100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE LEEDS 2017 Compiled by Mark Connors and Antonio MartÃnez Arboleda
All the poems are copyright of their respective creators as indicated herein. This collection © Word Club and Transforming with Poetry 2018 Design by Antonio Martínez Arboleda. Front cover image: 'Rebellion' by Zerozip (Openclippart) Back cover image: 'Pensamiento' by Laura Escriche Word Club Logo: Word Club Published by Transforming with Poetry and Word Club. Leeds 2018 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1525770057689529/ https://www.facebook.com/transformingwithpoetry https://poesiaindignada.com/ http://100tpc.org/ https://www.facebook.com/100ThousandPoetsForChangePage/
Dedicated to those who suffer the direct consequences of wars, violence and environmental and socioeconomic chaos. Also dedicated to those who care about sustainability, peace and social justice and say it loud and clear to everyone, everywhere, all the time.
Contents Editors' Preface .................................................................................................................6 Nick Allen ………………………………………………………………………………………..………8 Jimmy Andrex………………………………………….……………………………………….…....10 Howard Benn…….....…………………………………………………………………………..…….12 Boltini…………………………………………..…………………………………………………………13 Helen Burke…………………………………………………….……………….……………………..14 Sandra Burnett……………………………………………………………………..………….……..16 Mark Burrow…………………………………….……….………………………………..……….….18 Neil Cathan…………………………………………………………………………………………….19 Neil Clarkson…………………………………………..…………………………………………......20 Mark Connors……………………………………..……………………………………………..…..22 Sarah L Dixon…………………………………………………………………………………………24 Rose Drew…………………………………………………...…………………………………………26 Tim Ellis…………………………………...................................................................................28 Alyson Faye…………………………………………………………………………………………....30 Alicia Fernández……………………………………………………………………………………..32 Bill Fitzsimmons…………………...…………………………………………………….….……….34 Oz Hardwick……………………………………..………………………………….…….…………..36 Jem Henderson……………………………………………………………….…….……………….37 Robin Ouzman Hislop………………………………………………….…..…….………………38 Gaia Holmes…………………………………………………………………….……….…………….40 Rachel Kerr…………………………………….……………………………………….….…………..41 F. R. Kesby………………..…………………………………………………………………………….42 John Lake……………..………………………….…………………………………….…….…………44
Gill Lambert…………………………………....………………………………………….…………..46 Linda Marshall…………………………………………………………………………….………….48 Antonio Martínez Arboleda…………………………..……………………………….………50 Susan McCartney……………………………………………………………………………………52 Alison Murphy………………………………………………………………………………………..53 Karen Naylor…………………………………………………………………………………………..54 Wiston Plowes………………………………………………………………………………………..56 Barsa Ray………………………………………………………………………………………………..58 Dwane Reads………………………………………………………………………………………….60 Anne Rhodes………………………………………………………………………………………….61 Sharena Satti…………………………………………………………………………………………..62 Joanna Sedgwick……………………………………………………………………………………63 Samar Shahdad………………………………………………………………………………………64 Terry Simpson………………………………………………………………………………………...66 Bear Smith………………………………………………………………………………………………68 Jane C. Steele………………………………………………………………………………………….70 Maria Stephenson…………………………………………………………………………………..71 Hannah Stone………………………………………………………………………………………...72 Kathleen Strafford…………………………………………………………………………………..74 Trev Wainwright……………………………………………………………………………………..76 Mercy Eni Wandera…………………………………………………………………..……………78 Joe Williams……………………………………………………………………………………………80 Peter R White…………………………………………………………………………………………82 Ruth Wynne……………………………………………………………………………………………84 Rosalind York…………………………………………………………………………………………86
Editors' Preface There is trouble in our planet: wars, violation of human rights, ecocide, racism, xenophobia, genocide, gender inequality, poverty, censorship, animal cruelty, political and religious persecution.
We have all become incredibly alienated. We hardly know our neighbours down the street, let alone our creative allies who live and share our concerns in other countries. Collaboration and love are being been replaced by convenience and ruthless competition.
100 Thousand Poets for Change (100TPC) is a worldwide artistic movement whose aim is to raise awareness about our man-made social, political, environmental, moral and economic crises.
Artists have an especial sensitivity and language, as well as a commitment to beauty, spirituality and truth and that is why Artists can and should make a difference in bringing people together and reinforcing their solidarity, with a view on transforming society.
This book was incepted as a digital initiative supporting the 2017 100TPC events across the World that took place on 30 September 2017 concertedly with Thousands of other Artists on the whole planet, including our own reading in Leeds, held in The Chemic Tavern in Woodhouse under the auspices of Word Club.
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We have included poems by generous West Yorkshire artists who wanted to contribute to our cause by responding to our invitation with poems on: Revolution, War, Streets, Business, Nations, Equality, Politicians, Conquest, Racism, Love, Europe, Nature, Death, Life, The World, The Good, the Great, the Evil. The Human and beyond. This is the second of a series of 100TPC published by Transforming with Poetry, this time in conjunction with Word Club. In the first one, a poem from an Afghan refugee girl, Solmaz Norouzkhani, who lives under the care of an Iranian charity, was featured. For this second volume, we have chosen a young urban poet from Kenya who fights for women’s rights with her poetry: Mercy Eni Wandera. Peace and solidarity with all of you.
