woman

Shall I begin?

Babies born in conch shells

Drifted far from the home shores

Lifted from the bullrush but never ever home

Babies soft hair curling round
Mothers gentile fingers

Baby brown and baby brown and baby found

Shocking really

Skip that bit

Feel sunshine where we play

Miraculous survival

All of we

Play dead

No –one will hurt you.

But the soft thud to belly baby brown , don’t cry now, run , run

You should not have mocked

Baby run now gripped up in street, fist straight up to fight him, her, him , babay aba

Home
Babies born like kittens in ovens

Called them cake?
Cupcake for my babies sake

Rake
Across an ungreased scalp and don’t cry baby born baby don’t

I never cried.

Secret kept and never wept

Don’t tell.

Passing or Heaven

When you pass, mother,

If blues skies please you,

Then,
Let there be an azure ocean above your head

If green fields please you,

Then,
Let there be an emerald blanket beneath your feet

If a warm sun pleases you,

Then,
Let a golden globe rain kisses upon your skin

If sweet music pleases you,

Then,
Let the richest righteous rhythms soothe your ears

And

If all this does not bring you all the joy and happiness you deserve

Then, stay
Return to me, and
Let your spirit haunt me for ever more.

x

Love with me

Electric storms
Far away in a sky
Above another
As like me as myself
Yet not known to me.

Winter winds
Blow across a headland
Beside another
As like me as myself
Yet not yet known to me

Blazing skies of Rubied fire
Freeze and burn
About another
Not known to me
Yet as like me as I am myself

Each of me, I am
Each of me, I love
Each of me, I bless

You and your families and your lives, your lands and your God

My Sistren across the universe, as like me as I am
Known yet unknown to me
Come hear me
Sing with me
Love with me.

Run, run,run, Run away ( you have to sing it to get it)

I can hear my love for him in the softness of his speech
He and I bind this
A wondrous thing

I can see my love for him in the tenderness of his gaze,
He and I do not own this
Remarkable.

I can feel my love for him in the rhythm of his walk
Can he feel my eyes upon him as he walks a way?

Then

Who is he who held me last
Filled me last
A happy loving warm embrace

Asking nothing
Demanding nothing
Neither adding to my burden
Or draining my energy

And why oh why
Is it not his love I can hear, or see or feel

A fool in unrequited love
Always looking the other way

And running away

From his love.

and more running

The bitterness cranked up bile and tears burning her throat and forcing sighs between her clenched teeth. They were going to get away with it. Every time they got away with it . Her inadequacy was squashing back into her brain and her heart as if she should have never have tried to leave it .

She could not bear to hear herself cry “ This is so unfair!”. It was always going to be unfair.

For the first time in 3 decades she felt the gnawing of futility, not desperation but an aching tiredness. Was this merely lonliness?

Writing it, she stared at the words on the screen, Read them, read them out loud. How small was her pain when she did this. How small and insignificant.

I need an ocean , she thought to herself and sunshine and the company of some-one who might understand.

Her passport had run out, but that would merely take a car ride and £100.

Where should she go?