Freedom

freedom

Advertisements
For agents of state violence
And requests for the benefit cheats
To get off our backs
As I miss the head stop.

Mind our heads
And get on board
Our hearts and the love bus.
Where The Man arrested
Puts out his hand
At our his hand
At our request stop
And is handed out
A freedom pass
To travel past
Signing up and prison
Or mental detention
On one joy ride, bus ride to
Freedom.

BLOOD SAMPLE

The Red Room

My name is Doctor Kohl
I am here to section you under section 3 of The Mental Health Act
We have ways of making you talk.
We have drugs of all persuasions
And brain scans to read your mind
You have the idea.
Here hold out your arm
I want a sample of your blood.
I extended my arm stripped down to the bare bones
Doctor Khol gave me the fix
Stitching me up the wrong way.
A sample of my blood
Section 3 followed by section 117
So who is exploiting who
In this game of mental health?
'OK, Ok Doctor Kohl
Do not calm me with your pale pink pills
Do not read my dreams with your scans
Do not shock me
I will talk, I will talk, I will have counselling.'

THE BLUE ROOM

So I waited in the blue room
Holding a clinical tissue where
The needle had stuck like a leech.
Green cacti decorated the pale blue four walls
As I waited for tears.
The stillness was swept aside by an opening door.
A nurse with matching coat and blank expression
Eyes blinking like CCTV cameras waiting to observe the truth
While I am just waiting.
Now only a pen or the silence of it can alter the course of
justice.
'Hello, my name is Nurse Stein, now tell me all about it.'
'Well, I was living in a independent care home, there were these two
children and a man at the door.
They all came in and went in the other resident's room
I feared for them.
I said,' no'
I said,' go, go, go.'
I called nine, nine, nine
The police did not come.
I said,'Children go home.'

'Eventually the children did go.
I told my key worker and project worker.
This man held up a stainless steel kitchen blade
Shining in his night
Wanting a sample of blood
A sample of truth bleeding.'

'Silence, patient, silence. We have ways of making you not talk.
We will prescribe you some pale pink pills and you will feel much
better.
In the pink, Michael.'

So my brown flesh
Fleshed out into the pink
And a white pinky red stained picture
Hung in my new home.
A blood sample and soon a tall bald headed black man
Wanting a sample of my blood.
Once; threatened t smash my head on the metal frame sofa bed
Twice; threatened to crash me through the glass back door when it
closed.
Well now it is locked shut.
A portrait of a blood sample lies hidden somewhere within.
I fled like a refugee
To stay in a B&;B
In SW 2.
I returned once
Ready to risk my own blood spilling and rescue fragments of old
photographs and self.
So I found my gut
And my own true blood sample, unspoilt and unspilt
So that art unhangs itself
To be replace with truth, justice and liberty.

This Poem Is The Man

That song needs therapy
Some psychotherapy and folk psychology
To take a trip and fall off the back of a psychiatrists trolley.

That song is out of tune and.....
Off the record, this boy will ban it.
Tear up the notes and skin it
To rewrite the lines, one hundred times
In rapitition, rapitiition repeating lines
To jump out of his own skin and spin it
To give that song an education
While this boy writes the poem.

That song must go manic in the streets
Must stand up the sing and preach
For better rights
Get high on his own spirit
To find the i and I in Nirvana
And find his own song and sing it.

That song is a boy and must sing it
This poem is The Man.

GOD(!) I(!)

If God comes to me
With visions and voices
Of rivers of blood
In my head
I will turn my head aside
And tell that God that I am The Man.

If God wants praise
In flood full of rain
In hope of an ark
Of his commandments
I will break down those stones
And tell that God
That I am The Man.

If God is on high
For a pot of gold in the sky
When tomorrow we may all die
I will empty that pot
To rain down on the have-nots
And tell that God
That I am The Man.
If God should strike me down
For writing this poem
There will be no cross on my tombstone
No preacher from Rome
My poem will live on and on
A birth stone at my tomb stone
And I will tell that God and religion
That I was a man.

Coming Up Roses

Black night blindness
Still scent is lingering
To remind us
This day of sadness
Still has sweetness
Like daffodils on coffins
Coming up roses.

Buddha Dedication

Stone cold Buddha
Stone cold calm
Sits still and catches Sunday's everydayness
As every day is another rainy day
Buddha grows older
Gathers moss and bets wiser
So I can sit down and meditate.

I look up and see the clock and time
And forget how to tell the time
I fall asleep peacefully.