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Nick Allen bifurcation people without shadows in the mid-winter easterly lying northern fjord of Seydisfjordur the sun never scratches the rim of the mountains and the people must walk without shadows alone under the milkwater sky
shadows without people in the not so long ago that people dont recall a man-made sun blasted shadows from people leaving them abandoned on the walls and steps of this ruined place mute before the reckoning
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dirty Leeds I remember teenage goths and the street corner punks slouching in HMV all sugar-spiked hair and calf tight jeans with their pantomime horror and mascara shock and band names tippex-ed on leather and I remember the city smothered in a centurys exhaust fumes the fug from factories churning out their goods and the coal-fired home hearths of countless snaking terraces and Quarry Hill the failed citadel of modernism hiding in plain sight DJ and charity worker chat show host meals at Chequers friend to royals and lords he had the keys to all the wards Yorkshires finest beating David Oluwale then fishing his body from the Aire a Nigerian national the official log shows that police preferred the term wog or the truck driver who dragged Victorian horror back onto the streets holding up a mirror to societys mores valuing innocent women over whores or the trusted doctor concealing decades of murders the university educated pillar of the community you wont find his name on the list of alumni city centre traffic is restricted and we all drive unleaded these days theres no industry to speak of the Portland stone glistens in a certain light the lions are scrubbed clean and the carved facades can be plainly seen Quarry Hill plays host to the dramas of the DSS and the playhouse while scrubbed of their pancake masks the goths and punks were just other kids so time washes everyday a different river everyday a different sky
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Jimmy Andrex Bubbles This poem has already failed; even though it’s been published by Bloodaxe; even though its video got shared ten thousand times; even though it got me a support slot with someone famous who’s not written much lately; even though all my facebook friends sent emoticons and “hugs;” even though it won 2nd prize in a big slam; even though I got to do it on Made in Leeds; even though my world famous Creative Writing Professor called it “tender but shrewd;” even though one of the celebrities I mentioned helpfully died the week after I wrote it; even though I got so much in touch with my feminine side I developed a yeast infection; even though its innovative use of metaphor broke new ground; even though people like me are the new voices the BBC are looking for this year; even though Boris Johnson tweeted that it was “classic Libtard mugwuffle;” even though I turned out to be a victim of something disgusting Boris Johnson did at Oxford; even though he then desperately backtracked and claimed to be a fan but confused me with someone dead; even though my mate, who writes reviews for Saboteur, got retweets from Holly McNish AND Gary Lineker; even though this was the defining moment when my facebook posts stopped calling it “writing” and started calling it “my career;’
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It’s still already failed, Because Shirley, that bloke with learning difficulties, in the toilets, at a shopping centre, in the City of Culture, Still gets kicked out in the street When he soils himself. Alone.
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Howard Benn The Derelict Imperious, impervious to weather and time; The door is so dark, it absorbs all light, So wide and tall, it fills my vision, Confronting my eyes. In turn, it takes me in, Asks questions of me as I approach: Are you sure you belong? Are you in the right place? It’s so hard to look at its void-like face. Should I bow or kneel? Even pray? I’m all too aware of how fragile I am, As if this death’s door is adorned with steps Made of animal bone, white stone Worn away by the many feet of generations. Not once have I seen someone enter here; In all the years I’ve wandered by The door has remained tightly shut. Grey clouds have gathered And the gale moves me on, Up the steps, one-by-one, And still the door remains unmoved, It stands resolute as the storm proceeds, Which succeeds in bending the old oak trees That grow within forsaken grounds. Not even the wind shall enter. The door stands before me now. I knock. The only reply Is my rap as it echoes inside. Wait. Wait. Wait. Still nothing. It is not my time yet.
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Boltini Migrant Sunday “I’m a long way from home,” said the walrus, “can you tell me the name of this place?” A man, hurrying across the bridge, paused to be polite, “It’s Otley,” he said. “Do many carvers of ivory live here?” asked the walrus. “Well as far as I know,” said the man, “though I couldn’t swear to it, they all moved away with the retreat of the glaciers, went to somewhere down near Wellingborough I believe, or it might have been Leamington.” “Gosh,” said the man when he got home, “that smells good. Two rashers, yes please. A long sermon this morning, it went on and on, I might’ve dozed off, I had the strangest dream.” He was buttering a slice of toast when he said, “You know, my love, I’ve been thinking, if we shift all the junk out of our spare room…”
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Helen Burke Chagall’s Women Why do they float, where they float? And are they in fact …floating? Maybe the sky is more solid than it looks and they are Simply leaning on the clouds, as I do a chair. They wear strange pastel gowns and think blancmange Thoughts and are like unruly kites in an invisible wind. I want to be one – one of Chagall’s women. I want to see over the rooftops, and over The city and over the green fields to what lies beyond. Their heads are turned one way and their feet turned Another – they speak of the marzipan moon and how tricky It is to walk the dog, from up here. The floating men lie above or beside them – or they both Become flowers in the giraffe necks of vases. Is it symbolic – this freefall into the world? Or are they real women he just couldn’t pin down. Where does their floating end? maybe it has no end As the wedding dress of the sheep in the field can testify. Is it like being no-one but someone, at the same time and With absolutely no need of your body to get around? They fill me with questions and a couple of answers. If I was one of them – I think I would feel paint washing all Over me – even my little red boots and behind me There would be a strange purple sun that never sets. And floating would be what I did best. I sneak into the picture of the lovers in the lilac tree. Yes – that’s me. Floating.
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No Coward Soul A destination is where we start from. To leave each destination takes courage. All that we have. On each new shore we stand blind at first. It takes less courage to arrive, but to do so still requires vision. Once you arrive … what then ?? comrade – How can I tell you. The light that burns in the window – you left it there yourself. See, there you are. Watching over it. Content, complete. A golden bird. It is your greatest treasure. At the heart of this light shines your own precious soul. This light is like no-one else. No-one and nothing can harm it. Inside you it burns. Through each window and each doorway that you pass, in the arms of every friend – a little of it remains. Fear nothing while you hold good to your light and the light holds good to you. Though you will leave these shores many times, the jewel that is yourself fades, never.
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Sandra Burnett Walls The man said he must build walls to keep the riffraff out. The woman had bought a Welcome mat and asked the man to change his mind but sand was in his ears. He built grit stone course on course until it was noon before the sun made a brief visit. They lived a pasty life. Nothing blossomed, nothing ripened but the woman learned to climb.
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Some say you’re an unbalanced wheel. A poorly thrown pot. Need a corset to strengthen your core. An iron to smooth and straighten your back. A key to unlock your door. I say you’re an orb of blown glass. A fine filament wired to switch on my sun; and you glow with the shine of a new pair of shoes that know they were made to run.
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Mark Burrow The Sea Hanky Hook Head, Co. Wexford, Ireland, Aug 2016 Rocks sneezed, Refused to cover Their mouths As a warning To the curious Tourists. The emerald Eyes of distant Ripples which blink In the western sun Are hypnotic – Rocks sneeze Once more, creating A mucus of rainbows In the shouting Blowholes and They step back To cover their eyes And say, “Bless you!” Out to sea.
