GHOST LADY
Pub lady Ghost lady
You can see through her
Kind of
Man is sitting
Pondering
He has a Sizely ashtray
The walls have dots on them
Many small dots
And there are candles about
There are two pictures
They are also quite small
One has a lamp above it
It is a flower lamp
Don’t know what colour it is
There is a box
On the table
Don’t know what is in it
Would like to know though
CALL AND RESPONSE.
CALL…. Terry
never really knew you
When we were naïve and young
Though we shared the same Toxteth backstreets
And the same harmonious skipping rhymes we sung But your deft feet were anchored In the Afro-Caribbean
And your braided heads
Were filled with the transplanted threads Of tradition
That infused your smiles And moved you through life With a resilient rhythm When all around you Posed more questions
And the answers were as yet missing Ah but I NEVER really knew you When we were young
Leroy RESPONSE
I could see you when I was young You were naïve and unexperienced I was already wise beyond my years Though we played in the same streets
I HAD TO MANAGE A HOSTILE ENVIROMENT
The strange looks from you and your friends And the ‘name calling’
From the bully among you Who would want to show off And offered to ‘fight me’
Until head butts, kicks and punches Biting, scratching, twisting and the banging
OF A BULLIES HEAD AGAINST THE PAVEMENT
Showed the rest of you what to expect If you picked on me again I NEVER started fights I knew how to finish them though Many black eyes and bloody noses
I REMEMBER YOU when you walked with you gang
But you never really knew me
With my disciplinarian father Who taught me the ‘rules of life’ That I had to stand up for myself I had to defend my younger siblings
And that we were coming from a tradition Of being oppressed But of overcoming that oppression
That we would have to work
Twice as hard,
Sometime three times as hard
To get somewhere in life
Than the ones who called us names
In the playgrounds of all our yesterdays
My feet were stuck in the ‘quicksand of history’
A history as yet unknown to me
But just on the horizon
Of my perception
You never really knew me
You never invited me to your birthday parties
Your parents did not approve of ‘my sort’
They would say while putting two spoons of ‘sugar’
Into their ‘Indian’ tea
Served in their best ‘China’ cups
With a slice of Battenburg cake
On a Sunday afternoon
While watching war films
In which the RAF Would save the day…again Your naïve head filled
With you quiet grandfathers stories
Of the desert campaign
Of chasing Rommel Out of Africa
And the shrapnel
That was still in his leg
Why he walked with walking stick And the medal
He was given
Pinned on his chest By Monty himself And of the young men
Who never returned to Blighty His comrades Buried in shallow graves
In baking desert sands
Missing limbs and headstones And the loss of his mother
To the blitz
And the memories
Of marrying your grandmother
While home on leave
Of different times
Before ‘rock n roll’ and teddy boys
The ‘good old days’
When the man was the bread winner
When the dinner was on the
At six o’clock prompt And domestic abuse
Was just part of working class married life
And the Police NEVER pressed charges And a woman ‘knew her place’ And Dad would retreat To the pub
To drown their poverty sorrows And to complain about the changing world
While looking for betting tips
On the horses or the dogs
It did not matter While the barmaid Grew more attractive
By the pint
It was your mother
That kept the family together
You promised to buy her a big house
With all mod cons
When you became a man
You never really knew me BUT I got to know you
Through my black n white TV screen
Till Death Us Do Part Love Thy Neighbour
All Our Yesterday
While you were eating boiled potato an carrots
I was eating salt fish and ackee With fried dumplings and plantain
While you were having ‘beans on toast’
I was having cornmeal porridge and hot chocolate
While you were having ‘fish n chips n mushy peas’
From the local Chinese chippy… AGAIN
I was having curried goat
With white rice, yam and sweet corn
With sweet corn, cucumber tomatoes
And carrot juice to wash it down
On Sundays you would have a roast dinner
Beef, roast potatoes, maybe some mash potato
Carrots and turnip, Yorkshire pud
And lashings of Bisto gravy
I would have rice n peas and spicy chicken
With side salad and pineapple punch
Sometimes…
My father would make Guinness punch
Family and friends would visit They would sit in the front parlour
That was kept so pristine For such occasions
And my father would play old 45 singles
Like ‘Fats Domino’s Blueberry Hill’
On a record player we called ‘the gram’
That could stack ten records at a time Children were to be seen Not heard
There would be laughter
Talk of ‘back home’ and the sunshine
They made it sound like paradise
I used to wonder why they had left I would hear ‘rude’ words
Like ‘raas claat, bumba claat and blouse n skirt’
I would get a beating if I used that language News would come from ‘back home’
Somebody dead, Somebody gone to Canada or the USA Somebody they know have grandchild now Once I heard NO BLACKS NO DOGS
NO IRISH AND NO ROOMS TO RENT TO PIMPS AND THEIR IRISH PROSTITUTES
But I did not know what that meant Yet…
I would go to school next day
I learnt to talk ‘Scouse’ and to play football
In the playground schoolyard
You saw me
But you NEVER really knew me
When we were young
Do you think you know me NOW…
I wonder
While moving on with my life
In this hostile environment
Of Post Brexit fascism
Disguised under democracy’s Tattered stained panties
As right wing Boris Johnson
The face of Nigel Farage
The stench of the Daily Mail
You NEVER REALLY got to know US
It was your fear and your suspicion
That stopped you becoming my friend
We never shared a joke
We never shared a packet of crisps
We never shared a bar of chocolate
Your Mum NEVER came to Granby Street
To buy her meat or groceries
I don’t think you even know my name
Now we are not young and naïve Now we know
Our ‘own truths’ in reflection
We are both experienced now
Do you still think Winston Churchill was a hero ?
Do you know who any of my heroes ?
Do you know about Marcus Garvey or Malcolm X ?
And what they stand for ?
If not….
Then YOU… really don’t know diddly squat
It’s not just Bob Marley and songs of revolution
Understanding of others ‘lived experiences’
Is what you need to help you grow and evolve I wonder
Do you REALLY even KNOW YOURSELF ? at all
As out of the ‘BBC’s darkness’
You now crawl