Hush, My Child

The day after Christmas
Sleep falls over sandwiches and port
Half the world sleeps, half the world starves
Hush my child, it's not your fault.

So hush my child
And my child is sleeping.
Hush my child
My child is not an abortion
My child is frozen.
So hush my child
My child is not still born
My child is dreaming.
Yes, hush my child
And my child is not an orphan
My child is my twin.

Hush my child
Like pen and paper waking up
To turn over and rhyme
Like children, we hush no more
Our dreams turn to love.

Thin Stillness

Thin still root under a desert sun
Thin still root sits under it's shadow
Sips the dust in a big desert sky
Strips down to the bare bones
In the cold sunset of a desert night
Strips down to the sweetness of the root.

Cool thin statue, as cold as stone
As cold as ice waiting for the surgeon
Waiting for the cut of sharp surgeon's knife
Slips into the smile of a snowman
To break down the plinth and the stone and a history of
skeletons.

The snowman's smile chops off the head
The snowman carries the spirit
Into the safe arms of nothing.

I AM ANIMAL RIGHTS MAN

Call me Animal rights man
Coz I am a zoo keeper called Stan
On my breaks from my Regent's Park lounge
I teach apes to break out
Of their caged homes.
I teach gorillas how to make home made bombs
Coz even pigeons can get it on
In their Trafalgar Square home
Do not try to move these pigeons on
This struggle goes on and on and on.

So the chimps strike from advertising
And rats from psychology rat racing
Sheepdogs take the flock grazing
Blunkett's dog is now leading
Guide dogs and the police Alsatians
To drop the bombs and Macdonalds and Burger King.

So call me animal rights man
Call me friend of every woman and every man
Call me every man and every woman
Call me animal, woman, man and human.

NO TIME

This is no time
This is no time
Coz there is no time.

This the time before the rain did drop
This is the time before the waves hit the rocks
This is the time before the sun did rise
This the time before the sand did dry.

This is not the time to buy a watch
This is not the time to steal a policeman's watch
This not the time to turn the clocks forward in time
This is hippity-hoppity-clickitty clock time
This is the time to clock the clocks
To stop the clocks
To clock off.
This is the time for the time to stop
This is the time so let's all switch off.

Now The Fall

The free world collapses
Like a child
Tired of playing at playing cards.

The sky in one jet stream of smoke
Smashes into Armeggedon.
Fireman scream
Fire, fire! Fire, fire!
We are all extinguished.

Holidays are hijacked
As the pentagon declares
No day of rest
Sunday, Bloody Monday.
The statute of liberty is still standing
Waiting to deliver, justice?

The US digs deep
Into ice and Alaska
Reserves itself for black gold and the
nuclear shield.

The end justifies more
More militarism and more
Economic differentials
The gap widens
Now the fall.

NICOTINE DON'T DO IT (GET A TRAVELCARD)

September is a smoker
Smokes 40 before breakfeast
Wakes up, runs for a bus can't catch it
Catches the one behind in 20 minutes
Jumps off and wants to kick it.
September kicks butts, to kick cigarettes
Wants to run it, bus it and learn to drive it
Can't test drive, caught in traffic.
September is a jogger who wants to run it and has to sit on it
Sits at the bus stop, smoking in The Smoke
Shouts nicotine don't do it, get a travel card
September jumps on, almost cracks it, jumps off, can't afford the
ticket
Shouts nicotine don't do it and jumps out of it into traffic.
September almost breaks a leg and cracks up
Shouts October give me a Freedom Pass.

October takes deep breathes
Breathes in and breathes out
Breathes in and breathes out
Breathes in and breathes out
Breathes in and out and in and out and in and out.
October is out of breathe and out of cash.
Cuts down on smokes and almost cuts it out.
October runs around and around and around the block
Seven times to go to the shops.

October buys November a one day travel card
Has a day off out of it, walks to the shops
Buys a Big Issue and reads Street Lights
On a number eighty-eight bus
Repeats rhyming sums on No Smoking fines.
November butts out of it to put it out
Running out of rhyming slams
Rings bells to get off at the request stop
In time for that last Northern Line soul train.
November breathes again
Exercises fresher breath rhymes
Performs lines of rapitition, rapition, rapition poems
On the London Underground
Now that's what I call an education.
November trips out on tongues to
Balham, Clapham South, North and Clapham Common
November shouts nicotine don't do it, get a travel card
Fumes No Smoking and all change at Stockwell Station.
Changes for the Victoria Line
Running the ride in perfect rap timing.
November passes lines and fast jaguars
Passes bigger and faster flashy star cars.
November gets off on November the fifth
All fireworks and B&;H don't smoke that
Gives up working for that Rose Morris school of mental health
Cuts out the rap and shouts give me a Freedom Pass.
November passes rush hours, stations and lines
To take a bus trip down to Brixton Hill
To float on a Brixton carnival
On a free ride on a respect float.