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Neil Cathan Sometimes Sometimes, I worry about us. Us who were born in a world that was warm, in a world that had more, in a world that was yours, if you wanted it. And how we were taught that we wanted it. Then 2008, the crash came and took all that away And we were left in a world without enough love, without enough stuff, already with too much of us. So we wander the streets with our curse, with our hurt, with our search for oblivion or meaning, whichever comes first and whichever comes easy If anything ever comes easy. I've seen us searching in bars and clubs And sat on sofas, won'tchya pass the drugs? I've seen it in first, second and third person In every first, second and third person I've seen the wisest and the brightest minds binded by this crisis By a world with no time and no place for them This is no time and no place for them. I've seen those I respect blame immigration and Islam And those I love hide in dingy basements with beer cans I've seen the London underground map sketched out in white lines on legs and wrists And the exhaustion of those it is easier to forget exist And I have seen entirely too much Not to worry about us.
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Neil Clarkson Cuts Cut some zeros from the screen Cut the time for thinking how it works See how the modelling does the rest. Cut your own job see if it hurts. Cut the time it takes to construct a complaint. We’re all in this together. Pick up litter from fading flower beds Cut down municipal weeds instead. Cut down all those words, wrestling in your throat Cut your nostalgia for the golden years Cut your misty-eyed romantic dreaming Adjust your vision, face your fears. Cut your cloth accordingly Cut deep down to the gristle on the bone Cut the scars again When the brittle crusts have dried and grown.
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A Slow Slide Light blue eyes track smeared, cracked paving, a girl on a slow slide. Head up, softly singing, a girl waiting for the clouds to fill the space. Before dark she must go to her aunts flat where tenements overlook barren fields. The girls’ father will not be there. He wonders what the rebels want from him this time. The speed of the slide; made sluggish by mud, scattered shrapnel, the flying waste. A girl on a slow slide.
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Mark Connors Paper Wings he draw plane he draw rocket he draw men he draw women he draw children but dead and they apart in market he draw blue sky and mountains and river but no people and river red she draw clock just clock and I ask why that time but then I know clock has stop she draw flowers but red she draw dogs but dead and they apart in market they draw birds but on ground not in sky and birds are red
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Motherland Ask not what she can do for you, this abstract matriarch. She doesn’t do lullabies and she’s not worth dying for although those that exist within her borders sometimes are. She was conceived in blood; history tends to skip those bits: regime change, invasion, colonisation, the bastard offspring of queens and politicians. No matter what anyone says, mothers always love their own kids more than foster children forced on them and she’s reluctant to open her doors, unless she needs to get some men in to rebuild her after wars. She’s little more than rock, sand, water, soil. You can admire how she looks: her mountains, woodlands, cities, coasts. But whether she’s landlocked or surrounded by sea, some mothers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
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Sarah L Dixon State of the Nation So many eager faces look to me My remit: To teach children under six in one syllable words what a “Hung parliament” is using a Mr Tickle puppet with no arms due to spending cuts I don’t want to disappoint them so I hide the puppet under my jumper paint faces on their fingers and ignore the political situation.
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Rose Drew Climacteric It’s never one big break, not yet: no final smashing of the wedding china while she calls your mother a whore and says she never loved you no it’s a gradual thaw in some places, a freezing in others. A loss of stability, symmetry. Maybe it’s her age. The storms are fierce, hot flashes change the very way the wind blows til your east is west. Jets of heat. stream off her royal bouffant of clouds, her belly boils. Her toes, once ice that cooled the sheets now tepid. Warmed by you once too often, your eagerness and cleverness have settled this.
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Mother Nature has the Menopause. A climate change of life. A flash, a crash, a flood and she no longer begs forgiveness when she destroys something dear. No more apologies; not sorry at all. Who knows. She may just do it again. Climacteric was published in Dream Catcher 31 (2015)
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Tim Ellis Because of us Fifty million years you’ve been living on this planet but in another fifty you won’t be any more... On the veldt there’s a bang and some money changes hands, and there’s blood on those hands like there’s blood on the saw. Rhinoceros, because of us your time has almost ended. Rhinoceros, because of us your lineage is spent. Preposterous the loss to us, a populace so prosperous that won’t stump up the dosh to watch the final few rhinoceros. I’m parked beside a road where some zebras graze the verges, recording every image of nature I can find. Then a crunch in the bush and a miracle emerges: a megalithic mother with her baby close behind. My knees go weak, my pulse rate surges, the bushman in my breast diverges from his hunter-gatherer urges to schmooze a moment with a mind that’s lived here since before mankind. Rhinoceros, I’m at a loss why anyone would kill you. Rhinoceros, ridiculous that people disagree a rhino horn’s right place is right here on its face, and they won’t stop and they won’t stop and they won’t stop until you are ripped apart and smuggled out for bogus Chinese medicine, your body parts peddled to quacks in Vietnam who lack the art for anything but ripping off the gullible.
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The numbers of your population show a downward inclination on the chart but don’t lose heart, today is when the fightback starts! Let me guarantee: Rhinoceros, there’s some of us that won’t let you evaporate. Rhinoceros, there’s some of us that venerate your ancestors. Rhinoceros, there’s mobs of us resolved to rearrange your fate. There’s scores of us, great hordes of us, right here in Manchester and all over the world, shouting our allegiance, all over the world, cheering for your lives, all over the world, marching in legions. Rhinoceros, because of us your order will survive!
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Alyson Faye The Poppy Parade Stone-cold, battle-deafened, we lie, hunkered down, waist deep in mud, our tiny tight knit battalion. Resting but restless, waiting for the order dreading the dawn. Some prayed, or wrote letters home, ‘My dearest, darling . . . ’ Some stared blank eyed, whilst others wept at sights never to be unseen. This flat field of mud where only the sky and its stars witness the slaughter of youth with all its joy and hope. A few, too few returning, recount tales which hardly bear hearing. The courage of the fallen remembered in the poppy parade.
