Poems

North Street Rec

Oluwale lands in the lei-lines of the Leylands,

Lady Lane, Lady Beck to North Street Rec,

head down in Jews Park, in the steps

of the Heaneys, the Sheeneys, the Albertinis, each

leaving the scene in relief in turn, we the

Typhoid Tims tested the water first, the raging

thirst for respect     never met    even acceptance

is beyond us       he wanders down some nights

from the Hayfield, not a great deal left from the foundry shift,

forging link chains. Now it's Lovell Park, love all the Irish,

love all the Judeans, Italians, Rastas, Banglas, Kittians,

no more kickings from Sgt Kitching, the fire from those

battle grounds extinguished. Lady Beck runs under Millgarth -

David would chart the same path, go lieth in

doorways with only Yahweh for company, but this

time Goliath kills David, and whatever they did

would mark us if we did not remember his name, and see to it

that one day, this will no longer be a hiding place;

diverse souls will say poems to each other as equals where David

laid his head, his heart still        beating through the freedom of our words.

The Divan

A fortnight before you passed,

I helped you move an old divan to your flat from your neighbour's:

its weight was a funny distribution and so was ours;

you lean and sleek, me old and plump -

to put it charitably -

but I knew how to carry things, and you didn't.

So there was a bit of a do moving this-here,

and the process was ungainly,

like trying to move a deadweight drunk,

with arms and legs falling out of the arrangement,

and needing to be folded back in.

Your neighbour was glad to see the back of it -

we didn't know at first which end that was.

We smoothly proceeded for what must have been several feet,

then lurched into unwitting robotics,

scraping and fizzling sparks between our Tik and our Tok.

Gathering in the straggling wings,

a reassuring silence was restored, waltzers gliding across the boards -

an army of ears was not to know a sleeve had been caught, and a thumb,

as we swept in elegance up your steps and no-one knew we'd only just held on.

We jiggered that blasted thing into your sitting-room -

I have done more elegant things than setting that down;

you embraced my simmering form with dismissive mirth

and said “I'll have that for the rest of my life”.