November goes to sleep to wake up in December
Smoking; ready rubbed Havana cigars
Singing; this is no way out and no way to support Cuba
Shouting; nicotine don't do it, get a travel card.

December shouts we need a revolution
Shouts Nike don't do it, do Nike and run it
Runs a fun run with No Sweat
In bare feet and kicker boots.
December stubs it out and thinks about his health
Takes a deep breath and coughs
Coughs up for a travel card
Trips out on a tram ride
From Wimbledon station to Croydon.
December walks in to get checked out
In an NHS walk-in, in East Croydon
Reading ads for NHS occupations.
December volunteers can't smoke at work
Almost gives up, almost passes that First Aid test
Saves a packet by not smoking 20 cigarettes
From pipe dreams to dream holidays
To float to a carnival in Rio de Jainero.
December comes home without cut price snouts
Wakes up in the UK, OK
Stubs out that last cigarette at a request stop
Runs past traffic jams to work instead.
December has fun on a fun home run
And 2002 is a Happy New Year and a no smoker.

ENGLAND? ENGLAND?

We won, we won
Roar six lions.
You won nothing
Not anything
As I spit on England's tongue.
Just beer drops
To oil the mouths
Of robo-thugs
Without robotics
Who can only sing:
'England, England.'
I spit on this English tongue.

England's dreaming
In the rain.
England shouts, 'Go home, go home.'
I shout, 'Go home England.'
And football is not coming home
Football is off the park and out of touch.

I shout, 'England, England and I will have your brains for
breakfeast
And you could not sell your brains to the NHS.'
Well, no one can.
As I spit on this English tongue.
'You cannot hold you own beer
While I can keep my own head
my head can hold blood.'
England, England and the morning after
More lost heads
Who cannot work for the NHS.
I, the Kosovan can.

DOCKLANDS

Docklands, Docklands
Shop assistants staring
Waiting and walking
From Dockalnds to dock lands.
Made in Camden
By someone in.......Hong Kong.
Limping, limping
Not falling or slipping or sliding.
Shop assistants stealing shoes?
Shhh.

Anger Management, anger management
Running up and down, running up and down
In anger management, anger management
Running up and down
And running, running out of it
In old worn out shoes.
Running out of sweatshop consuming without any sweat.

A walk out
As the angry manager almost steals
Almost pulls out
The foot support from under
His feet.

Anger management, managing the manager
Anger management, managing the manager
A walk out
Walking out
To The Underground.

TALIBEEN, HALLOWEEN MAN

Trick or treat, trick or treat?
I am your Halloween, Talibeen, jellybean man.
I bring you no sour flowers
No witch hunt of baby powders
Only sweet, sugar, sweet. sherbet flavours.

Take a lucky dip
Take a trick, take a treat
Take off your own mask
And take a face of Halloween.

Battersea is laid out of my stax
My home is locked out by someone who is
Out of order
As I wait for the criminal justice law and order
And a policeman to give me some
Order, order, order
Order?
Holy orders?

I am the man, I am that man
I am that plain clothes policeman
In fancy dress, police uniform
I am a man of no colour
I am order, order, order.
Have I got the power?
The electric generator
The gas burner.
Can I cut the power?
To leave a houseful of drip, drop, drip, drop
Dark cold water.
Trick or treat or truth?

Halo nothing
And I am nothing as
I wait for my Xmas post
No merry hallelujah Xmas ho ho ho greeting cards
Just instant, this instant, non-ideal homes
Somewhere in Oldham
Somewhere in last summer's lost summer
The summer of riots
The summer of hate.

All Christmases are now
The ghost of Christmas past
Like the Christmas post
And my own ideal home
They have flown.
And I want to fly, fly, fly and keep on flying forever
As the cold wind blows through the windows
And doors with
Homelessness and leaflets of Crisis and Shelter
Free papers and free ads of
Flats for rent for 75 quid
Free lets of flat lets for part-time carers and their pets and
Like the Christmas post
I wrap up all those flats
Into one plain unstamped envelope and
Dressed up in the fancy dress
Of a postman with tinsel
I stand and deliver, my Xmas letter
Of free rooms, flat and flatlets
And free lines to shelters from
Drip, drop, drip, drop, drip drop cold weather winters
To someone who will need that shelter.
So who is law?
Who is order?
Who has the power?

