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Back Gold from the Stone Save as PDF
Chapters (148)
  1. Cover
  2. Title page
  3. Dedication
  4. Introduction
  5. From Perceptions of the Pen (1985)
  6. Well ‘I’
  7. Mother
  8. Ain’t No
  9. Scream
  10. So Near and yet So Near
  11. As Is Life
  12. From Tender Fingers in a Clenched Fist (1988)
  13. African Metaphor
  14. Listening
  15. Nursery Rhyme
  16. Some Quotes from Neatherton Man found in Deepest England Somewhere between 1974 and 1980
  17. Negotiations
  18. Englabetween
  19. What Have We Got
  20. Moods of Rain
  21. Wasita
  22. Sing a Song of Sick Penance
  23. The Black Writers’ Workshop
  24. Understanding Difference
  25. The Day Will Come
  26. The Invasion of the Mancunoids
  27. The Red Death of Edgar Allan Poe
  28. Trying Me
  29. Dead Wood Poetry
  30. Fell Off and Fell Out
  31. Bad Trip – L.S.D.
  32. Burn My Book (Burn In Illusion)
  33. Tense Tattered Tortured Tried Tested and Torn
  34. Mother Thatcher
  35. Today Will Pass
  36. Spell Bound
  37. Gold from the Stone
  38. Everything Is Rhythmical
  39. Sleep Is a Songbird
  40. Director’s Notes (For the Daily Shun and Daily Killer)
  41. She Read as She Cradled
  42. City Sigh
  43. Spell Me Freedom
  44. Interim and Cost
  45. Ace Under My Sleeve
  46. Traces
  47. The Show Goes On
  48. From Rebel without Applause (1992)
  49. Bearing Witness
  50. Remember How We Forgot
  51. Fingerprints
  52. Occupations
  53. Boiling Up
  54. Instant Consciousness
  55. Airmail to a Dictionary
  56. The Customs Men
  57. Mind-Walking
  58. For My Headstone
  59. Love Poem
  60. Flowers in the Kitchen
  61. Suitcases and Muddy Parks
  62. The Nest
  63. Pass It On
  64. Going Places
  65. Gil Scott-Heron
  66. Godsell
  67. Flushed
  68. I Hate You
  69. Professional Black
  70. Pretoria Pit
  71. Uncle Tom and the 1990s
  72. Clear as Day Storms
  73. My Brother
  74. Children and Company
  75. Writer’s Blockocks
  76. The Black Moon
  77. Brinkley Park
  78. Rage
  79. From Morning Breaks in the Elevator (1999)
  80. The Waitress and the Nights of the Round Table
  81. Colour Blind
  82. Charlie’s Playing Blackjack
  83. Invisible Kisses
  84. Slipping
  85. Murdering Bill
  86. Immigration R.S.V.P.
  87. Fair
  88. The Repossession: Lot 67
  89. Baptism in Mire
  90. Controlled Explosions
  91. Children’s Home
  92. Walking in Circles
  93. My Dad Is a Pilot
  94. Guilt
  95. Sandwich Love
  96. The Elevator
  97. A Flock of Sound
  98. The Graduate and Her Secret Thesis
  99. The Bruise
  100. Quiet Places
  101. Mourning Breaks
  102. From Listener (2008)
  103. Let There Be Peace
  104. Rain
  105. The Actor’s Voice
  106. Patterns
  107. Laying the Table
  108. Perfect
  109. Gambian Holiday Maker
  110. Listener
  111. Ricochet
  112. Email
  113. Elephant in the Room
  114. Architecture
  115. Moving Mountains
  116. Manchester Piccadilly
  117. Some Things I Like
  118. The Lost Key
  119. **** This
  120. Magpie
  121. Before We Get Into This
  122. Advice for the Living
  123. The Battle of Adwa, 1896
  124. The Gilt of Cain
  125. Applecart Art
  126. I Will Not Speak Ill of the Dead
  127. Transistor
  128. This Train (Sing Along)
  129. Spring: Mayday Mayday
  130. Barley Field
  131. The Boxer
  132. Torch
  133. New Poems
  134. What If
  135. Whale Translation
  136. The Spark Catchers
  137. Shipping Good
  138. Open Up
  139. Night Mails
  140. Lock and Quay
  141. Listening Post
  142. Fallen
  143. Belong
  144. Rest
  145. Adventure Flight
  146. Endnotes
  147. Index of Titles
  148. Index of First Lines

Up town, down town dressing spirit-shaking earth-quaking

Ripples in a lake of a rhythm.

Ripples in a lake of a rhythm.

Ripples in a lake.

A flock of sound.

The Graduate and Her Secret Thesis

The Graduate and Her Secret Thesis

It was the evening before the eve of her deadline.

They made love between the sheets of her thesis.

After taking a shower of words she sat at the table

And studied him through the book pile, turned over leaves;

She perfected paragraphs punctuated with references,

Glue to stick the whole thing together.

Two thousand five hundred words to go.

In her mind she had passed the exam already,

But at the same time her pencil snapped

Like the cracking of a twig signifying an intruder.

A problem. It stalked her thoughts, scared her.

That stubborn sentence if not justified would turn into a tapeworm, a gremlin,

Eat the whole thesis and belch in her face.

We engaged and I followed her delicate fingers

Along that snare-riddled trigger-wired sentence.

She read it again and again in the voice of a question,

Finding new angles each time and new meanings

That refer to previous explanations in other books

That neither of us had at the time.

She stared at me for the answer and I at her.

This was going to take work – more work than either expected.

Midnight.

In the whisk of a page, the thud of a dropped book,

We entered the old university reference library.

The closing doors behind us sent

A gust of air dust curling and searching

Down the corridors of books like a flock of grey swans.

The night light shone a red brown.

I noticed how different she looked – nervous almost –

Her caramel skin more beautiful than usual.

I’ve since forgotten who’d said let’s split up and search but we did.

The Bruise

The Bruise

I got the bruise, the bruise,

Since before I was born.

Bruise is the only clothing

That I’ve ever worn.

I got the bruise, the bruise,

Nothing no doctor can do.

Don’t come near me, woman,

’Cause I’m sure gonna bruise you too.

I got the bruise in my flesh,

The bruise deep and dark.

I got the bruise all over my face, my arms,

My head, my soul ’n’ my heart.

I get so drunk I get bruises on my bruise,

And that ain’t no disguise.

I got the bruise, I got the bruise,

I got the bruise in my eyes.

I got the bruise, I got the bruise,

I got the bruise in my eyes.

Quiet Places

Quiet Places

Some people on bus seats shake at the shoulders,

Stoned Elvises trying to dance after the gig.

Some walk into the rain and look like they’re smiling,

Running mascara writes sad bitter letters on their faces.

Some drive their cars into lay-bys or park edges

And cradle the steering-wheel looking like headless drivers.