Tell me, nuh?

Tell me something I don't know

Then something that I do

But don't give me your porky pies

Tell me something true

BHM09

I've been keeping quiet... have you noticed? I started this comment in mid-October and only now, in November, have I posted... Why?

Well, after writing about a million half-poems for Black History Month in October, and deciding none of them put across what I wanted to say succintly enough, things just got a bit busy. And I'm still only 3 chapters into the novel, although I'm already worried about the dreaded s: structure.

Funny how, in October, apart from the odd Radio 4 programme, there wasn't much publicity about Black History Month. But there seemed to be a lot of stories about racism. The BNP got far more exposure than necessary with at least two prime-time programmes that I saw, and Bruce Forsyth decided to make a fool of himself defending a crass comment made by one of his Strictly Come Dancing trainers (I would normally never link to a Daily Mail article, but their slant on this is soo bad - including pictures of his Puerto Rican wife, which, of course, proves he doesn't have a racist/ignorant bone in his body). I varied between wanting to laugh and wanting to punch someone last month. So I kept quiet.

Anyway, I'm back to working in schools again, even as I await my 3rd Criminal Records check this year (I'm working in another borough, so I apparently need a new one before I can be trusted as a "non-con"). So I thought I'd share a section of a poem I started about Black History Month in schools. Maybe one day I'll finish it...

It's that time again

Teachers cut-and-paste words from Martin Luther King and staple-gun them to walls
They line up children to sing Kum-ba-yah to politely-clasped hands
Waiting for the assembly to end

Die-hards dust off their dashikis in solidarity with their African roots
If they could only grow dreadlocks around that bald patch
How they would bind us together!

SOHO THEATRE TOMORROW

Tomorrow at Soho Theatre. One of four poets on the Apples & Snakes stage... If I haven't already invited you, COME ALONG!! A well-deserved drink afterwards, yeah?

Tickets can be bought at sohotheatre.com, or at the Theatre itself. I'll be performing a never-heard-before "What I miss", which is based on when I was living in the Dominican Republic.

The other three poets are off-the-hook, FOR REAL. I've heard them! We're all very different and I'd definitely turn up just for the other 3 if I wasn't performing myself...

The whole idea was to inspire us to do something we'd never done before, which was to create our own 15-min epic poem. It definitely IS something I'd never done before, and will I do it again...? Well, find out on the night!

Voting booth

I've been marking Xs since day one
Crossing my fingers
Carefully pinching my index finger
Against pencils that feel weary in my hand:
Hours of indecision and hesitation
Seconds of meaningless strikes across a page
I want change

I've been marking Xs
And it feels like an age
That I've been hunched over a booth just scanning names
As vague in my head as the promises behind them.
I want change

I've been ticking boxes for an age
Leaving behind my weightless sheet folded over
Just my sticky grey blemish
The traces of my existence.
I want change

But the change I want is as vague as the names
On the boxes that I scan
And the change that I crave
Can't be placed in a slot
I can't tell you what it is
But I know what it's not

I've been ticking Xs...
It's all pointless.
Just meaningless box-ticking
In isolation
I got to find me
Another polling station

I got to find me