I am Buddha Claus
Dressed in tongues of dates and cakes of icing.
I walk down King Street, Hammersmith
Poke my head into King Street, Hammersmith
Poke my head into an Amnesty International bookshop.
There are books on law and order, outsize story books
Insiders crime non-fiction non-faction.
I wipe my feet and pick up a picture dictionary for children
I turn the pages and see there are no pages for the word
tomorrow.
Too-morrow, too-morrow
Et moi, aussi
Mais oui.

I wrap up copies of letters sent to solicitors
To housing officers and social workers
I leave the parcel on the counter
With anthrax white stickers
Licked, addressed and all wrapped up
To be sent
Or walked in and handed into the policman at the gate
Knocking on it, outside Downing Street
Than back down the street to catch the last flight to forever.
'I believe I can die, I believe I can touch the sky.'

I am the Talibeen, Halloween jellybean man
Trick or sweet or sour or treat or trick or truth?
Or law or order or power or nothing?

THE BILL (THE PILL)

Out of my stax
Right shoulder hip-hop breaking
My feet don't fit
So I slip slide on the siding.
Police signs on the pavement
The Bill acting out a scene
My travel pass has been passed
Now I need some free wheels.

All the steals in Battersea
On the high street out my stax
Do I go home to dream
Or get in on the act.

Scene one; is set up
To arrest the Bill
My radio playing Z cars
Am I zzzzasleep or dreaming.
Scene Two; I am an extra
Plain clothes and unpaid
Extra, extra hear the headlines
On 20-20 headline news.
I got last night's bottle, to make out as a hitman
Scene Three; is confused no one knows whose acting.
The plain clothes acting police
Arrest the extra innocent bystanders
I slip my feet in their shoes
And take the driving groove.
London Live is on a high
Playing funk, blules and nu-soul
I am hooting my horn to pick up my girl.

Scene four; driving past, The Chopper and York Gardens
The Bill are up and chasing
Are we on Carlton Televison?
We turn the radio off
And channel through the lanes
Singing Charlie's Angels songs
With our policeman's caps turned around.
'The shoes on our feet, we stole them
Clothes that we wear, we stole them
Cars that we drive, we stole them
We depend on we.'

We jump through traffic lights
Speed through speed cameras
There are no jumping TV screens
Are we on Carlton television?
On episode one of The Bill
Or the Bill as a film
Or on giimme five news headlines
Or Crimewatch BBC

We turn up our headlines
And head for Dover Port
We fill in our occupations
With our acting passports.
To be stamped, extras, actors
The poice, the state, directors
To cross the sea on French ferries
For a refugee holiday in Nice.

MISSING?

One photo-fit man
One Asian
Once of England
Last seen in one rapping, chatting
Rhyming, toating, rhythmic, walk off poem.
One missing metropolitian poster
Stolen by someone who is missing.

One man, sat at one bus stop
Passed by one queue on the top of the deck
Passed by police and thieves looking for photo-fits
One man jumping off the bus stop seat
Someone is missing.

One unidentified man
Dressed up in someone else's uniform
Worn without any policemen
No batons, no hand-cuffs and no hand-guns.
One you are under arrest
In the name of one missing person.

One cover of one book
Somone else's mirror image
On the glass of every bus stop
One photo-fit frame up
Stopping one big bust up
Dyed blond hair and see through looks
One book walking out of print
One person gone missing.

NO POET

My words are lost
Under the last dead lamp.
No reading
No grand performance
All my beating words are lost.

I am no poet
I am lost of words.

LUV IS.......
Luv is....
P*ssing on the lines
In an underground strike.

Luv is........
P*ssing on Becks
Calling yourself a paranoid schizophrenic
Knowing that bottle has lost it
Knowing that label needs a health warning on it.

Luv is.............
P*ssing on the mind
And on the gaps
Yapping out the changes and the stops
That approach
Luv is.

Luv is .........
Blunkett's guide dog p*ssing
On the platform
On the Jubilee Line
To stop luv in its tracks
For the slow coffee break
For that half-day on the sick.

Luv is..............
P*ssing on Johnny Cooper Clark
On his escalator trip
On Johnny C.C. chocolate break
His luv is lost down The Street.

Luv is...................
Wearing platform shoes
To keep your feet up when your in a hurry
To stop childhood disease
And sharing luv and curry.