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Alicia Fernández Epicentre For the city of Madrid that stood bravely against fascism during the Spanish Civil War These timeworn streets now wash out heartbreak and pollution; they are besmirched by the passing of time, evictions and football chants. This city once bore the dignity of barricades and militias shouting they shall not pass, but it is now shallow and hostile as an old lover. Husbands tell their wives that they’re sorry for unmaking strangers’ beds and that they’ll be back by midnight, after a few vermouths. In the meantime, this place silently weaves its veil of mercy over us and is absorbed by the memory of forty dark years. Madrid will always forgive us.
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Mishap On the day I discovered my grandfather fought the war with the fascists, a million people queued in line to punch me right in the centre of the stomach, above the navel, and a million stones reached a million sparrows. Surely that badge and its black eagle did not belong in that drawer. The touch of the metal froze my insides, and my vocal cords straightened with the trepidation of a walker on the tightrope. I wondered how many cabinets are similarly infesting the geography of our beaten Spain. How many stacks of mucky receptacles carved in bloodwood are lodging what was consigned to oblivion by the hands of peasants who once held rifles? The same hands that would milk the cows every morning so us kids could have breakfast. How many shaky fingers, upon pulling eroded handles, hope not to find signs of the slaying red and gold, but of the Republican fury of dissidence?
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Bill Fitzsimons As long as men do likewise She faces them fearlessly, flowers in her hand. A thin, pale-eyed girl in a thin cotton dress. They face her, a phalanx of hard, stone faces, rifles at the ready. She thrusts the flowers at them, pleading silently for one of them, just one, to acknowledge her, to smile or wink – better still, to take the sad bouquet. A human connection, a moment of decency to alleviate the savage stand-off. But she, they and we know that this will never be as long as men follow their leaders' lies – as long as flowers live and die, as long as men do likewise.
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Burning less brightly In Ulster, once ruled by sword and might, the legacy of history burns less bright. Here, where bigotry long held sway and human hopes were mangled in the fray, a tiny spark of reason has ignited and kindled hope in those whose lives are blighted by associations stretching back through time; where living has become a hideous joke. Time now to change, to cast aside the yoke of hatred and grow stronger, and let the legacy of history burn no longer.
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Oz Hardwick Papers I spent the day adrift, waist-deep in paper, scrabbling for one note I’d folded away, a list of strangers’ names. The air was hot, like coarse wool scratching at my face, and panic, urgent, bubbled up through the bare floor. With open eyes, I dreamt all night of waves, my muscles clamped tight as parched throats that can neither beg nor scream, while beneath the moon, expendable cargo snored, imagining light, their rigid forms breathing ragged, dreaming words to life, like sinews of a new monster, frighteningly beautiful, with paper skin shining. Tomorrow lurched in the cough of the failing engine, was slapped down hard with mismatched oars. *
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I unfold a simple map with just a cross and one word in a language I don’t recognise. Fearful of my neighbour’s eyes, I see instead nothing, bounded by walls and wire, endless queues to join other endless queues, to pronounce the unknown Home, to see myself captured on a flickering monitor screen, and to call myself Free.
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Jem Henderson #metoo Any woman who has been on a night out in a skirt worn a low cut top shown a bra strap kissed an uncle goodnight kissed a mother goodnight took a driving lesson worn a bra not worn a bra worn jogging bottoms while jogging worn leggings and a big jumper worn skinny jeans worn baggy jeans smiled at a stranger not smiled at a stranger left a lover left a hater any woman, all women.
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Robin Ouzman Hislop Tenochtitlan Who is to say? O Tenochtitlan Lake city of floral rooftops white washed walls trim green gardens aqueducts & clean swept alleyways that you should fall to ruin to colossal wreck that final mockery you knew too well to shelter from city of magic bathed in blood to tread your sacred warrior blood matted hair immersed in feculence into dust not a death of feathers & flowers Who is to say? as you tossed your victim’s corpse from the sacrificial stone slab down the great pyramid steps whose steps you’d rehearsed unto their final agony whose flesh you must share in scattered pieces on the base maize porridge in your neighbours’ clean kept homes 38
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that you thought of tomorrow that it belonged to the deed what it was to be human not so your new world conquerors who raised to the ground & levelled all before them until nothing remained your conquerors who thought only of tomorrow
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Gaia Holmes Hope Though it seems so dark and the ceiling of the world’s a wound and so many hours have been bruised, and so many lives have been broken, there are stars up there tonight and we must name them, we must love them, we must whistle them down like dogs in faith of their shine and they will be loyal. They will show us where their bones are. They will teach us their soft, bright tricks of devotion. And even on the blackest nights, when hope and protest are knotted in our throats, when our smiles have been tarred and buckled with the weight and stain of shadows, we have to remember they are there, those glittering sky-hooked prayers, prickling and humming, embedded in that thick and lovely blue, guarding us from spite, keeping the moon from slipping, herding the pale lamb-like dawns into our sleeping houses where they flow through all our rooms fluent and loving as milk.
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Rachel Kerr Mantra for the daily grind You can fuck off, for a start. And you, with your ceaseless prattle Business-is-good-today-advances-up-ten-per-cent net-retail-investments-really-healthy. Couldn’t give a fucking stuff. Don’t speak to me unless I have to act on it. Don’t tell me about targets and look me in the eye expectantly. I can barely summon the will to be in by nine, never mind jump for joy at the latest management project, a ploy to sort the wheat from the chaff. Two steps forward, three steps back. Check mate. Rope? Scope? We all know what that’s for. And when he’s swinging from a gibbet of his own making, you’ll give that Blair-eyed innocence. Doors open, doors close, desks shift and we’re all yawning - grit in our eyes.
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F. R. Kesby These are our streets These are our streets. These are the pavements that have held the feet of every famous person from this dirty old town, every one day mega star and one week media darling and, most importantly, of every brilliant, unknown, every day person that makes this shitty city shine. These are our streets. This is where we have shared first kisses and last kisses, where we fell in and out of love, where we talked ourselves into very, very bad ideas and felt so fucking good about it. These are our streets. Here, right here, someone had a conversation that changed their life while people streamed past going their own weird, wonderful ways full of their own weird, wonderful shit. These are our streets. This is where they think they can get us, where they come with their weapons, their explosive words of division, their leaflets of lies, their campaigns of hate, their hearts of venom. They try to tear down these streets, to hit us where we make our homes, to spread terror in the concrete fabric of our lives. But these are our streets. Tomorrow, someone will walk down this street and fall in love with the woman in the cake shop. 42
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Someone will meet friends by the old factory wall and share the same old jokes as yesterday. Someone will come out, expecting hate but receive only love. Someone will take a chance and reach for someone else’s hand. A poet dreaming by the old canal will be inspired by a speeding train setting their pen on fire. Someone will take a chance and reach for another’s hand. And here, yes right exactly here, there will be a life springing in someone’s womb and hope in someone’s heart, because these? These are our streets.
