And spat on the young black boy

Polished his shoes and ignored the news

Of the lynching in his own backyard,

Or folded his clothes and held up his nose

At the sounds of a screaming sister:

Uncle Tom, the same syllable sound

As true or false, sweet and sour,

Right or wrong, do or die,

Is dead,

Manacled mutilated moaning in his grave,

Twisting and turning in all the suppressed unrest.

He sweeps the floors of hell,

Licks the walls of heaven,

Takes all the sinners to the pit of eternal fire,

Children, crinkly old men, crimson young girls;

Holds them by the hand, tells them

They’ll be all right, they’ll get used to it, and hums,

‘Oh Lordy, pick a bale of souls

Oh Lordy, pick a bale a day

Gonna jump down turn around pick a bale of souls

Everydoghasitsdayhewholivestorunawayifatfirstyoudon’t succeedabirdinthehandisbettereyesbiggerthanyouranger begatsangerdon’trocktheboat.’

Frustrated black people still pull him from the grave,

But the myth

Has decomposed and doesn’t hold together

The years between then and now.

We are at the crux of making

A martyr from a fool,

A fool from a martyr.

Uncle Tom is dead.

Hot oil spittle pours from each orifice

His solidified words

‘Everycloudhasathere’sgoodandbadinweareallthesameunder . . . liveandletlive.’

Make him a saint or a swear word;

Both are a modern-day charade.

There is no Uncle Tom in the 1990s;

Just cold calculated black moving sculptures, sharp and sinister,

Who know exactly what they’re doing.

Clear as Day Storms

Clear as Day Storms

It’s in the secluded moment

Or the hectic deadlines

That beyond my control

I remember the times

When skies bent with red strength,

To protect our innocent minds,

Would paint pathways home

For memories to find.

But moon-soaked storms

(As we swam against the tide

or circled like eagles

above the mountain sides)

Dragged me

Into the hurricane’s eye

And sucked me through

Darkened skies;

Through ricocheted demands,

Commands too high to reach,

Grey rooms, rattling keys,

And corridors too bleached.

With no space to breathe

I would sit by the window pane

To watch the storm stabbing

And the night-time cry in pain.

And now in the night’s whisper

And the single magpie’s lull,

As the air thick and humid

And the wind begins to pull,

I greet the storm,

Stand in its rain,

And somehow you’re as clear

As the day again.

My Brother

My Brother

We laughed, played draughts,

Under a sweeping sleeping sun

By the coconut tree

And the smell of lemon grass.

He had returned from Paris.

It took us half an hour

To get the right coconut

And two minutes to mix the juice

With raspberry cordial.

That night I cried,

How alike we could have been.

Children and Company

Children and Company

It’s children who spot sand-pits

And large puddles,

Insect spit

And warm cuddles.

It’s children who spot spiders

And dew-cobbled cobwebs,

Holes in bushes

And worms that are half dead.