Luv is p*ssing on it
Luv is invisible ink.

BREAD AND ROSES

Come and butter me up
I am your bread and butter
Nah mash me up
Let's dance to the instant mash potato.

I slice up your hard cheese
Toasting, softly, softly
Jump, jump jumping up
Like hot jumping baked beans
To be your fizz
Your sweet as sugarfree lemonade and crisps.

To walk you down Clapham Manor Street
With shopping and list
Oops. I forgot the roses.

AFRICAN BREAD AND ROSES

Run and run and run to the Mwalamu Express
Come express, take a rhythmic ride
In playtime, games time
In choo-a choo a-choo time.
Mwalamu express lines
Dub time, Dub up times.

Rhymes and tales
And games of African roses
The sweat and bread of Africa
Served to you every Sunday
On a pitter platter, pitter platter.
Come share the bread, come share the roses.

THE SWORD REACHES INFINITY

The sword reaches infinity
Now there is nothing to kill
at the point of axis, all is still
And the world still turns forever.

MASTER OF THE ART

Master of the art
Colours the canvas
In the make up of a master
Of her highness.

The face is hidden under the veil
Of art history.

The artist's steals the master's scalpel
The old master unveiled
Are we all sold?
Under this hammer?

THE CLOCK LOCKED

The clock in this passing second
Is one clock locked up tight.
Like broken heart beats
It beats no more for us
The clock is locked.

Like our time, locked behind closed doors
The clock beats no more for us
The clock is locked.

The clock does not tick for us
This time does not awaken our coma.

We wait for the footsteps to change
To kick away our private space.
For tall office blocks
Built up, brick by brick
To collapse into our laps.

For records of our private lives
Held bit by bit to uncompute.
For our lips to open, for all of us to speak out
In a public record that is truly ours.
To reclaim the clock and the times.

SATTELITE UNAMED

There is no light in this small deep space
Only the flourescent gaze of yesterday's hot molten stars.
The sattelite dances in this heat
Goes on, goes on and on
Turning the night
Like broken old bones
Lights up concete hght street pavement.

So something as dead as yesterday's sand
Lights and lifts up
The skyline.
So our eyes see the light and the darkness
Where in our deep sleep, we keep the dream alive.

WALL TO WALL

My walls do not come tumbling down
My wall are built up
Brick by brick
On the foundation of the forgotten.
Family trees are now pieces of paper folded up
Undelivered.

Walls are now built up windowless with only one locked door.
One door which can only be opened on the inside.

Welcome to my four walled home.
One prison awaiting freedom
One person awaiting home.

PATIENT, TOO PATIENT

Old national health folders are sent packing
Patients records once left out to be rewritten are now left out.
Old social workers have already walked
Out of houses unbuilt for old patients.
In this unbuilt house there is no fire exit
Only homelessness.

The desk is now clear; too late for those patients
Who were too patient
The patient is now sent packing for being too patient.

Th accoutant takes the new order, pen in hand
The nurse gives the order with heavy handed syringe
The new social worker is excluded in the name of science and economic
well being.
Either way the patient is dead and buried
The unbuilt home is on fire.

And the records, well off the record that depends on the record.

E (based on the Russian letter pronounced yo.)

To Russia with e
And a yo yo yo
And a party for two
And a yo yo yo
And a open house yo
And a red house blues
Singing yo yo yo
And a party for all.

Are you red?
Are you dead?
Are you yo yo yo
Are you in my bed?
From Russia with e
And a yo yo yo.

I CLOSE THE BOOK

Why am I guilty as I stand up for my rights?
Accused by solicitors and social workers
Experts in the social science of human beings.
Guilty of having knowledge of the system.
Of reading the lines of law books in library rooms
Books I read in innocence so why am I guilty as I stand up?

As I scrarch my head I talk to myself and wonder
'Will the walls of this mad, mad world cave in on itself and me.'
As August waits for summertime at the end of summertime and a carnival
in Notting Hill
My mind explodes into one big echoing voice
Buzzing and whirling over my head
In chook ke de, chook ke de, chook ke de
As Eminem and puffin, pippy, piddy D
Descend from the sky
Down slamming slang rhymes
To land way, way, way over my head
In stolen hardware.
Chook ke de, chook ke de, chook ke smash.
Crashing into crash buildings
As one big flash of lightning
Crashes into one big flash of lightning
As thunder crashes into thunder
I crash out of the heat and out of it all.

I close the book.

to be continued.........

TO BE CONTINUED.............