Tower blocks

Well, I’d fight, too,

Boxed inside a block of flats

Brocken down and ignored

In Clapham, South London.

I’ve seen it all

Narrated Grandma Bernie who lived

Two doors down, bound to her armchair

Until the next visit from her caregiver.

Innocent children

Will grow here to know

Struggle without a hand to help

And yelp without an ear to hear.

Ghosts will make their bedding in the pissy stairways.

These children wielded by weaponry;

Shielded by whom?

Left to die.

The flats will never change

Passers-by will gander –

Never to speak of what they’ve seen.

Because it is easier to live in silence.

* * *

Thoughts of Freedom

One in every three moons, will you tango

with the thought of freedom, speak aloud

to the flesh that perpetrates you that this

body had known scars from before, forgive your

impotent hands for carving towards a kind

of release, testify your liberty

as spirit or soul: a slave

manumitted all by oneself. You will bite your

abuser’s hand, his sweat, his eyes bright

like the flames of a flare. Your abuser’s

touch you know so well, which is like breath,

hardest on the easy days – suffocating on the

hardest of days. Your fear will dwindle, clasping

the hands of the thought of freedom

is what the unblemished do, that even they

retreat as the roots of fear resurface.

* * *

Evergreen pastures

In her stomach the baby would kick

to keep the beating of her heart.

There was no pill to flush him out.

The stomach, above her waist was filled,

with flesh to the brim and spirit anew.

They together are one.

What kindred spirits feel flesh can’t conceive –

this now I know.

Does he share with you a dream?

Prophetic is the blank canvas, open

to the picture of the evergreen pastures.

Still it beats, still he breathes, with such ease –

resting unassured of tomorrow,

habituate in the sanctum of the womb.

And you carry on…

Back heavy with burden,

hands worn from the toil of deceit;

yet not once a second thought.

Still I follow, blind,

in the shadow of your stride; your chest up,

face painted like a reflection of the happiness we knew,

bold, stronger than yesterday;

prepared for tomorrow,

welcome to the task that is to come.