Multiplastic

I saw the clearest minds and the strongest bodies of my childhood brought to low greyness by years that settled like dusty crows on their shoulders Those who stood solid as beech trees we could climb, and smaller like L.E.F. the dedicated in this poem Who shocked by telling me to fuck off when I offered to pay for coffee at Manchester Airport Who listened to Demis Roussos singing Forever and Ever on repeat and watched Yul Brynner in The King and I and fancied both of them Who blu-tacked children’s paintings on the wall beside the fridge and encouraged the painting of more Who played charity football in red knickerbockers and tried to learn Urdu but never got past Aap ka nam kia hai? Who were the model of what beauty looked like, and that beauty had skin the colour of milky coffee and black freckles Who taught themselves to play keyboards because their pianist was crap and made their songs sound bad Who I hear daily in my own voice, and who called the dog the Hound of t...

I’ve always lived a life of experimentation Following every new infatuation Taking inspiration from whatever the station But now I’m in danger of appropriation Because a poem’s a style, and a style has got rules Words are like colours and rhythms are tools To carve out a voice, and make fuel for us fools Nobody owns words, they’re poetry’s jewels But Hip Hop has grown from a certain existence A life that stands at a significant distance I’ve never been treated as a second-class citizen I’ve never been stopped ‘cause I’m under suspicion I don’t want to steal, but to honour and understand I’ll never call this style mine, it doesn’t come from my hand But to use this brand, I need to take a stand When my fear of appropriation fights my fear of being bland   December 2024

Home Town (from the provocation, “Say where you come from, without saying where you come from”) I come from Jekyll and Hyde in the form of geography From dusty papermills, Chinese chippies, cobbled back streets and the paper shop From constant renewal and the new civic hub, but ten years not being long enough to replace a footbridge Where fame is claimed through a film director, a snooker player and a scene in a movie starring Rita Tushingham. I come from Papermills and engineering plants closed down and knocked down From cinemas knocked down or converted into supermarkets, and later knocked down to become different supermarkets From pubs turned into flats, or knocked down, or knocked down and turned into flats From churches and the swimming pool knocked down and turned into flats From old folks’ homes knocked down and turned into housing estates From the Civic Centre knocked down and turned into a housing estate From the constant war of attrition between green land and new h...