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John Lake Memories of an Accident The needle touching eighty couldn’t foretell it. A cracked wheel-nut, the RAC man said afterwards, And had to redistribute the others on the hard shoulder. Just a jolt, like the motorway’s hiccup, And my parents’ front-seat profiles Gaping each to each as I’d never seen before, And that my brother and I laughed about later. Behind, out of the back window, A brush of sparks, like a squirrel’s, burning, Pinned at the thin end under a naked axle Where a wheel should have been. My father, steering, seemed to wrestle with the world, Which pulled us up at the road’s edge, Chastised, and left us to our giddy silence. Afterwards, satisfied by having faced death together, Two young boys watched a man Walk the quarter-mile down the M1 To pick up a wheel like a dead dog.
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Kennedy’s Assassination As soon as the first bullet struck The news of it covered the earth. It caught us motoring to the coast; Half an hour later the car stopped For Grandma to be sick on the grass verge. “That’s because of him,” her sister said In a voice full of reproach, As if such compassion were something To be best kept hidden from the children. This was the voice of their relationship. I suppose, now, it was a kind of fear – Unable to understand this woman’s grief For a stranger dying half the world away. It might have been a sweetheart in the war, But to us it was only a president. Our platitudes and fussy ministrations Were a denial of whatever mystery Kept us from knowing this woman. Her sister said, “Don’t be so daft,” But Grandma kept on retching.
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Gill Lambert She Says She left in 2006, but still her accent’s thick. Ten years haven’t smoothed her voice, cleaned it of its Otherness. She shrugs when I ask her how she is – stress she says, no job. She says her children speak too fast, they have no time to give her language, help her fit. She says when she tells them where she’s from, people turn away. I ask her, where? She ducks her head, lowers her eyes, whispers like a dirty word, Afghanistan. We talk about our kids and nod frustration into pact. She says they will be okay, at least, they’ll go to university, be doctors, lawyers, teachers. As we part our eyes meet, hers brim with what she hasn’t said.
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¦ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
All Over the World All over the world, people are waking in empty houses. They wake to comforting noises; familiar, soothing. Some people turn over, touch no one, get up, put the kettle on for coffee, feed the cat. They watch the news nod and tut; turn it off. There’s no one to share an opinion, disagree with. They text a lover, sip coffee, crunch toast with peanut butter, nobody asks them not to; tells them to stop. Some people are preparing to run the race of their lives. Each race is different; some races are inexplicable to other people. All over the world, people are watching others as they run.
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ÂŚ
47
Linda Marshall Intangible Woman In elegant halls of perfume and byzantine mirrors, she buys a cosmetic stick. Blended in the Far East from unknown spices, it's called ‘Intangible Woman’. She dabs a little on her face before an evening out at the theatre or nightclub. Once applied, she has no fear of taxi drivers or men in hidden doorways. She can walk across the city, alone and confident, no fist can bruise her now, for she is without substance, inviolate, like air and rainbows, lighter than shadows, freer to dance. The cosmetic’s trick though is not a lasting one. It wears off seventeen hours later, when she materializes. 48
¦ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
Disenchanted, as her body stiffens, she feels the shock of birth, swears blind it won’t happen again.
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ÂŚ
49
Antonio Martínez Arboleda Industrial Revolution Train Manchester-Leeds, 2012 Aisles of stone along the river Fed tall incestuous mills With innocent blood and talent In tamed pastures of England’s glory Selfless surrender of joy and pride Bread, butter, beer and sweat Casually awaken plastic dreams Watered down metal pain Fractured spikes of wooden bones In hung-over dark junk yards Selfless flowers of art spring Organic rot of Northern progress Goddess Summons The Nation. Amazon 2018
50
¦ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
Checkmate In the night, in the solace of her workshop, the insurgent artisan prepares for a final game of chess, as she whittles away chips of cherry tree wood giving unpredictable shapes to a new set of pawns who will liberate horses, draft their knights in, occupy towers and mate with kings, bishops and queens, until they all put behind, overwhelmed by sacred orgasms, the rules for their calculated movements, the protocols for their predatory aims. Goddess Summons The Nation. Amazon 2018
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ÂŚ
51
Susan McCartney If not for coal If not for coal He wouldn’t have crawled on hands and knees He wouldn’t have clawed at those thin seams Pick in hand. Lamp in the other Hewing and filling. Hewing and filling The tubs to pass to a brother One, then another, another He wouldn’t have prised the coal from its bed Those small black nuggets stained with red? Head low, back bent But for coal, a life soon spent If not for coal He would have worked in the light He would have stood upright He wouldn’t have known his lungs were black Like the coal, the hearth and the fire back He wouldn’t have breathed in the dust For the hewers like him Is there any justice? For the cough, the struggle for breath The pain, the early death No ease from that terrible disease If not for coal and pneumoconiosis That awful creeping necrosis If not for coal He’d have watched us grow He’d have made old bones If not for coal
52
¦ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
Alison Murphy Endurance Trees withstand wind, rain, frost, bend with strain, accepting any sunlight. Stoic trunks suffer seasons ever growing circles. Dead leaves are falling suspended on threads, soon to be stripped bare , skeletal mourning. Branches beckon my winter dawn.
Tread Carefully Dew studs the blades, surface tension holding diamonds. I wish I was a jesus-bug but my steps make hurricanes. My feet are showered in cold morning graveyard. Tombstones tell untimely deaths – mossed names, no longer called out.
