Thursday 31 August 2017

A man of many mothers

People don't ask me 'Who's the man' anymore
But they always want to know who carried me
Which one's your Real Mam?

As if every stepmother isn't a Real Mam
As if every sister who raised up a younger brother isn't a Real Mam
As if everyone who's adopted or fostered isn't a Real Mam

I could reel off a list of Real Mams longer than a giant's handspan

It's that one, by the way, it's not a secret
I just don't see why it matters

Oh, you've never met anyone with two before?
Two is just a number I choose to share with you who speaks in binary

But when you asked who carried me
I ask why my language has not the words to describe

I'm the child of  a lesbian tribe
I'm a man of many mothers

Saturday 24 June 2017

Mother

They say that we look alike
That our eyes share fire if not colour
That our feet are made for marches
Our hearts have weathered darkness
That our wrinkles come from smiling
And our calluses from jiving

But I’ve never felt more like you
Until I ran through a sea of indifference
And feigned ignorance
After a woman fleeing her husband

Statistics slipping from his clenched fists

Sunday 19 March 2017

Tapping

You always knock when you come into my dreams
Appear when life is fraying at the seams
And I can hear you tapping
As you batten down the hatches
And hollow out my bones
Cos you believe that I can fly

And this tapping is a code
Which isn’t Morse of Five by Five
It is the scrape of chisel  
Carving sigils down my sides

And you don’t even try to hide
No, your handiwork is labelled
You stamped Runes along my spinal cord
Proclaiming I am able

You give form to thought which was before
A figment
Or a fable


And for all of this I’m yours and I remain immensely grateful 

Tuesday 17 January 2017

Stationary

They told me that stationery would become my life
But for the first time in years I am moving forward

I will buy rubbers and rulers
But not to keep myself straight and ordered

My highlighters will not gloss over my past
I no longer need a compass to find my way home

I discovered a scar on my face
But couldn’t tell if it was from Chickenpox

Or if I’d cut myself shaving this morning

Wednesday 23 November 2016

Penny Whistles

I saw the children lining up with penny whistles in their hands
And the email list of parents with pennies slipping through their hands
I saw the rows of children i was teaching how to stand
Would they play those pipes lowly as i was lowered in the sand
On monday I'm taking them to the war museum
And on Tuesday they'll be making guns in D+T
For the first time in my life I'd rather it was me
But the lesson planned for Wednesday is that history repeats
So I won't fight them on the beaches
But I'll fight them in the streets
And my bullets will be the hearts and minds of the children that I teach
And there's no space for this in my standard teaching plan
But I won't see this generation butchered
And damned

Saturday 20 August 2016

Bloodlines

When I was about ten, or eleven
Going back to school in September
All of my Maths lessons were forty five minutes long

Trigonometry became rocket trajectories
Duck duck goose became duck and cover
My auntie told me how
In the fish-less Scottish villages of her childhood
In was cold enough during a regular winter
And sunrise offered no solace only a reminder

So they dug deep into themselves and called it shelter

That history repeats is not ignorance
But doctrine
Threads coming together weaving the cloth that we’re wrapped in
Choked with
And buried in
Civilisation’s finish line is a burial shroud of satin

And I can see it happening
Again
Just like before
Counting the ways out by the hours on your contract
We never stood a chance

And they say I’m being paranoid
I should be smart
Like the bombs that miss ammo dumps
And hit a newlywed’s first dance

Because what would War be without martyrs?
And all of my mental maths tests had tanks drawn in the margins

And now that I’m older
I can see through the lies that they sold us but I am still afraid

The Latin root of my name means ‘To Conquer’
Tracing my bloodline back is literal
You just follow bodies
Left by boy soldiers committing war crimes

And I know that there is more
To being a man
Than this
But I was afraid of being conscripted
Now I’m afraid of being convinced


Mason

The first thing I saw was the Mason’s face
Lined with dust
As he cracked my eyes open with his chisel

The wind stung my skin as he stripped me naked
My hands still chained in a bed of my own making

He washed eons of dust out of my hair with a wire brush and file
All the while I watched the crags of his face for signs of home

Waited for my arms to be free to hold him
My hands to be free to hold him
My fingertips to be free to hold him
Why else would he have me reaching?
This is in keeping with my nature

This wrinkled lip is just a mirror of his features
He couldn’t give me life


But I’ll die for a lot longer than he did