes, Narcissus Rocks)… I won’t try to describe the performance, I wouldn’t do it justice, but it was charming and exciting by turns, and so very different from anything I’ve seen in a really long time. I couldn’t be more certain of anything but that stories are on the side of the good and the true.

I’ve got another couple of gigs coming up, next week, and I’m a featured performer at both which is, well… bloody terrifying, and an enormous compliment that I will do my best to deserve. I’ll let you know about them a little nearer the time, but please remember that the next Night of the Storyteller will be at The Miller, London Bridge, check back here soon for their May listings.

’til soon! Some new poems on the way. xx

Fall back out of the smoke

imagining arms.

Fall dead drunk

backwards at the fireside

in the smoke between all of our arms,

signaling others

or holding our knees.

In the park in the daytime

the city humidity,

the afternoon strength of the sunlight

and smell of the grass

that had driven you out,

out of your little round head

that was burnt

and ducked over the riverbed

out of the smoke.

Keep the Tanglewood out of the smoke

and the light in your eyes.

You can’t see who is mixing your drinks

on account of the smoke in your eyes

and your hair is all tangled and wet,

so the river beside us

runs over your face

and the fire burns high.

Somebody’s hand is beside you

but doesn’t quite touch,

or they’re stroking your hair

where you lie in the mud

and the smoke rises up

but the river’s confused with the sky,

someone looking for kindling

catches your eye.

It was hopeless two days ago,

now it’s destroyed.

It’s a city, my fear,

my frustration,

our tears

Against the walls,

under the tall, tall buildings,

Possibilities flash in rainbow oil-slicks

Against the walls,

under the tall, tall buildings,

Pissed out by drinkers

or slashed in tags,

Anger in rags and

Jezebel, weeping as she walks

from another smashed romance

that was never innocent in her mind

and wouldn’t admit it was an attempt

by two hearts

to make a hope away from the realities

of their marriages,

their families,

Jezebel embarrassed holds a child to her breast.

Jezebel embarrassed by a real human body,

Scarred and twisted early mother,

Needs a lover who is blind,

Lets her feel from the inside,

Her frustration is the loneliness

of city squares and hoardings and Jezebel,

unaware of how to make the right connection

bows her head in the direction

she’s already walking,

Paints her face, colours up in shame,

The only language that she has for the pain

of an impractical woman,

with a certain job to do.

I walked with Jezebel for a time when we were girls,

We walked shirtless,

the wheat scratched our chests

and she and I were at our best in hot sun

when our dark skin let us run

from fair children

to the heart of baking fields and cycle tracks.

We whispered spells like,

‘I’m the king’, or

‘I’m the man who owns the bank and I will feed the poor.’

When Jezebel and I grew up

the world would change.

We dreamed resistance,

or just of getting out.

In the extra hours of reflected night

I see projected Jezebel’s ordeal

as she saw her first born son,

Fifteen years old,

Out like a light at the airport to an army gun,

That young man who was another man’s son,

No hesitation,

They erased him,

Another child without a chance to recoil,

His blood, Jezebel’s tears,

Her hopes, his dreams dashed on the soil.

With my mind I reach to her,

Pushing her pram towards another woman’s destiny,

All her words

Struggle to reach me.

Use sloes while their skin’s thin

after they’ve froze,

Use your voice while your memory’s strong,

you recall we were singing along

for a while in the night –

Where were we

Parly

You tell me.

After we froze we played statues.

they were statues,

moved their statues like chess

with a bruise or a shout

You cried out,

did I see

I said,

Parly,

You tell me.

The statue got nicked,

on the news they said

you were nicked

for the statue abuse

or attacking a memory,

Somebody pissed, anyway,

against it or missed –

Where was he

Parly

You tell me.

On the news they said

snowfall

will follow you home safe and warm

so don’t let it take pictures

or enter your doors

If we hide at a ten mile ride

From the square where we started

and cover our head,

Then we might get away

You say

From Parly

You tell me.

Parly.

I can’t, I was there,

I can’t say.

Snowfall is silent and stuck in my throat anyway

and besides

my skin has worn thin with austerity.

What happened at Parly that day

Was it how they say,

That can’t be.

No

Then what

You tell me.

This was written after I was held in Police kettles at Parliament Square/ Westminster Bridge until after eleven o’clock at night. We were charged with horses and several of my friends were beaten by police. We were demonstrating against £9,000 tution fees for University places in the UK. It wasn’t all doomo and gloom: at one point, we joined two complete strangers, sitting around a fire drinking red wine and reading Howl. London seemed to be burning down around us, but there was nowhere else to go so we sat down, and we Howled.

‘It was before Coca-Cola,’

Said the Beach Witch,

‘before your time had yet begun.

See here repeated patterns

In the fragments,

See here the colours.

These mark out an age, coherent,

Iron among pebbles,

Sand ingrained and giving

Out to clay.’

‘But not before Formica,

Or the bones.’

Her voice is shaking,

These things don’t connect.

‘The bones remain,’

The Beach Witch answers,

‘the bones remain from that time

Til today although the main

Point on our compass

Is all this iron,

This incendiary,

Bone and glass and chipping off

 That still remains.’

And the girl said,

‘I know grandmother.

That old tale I know.

Grandmother Beach Witch

Your tear

Into my eye,

The cold you say,

The wind,

But your authority remains.’

‘Grandmother Beach Witch

Your old blood

 This sand stains

With memories

Of when I saw you cry.’

And the girl held her grandmother’s eye

In both hands

And spoke into it

Like a crystal.

‘It felt as if I could hear

Every snaggle-tooth in your mouth

That was full

Of the blows you’d been dealt to the gut

In the years

When you marched out

Over tick sands

In the grey light

That meant it was the morning

Of something

They couldn’t quite see

Was bearing down inexorable

And forcing their feet into mud.’

The Beach Witch calls out ‘remember’

From inside

The little girl’s

Little head

And lights up her eye.

With teeth on the backa my neck

you were pulling me up

Before dawn

When the bird-call was crashing in heavy

and laying me under the earth with its weight,

It was crows without homes,

and digging me out of my head

you looked straight

to the birth of my tear.

Your breath was warm on my ear,

and your skin lying soft on my face.

Pitching on into jungle land,

still under pressure of noise from above

and the little light show that’s like

fragments of blood

that are mossy in water

and floating above

And I choke as I walk

on the water pitched up from my gut

at the sight of the birds

being counted

corralled

and sent home.

Each one is numbered,

named ‘Jackdaw’ and ‘Rook’,

and the Ravenscar Crag in the rock at my foot

is a name from a century gone –

they came back once again,

they were collared and tagged

and a rock or a crag

is no more of a home

than a place where the twilight forgives

and so hidden we live there alone.

The migration of birds

is a natural thing

and its beauty is registered,

Registers still as the night-time

approaches in reddening light

and it’s bigger than round eyes,

horizon lines ploughed

and the crows coming down into roost;

I’m a wolf with my tooth through my tongue,

I feel angry and young

And you’re holding me back

So I can’t run away,

And you howl,

And I know as I watch

That it’s all you can say.

This poem was written after watching a rook & jackdaw roost in southern Norfolk, UK. It is about UK immigration and border controls.