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ÂŚ
53
Karen Naylor Obsidian Obsidian, the shadow spreads over all Fragments of sky plummet to shatter impotently Acidic, the vice that stills Pressing down the truth that pulses through your veins Breath, the effort to continue Mind, the roadblock to time the impenetrable sustenance Regret, the only flavour as steps cement to the earth Sounds hitched to fragile tendrils Eyes, too blurred with Memories, a suitcase filled to overflowing
54
ÂŚ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
Remembrance Stand upon the edge Pavement calling forward Memories staying the rip of the handle Some things the same Control this point of no return Body stripped of innocence Noises in head, scars in heart The guilt of one returned The scar of loss, proof it once was there Nothing permanent Could hear the laughter Before the guns The latch of silence Scent lingers in the air Shadows of life, here no more
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ÂŚ
55
Winston Plowes War Rooms Mêlée I’ve buried you like an acorn in the foxhole before the winter burns. Now paint your eyes with nightfall and leave no one behind, just hide me in your haystack until the reaper’s done. Step lightly through the poppies until repatriation.
Falling Back These cracked eggs I incubate for you. Gagging on every thorny paper kiss, every birthday missed, every enlisted thought since flashback. My life within these war rooms is decorated with one long wait for you to take our tender salute.
56
¦ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
Cuckoo in the Pillbox Your muscles have ripened on the bone and you have returned differently. Eyes now blink to orders since the sand unmade you. Smothered in camouflage you brought a war back with you in your blood and thunder in the hiding and dying days. You’re the storm within my china The bruises on my arm And I don’t know how to change you back.
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ¦
57
Barsa Ray Jatani Lights Maybe a flight instinct took me from home, everything I knew, to join other migrating creatures compelled to journey, salmon, swallow, seaman, circus clown, to breed or feed I didn't know, my course set, I rushed headlong, to surface in a foreign country, a house share. One evening into the dislocation, I went gasping for air. Barely into one refuge, I was shying, seeking the break in the fence, shaking off the phantom lasso around my neck. Houses at the bottom of the hill beckoned, one reeled me in like an old wives tale, with smells of cooking, shout-whisper television. I loitered, till a fear of discovery by those within, emerging due to a sudden fit of milk-fetching, drove me back to the top. I raised my finger tips to the lights in the distance, twinkling Braille, language both blind and sighted would know. And I'm six, creeping up my grandmother's staircase unheeding of her warnings of snakes lying on the steps to escape the heat below ground, she saidunspooling the time to when I knew, I knew nothing, and wanted to feel everything, even snakebite. Would the poison make my head swim, turn lips blue, like her berry jam? Would it kill? I hear my grandmother, calling as she cooks supper, pretend I'm not there. Call again Aai! I will emerge from pit, pen, bolt hole, but I will no more see you, than the sound of the highway lorries was the rumble of the sea. 58
ÂŚ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
Six, I look out top, from my crow's nest, to the lights from Jatani, railway junction town. Locomotives to one side, lorries drifting on the sea of the highway, the other. Their wheels with tread-thin tyres labouring on and on, the drivers' bloodshot eyes looking to return to homes they believed they had.
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ÂŚ
59
Dwane Reads Bella Life Somewhere is all set out It should be labelled not to choose As you don’t know what’s to come That’s the journey the unknown Take Bella with her good bit of fortune She believed she had won the lottery Well as good as for her, just to get that council flat over there on the ground floor how she danced once inside her two young children each one from a different relationship strained uncompromising and difficult but it’s how you cope with things and Bella coped she was strong she brought the kids up in that place with its open space, it was like having your own private park just outside your front door Bella moved on in life with a public house The one on the corner She doesn’t own it It’s a renter But the flat above is sublet and she gets by When she’s all done she is just moving across the road Into the old folk’s home if it’s still there that is She hopes to do the old folk thing With some family visits from time to time Trips out if possible Whilst growing old That’s Bella
60
¦ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
Anne Rhodes Freedom Freedom as a word has depth and meaning And yet be so difficult to maintain. One day the spirit can be uplifted The cry of Freedom is so strong and true. Freedom from fear can mean separation Leaving behind the causes of heartache Starting afresh, though it takes some courage, Can be a freedom for which you have dreamed. Freedom from the pain brought on by beatings Freedom to live as you yourself want to. Freedom from the pain of those cruel blows Freedom to be your own person at last. Freedom from pain of a different nature Bodily pain which you wish was long gone. Pain of an illness, or old aching bones. Medication brings freedom for a while. On bad days the only thing to cling to Is that maybe, just maybe, tomorrow Will bring sunlight and freedom just for you Freedom to relish and be thankful for.
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ÂŚ
61
Sharena Satti Over the Rainbow Everyone seeking Power, who controls who? I control me! I will not let you! Politics gone crazy, anxiety heightened, our voices unheard. Racism and religious hatred on the rise, distorted visions blurred. Hate causes hate, it burns fiercely spread by fear, Implanted in the hearts, spread by the corrupt year after year. Good verse Evil, it’s not as clear as black and white. Implanted seeds in the mind, praising the wrong and denying what’s right. Peace, how do we bring peace when humans are at War? Greed for Power and humanity means nothing any more. It’s hard to switch off from reality, knowing our future is in the hands of the fake. What is wrong with everybody? Stop sleeping! It’s time to awake! People worse than vultures, scavenging flesh from the dead. The Rich get richer while poverty is on the rise and widely spread. Why can’t we all get along and be treated the same, Not targeted by labels, or discriminated by stereotypical names? What is wrong with the world? What is wrong with our creation? We should be all working together to create one United Nation, Yearning for peace, stability for our future and the next generation, For we can Hope.
62
¦ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
Joanna Sedgwick Travelling light
The lorry He shrinks between boxes of fabric conditioner. His fingers are sore he’s burnt the tips, skin will grow back. He thinks about the water bottle left in the road.
The booth She draws the curtain spins the stool; it’s hard not to smile when your friends are laughing. She thinks about her new blue suitcase with little wheels.
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ¦
63
Samar Shahdad My love for you My love for you Turns into a pair of hands that feeds the hungry clothes the naked shelters the homeless in the cold and distributes books amongst the uneducated My love for you Turns into a mouth, Mouth that spits kisses in the face of execution And signs the slogan of love In the savagery of revolution My love for you Is of the sky It seeds miracles in the womb of the earth It heals the sick resurrects the dead, enlightens the blind And awakens the deaf My love for you Restores generations It liberates nations Men from lashes, Women from lapidation Boys from war And girls from genital mutilation
64
ÂŚ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
My love for you Rescues synagogues, churches, mosques from the seizure of religion, God from the interpretation of man And the world from the curse of the inhumane My love for you Is not of yesterday Nor of tomorrow But of today My love for you Is not for you Nor for me But for us For everyone and every day.
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ÂŚ
65
Terry Simpson Pain, Fist, Hand I I woke up in my cell and instead of a stomach was a pain like strychnine. I took it to the doctor who gave me pills that the pain ate. It didn’t die, it thrived and began to shout its name through my nerves. I took it to my lover, who said I should paint its picture, and gave me canvas and oils. My pain was flattered and began to put on airs and graces. In the end I couldn’t stand it, I retched and something gave way, forcing its way up through the gullet, falling with a phlegmy thud on the table, and there it was, curled up tight like a traumatised baby – a human fist. 2 The doctor was startled when I brandished it. He left in a hurry, screaming for the guards. My lover’s eyes rekindled with strange desire. It went on, I learned the novel, wicked lessons of power, Attracting and repelling with my magnet of anger, But the prison remained a prison, Despite the satisfying sound of flesh beating against bars. In short I grew tired of the game. The fist I was waving was useless as the pain was painful. 66
¦ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
3 I looked closer. The fist began to come apart, fingers unclenching. It wasn’t a fist any longer, but a hand that wanted to wave, make rude signs, hold another hand when it was lonely, fondle genitalia, pick a consenting nose. Now the wardens eye me with suspicion. They think I know too much. I found out last night the walls they hold us in with are made of paper. I know because I tore them with my hands.
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ÂŚ
67
Bear Smith Its ok to break Its ok to break. Take a minute, Process this. Breathe. I said breathe, god damn it! Listen Listen Listen No, don’t speak, Realise the futility of it all, The gaping maw beneath your feet, The inevitable but unavoidable fall. Its ok to break. To lose control. Its ok to break. It’s acceptable to fail. I broke once, not long ago, I fell from heaven or rose from hell, I’m still not sure which. I listened to my own heart, its stuttering beat of broken dreams, Regrets stink my own perfume, Failure my own dancing tune. I wallowed in a mire of emotional dross, As my mind’s eye filled with the flotsam of hearts own failure, A lost wanderer in a known land. Alone. Yet this was but another page that turned like all the others. Slow as mountains creeping, But it turned. Now I am someone else. Something new, Yet still the same, myself remained but renewed into another, 68
¦ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
By the fiery crucible of my own emotional torment. Tempered. Stronger. Hardened to what came before, A blade still rimed with fire from the forge, A cutting edge honed by my minds own eye, But steel can still bend. Steel can still break. Its ok to break.
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ÂŚ
69
Jane C. Steele Discord You tear up the night shredding clouds, bruising sky with your untamed, unchained symphony. Trees swing, saplings split, Twenty five feet of axle and aluminium bend and flex as you chew and spit out your fury against thin walls. Inside, curtains sashay, cups slide, as we are all forced to the beat of your Danse Macabre. Only one of us cocooned, slumbers on mindless that the end of our world is within your grasp.
70
ÂŚ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
Maria Stephenson Some mums Would give anything and everything for an angry, slammed door, an unmade bed or a refusal to do anything useful just to hear their voice once more. Some mums would lay their own lives down for a bit of attitude, liberties taken and peace forsaken just to hug their child again. Some mums never got the chance to demand the return of a tenner, a tidy room, for the volume to be lowered or to say goodbye. Some mums are grateful for the presence still with them and even amidst cries of ‘you’re ruining my life,’ that they still have one to share.
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ¦
71
Hannah Stone Care in the community She rests in her narrow bed, kindly made up by a friend who isn’t that good at hospital corners. Sometimes, she sleeps deeply under the faded gaze of her Lord. Other nights, she’s restless, wishes she was safe as the crinolined lady it takes her half an hour to dust. China knick-knacks have a secure place on the mantelpiece, and if stiff fingers were to drop a treasure on the hearth, oblivion is instantaneous; no rehab ward for shattered shepherdesses, no waiting for the thud of skull on path as she stoops with the milk bottles. No fear of falling.
72
ÂŚ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ¦
73
Kathleen Strafford Swinger His flat nose pressed against his face, he slumps wearing his Sunday-go-to-meeting tie fed up with yowsam bows he dreams to own his own bootlegging gig kickin’ it up with some doodah. But for now he’s a tap dancer & feels like nine foot tall when he’s five foot five all the hepcats dig his jive or they wouldn’t let him in this speakeasy this den of flapper flora-dora dizzy hoochie-coochers Little does he know the dame with a silly name & crimson hair will lace her fingers into his grooving sweet with the boogie woogie beat swaying with a swing swinging with a sway Later in the alley-way he will find himself doing just that.
74
¦ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
Churchill’s Portrait by Sutherland
“A remarkable example of patriotic modern art” I’m collapsing in on myself... I know this face better than you I could have pointed out my neck is too wobbly or the waistcoat too small for my belly or the careless brush stroke of my drooping bottom lip Why did you paint this piffle this unwatered house plant this black dog limping into the shadows? Do you enjoy these daubs of paint gnarled and twisted like vultures circling the sky? Now hold your thumb up for balance as I ignite the first flame Tell me again Age is cruel, I paint what I see... as you watch it go up in smoke the rising heat so heavy it cannot rain
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ¦
75
Trev Wainwright Battlefield cello In Sarajevo, queuing for bread, hoping to be fed at one of the few remaining bakeries working, ever mindful there could be enemy sniper lurking, did they expect what would happen next? High explosive shells struck the ground, spreading blood, guts and limbs all around. The horror that was seen witnessed by another human being! So hard to comprehend how his fellow humans met their end! Like a bad dream, it would seem, from which there could be no respite, as if forever a dark night, a cellist in a string quartet (some may have though he could do nothing but yet on 7 June 1992 he knew what he should do) resolved to make music on a battlefield for 22 days and never yield. He would play each day for each life lost, caring not for his own personal cost, in that besieged hell at the exact time the shells fell. He felt it was his calling as once again the shells were falling. Falling still, they would not bend his will. When he began, his audience of two near him fled lest they end up dead. Sat at the side of the crater there, on a plastic chair, dressed in his concert attire, he would brave the bullets and shell fire, playing his cello whether or not people could hear, hiding in shelters cowering in fear. His life must have been charmed, he was never harmed. After 22 days he was done. He’d fought his war with music, and with music he’d won.
76
ÂŚ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
Written to commemorate the true story of Vedran Smailović 25 years after 27th May 1992, when several mortar shells struck a group of people waiting to buy bread. Twenty-two were killed and over 70 injured. On June 7th and for the next 22 days, he played Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor at the site in honour of the dead.
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ÂŚ
77
Mercy Eni Wandera Dangerous living Dangerous Living Electra, She is unapologetically lit A fine sight even while fighting tooth and nail for her perceived freedom She feels she is not on the right side of justice Yet if she wants to be a free woman she must obey the masters You will find none more scrupulous than herself Especially when prowling the deathly alleys in the dark of night Running thoughts bombard her as she lights up the pavement strutting, Her life has recoiled to filth Obliged to share herself with blood-stained men all for but a gold coin And in her sought for justice and revenge Anger is breathing out of her yet she seems not to care about right or wrong She knows if it were a rule to answer killing with killing, she would be the first to die In all justice. Her death has begun just leave her be with her evil litany Death itself is not the worst thing, worse is to live when you want to die Battling ‘masters that must be obeyed’
78
ÂŚ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
Summer Stars You can never keep a good woman down Fires on her hilltop, Rings of thorns surrounding her Sharp eyes and a sharper mind that clocks Her time the world’s place, her body deemed for seasonal changes She nestles the quiet in the raging storms Dances in the rain to the whistle of the drizzle Swiftly beating into thundering rain drops Still, her movements casting shadows She is elated for the fresh breath of air, Lucky Lucy Little is her luck, the residue of her diligence, Kindred to a pound of gold The gods must be smiling down at her See, it’s been a dry March, a harsh April and a cold May But this woman’s work was never done Her toils now reaping bounty Yet her loaded wagon makes no noise. While one swallow does not make the summer She is ecstatic that she can make out the constellations Her time is now You could never keep her down
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ¦
79
Joe Williams A song for Europe In fifteen eighty eight the Spanish navy came to fight, to claim the crown King Philip thought was his god-given right. Now millions of us fly to Spanish islands in the sun. The wars are long forgotten, the Armada is long gone. So sing for Europe, sing for peace, and sing to make amends. Let’s raise a glass of sangria to all our Spanish friends. The French are nearer neighbours and we fought against them too, won victories at Agincourt, Trafalgar, Waterloo. But now we go for booze cruises and weekends of romance. Those battles are behind us, we’ve an entente now with France. So sing for Europe, sing for peace, and sing to make amends. Let’s raise a glass of fine champagne to all our Gallic friends. And then it was the Germans who became our enemy. We fought them on the beaches, in the air, at land and sea. But now there’s peace between us and the wounds of war have healed. The battles that we fight today are on the football field. So sing for Europe, sing for peace, and sing to make amends. Let’s raise a glass of Warsteiner to all our German friends. Now Europe is united and there’s no more need for war. The Berlin Wall came down, the Iron Curtain is no more. Though Britain voted for divorce, said we should stand apart, still many of us here hold Europe fondly in our heart. So sing for Europe, sing for peace, and sing to make amends. Let’s raise a cup of tea to all our European friends.
80
¦ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
Let’s sing for Europe, sing for peace, and sing a sad farewell to Europe and our friends there - here’s to you, we wish you well.
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ¦
81
Peter R White The game Don’t make points – score them. Deep, fierce. Even if the card your opponent played tugs at a heartstring, reminds you of lost innocence, makes you wish you’d played it yourself, you are still obliged to negate it. If they are doing all they can to bring about a cure for a childhood ailment, preserve the environment of endangered species, or sacrifice everything they hold dear to avert a holocaust, then you must sacrifice those infants to their ague, use ruthless subterfuge to foster an extinction, facilitate annihilation – photograph deforested hills, mourners’ tears, streets lined with corpses; publicise their failures, seek praise at their expense. Mis-quote their wisdom out of context, make it sound as if you’d prophesied last week what they’ve revealed today. No, this is nothing to do with gamesmanship. This is the sport of spin and twist – this, my child, is Politics.
82
¦ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
getting personal ‘The doom won’t be averted by looking the other way.’ – Isaac Asimov,1970 too many people fail to see it staring us in our mutual faces our multiple races our endless chases after … … after what too many leaders dare not admit too many people come here because there are too many people there too many people cannot see that peoples anywhere are still people peoples apart are still people peoples on the move are still people running out of places to run because no politician dare admit there are too many people now and tomorrow they will say there were too many people yesterday too late
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ¦
83
Ruth Wynne The First shall be Last They came , they saw, they conquered. The Power observed the behavioural patterns of indigenous life – petty jealousies, greed, refusal to share the obligations of society’s needs. Some becoming gross with self-indulgence, whilst others slaved and starved. Historical studies worked back until arriving at the contamination source. With one blow, life was crushed from the one called Adam, but the garden flourished and shared its bounty with all.
84
¦ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
The Politician A tight grey rectangle of crushed conformity, pressed into a charcoal mould. Edges of individuality slashed and burned from the pre-formed plastic of his world producing an empty vessel of dots and dashes, of a stunted media as the bold diamond of diplomacy, the empathic rose amongst malevolent thorns, or the tender peach of the family fruit bowl. All foretold in purple prose, fuchsia flamboyance or brackish lies. A hollow, manipulated box, bleached of identity.
100 TPC Leeds 2017 ÂŚ
85
Rosalind York Barnsley Jet The cages drop us into midnight at daybreak, come for a black harvest. Slabs on the belt thunder to the pit-head. We work in black heat and the explosive breath of dense gas. Machines worry the blood from our knuckles. I am a black ghost, head-to-toe midnight spectre of the meaning of money. The showers rob the pit of us. I take my life off its peg, put it back on. Not hearing the stowaway timepiece clocking-on in my lungs.
86
ÂŚ 100 TPC Leeds 2017
Word Club @Chemic Tavern, Leeds (UK)
Transforming with Poetry @Inkwell, Leeds (UK)