Chapters (148)
- Cover
- Title page
- Dedication
- Introduction
- From Perceptions of the Pen (1985)
- Well ‘I’
- Mother
- Ain’t No
- Scream
- So Near and yet So Near
- As Is Life
- From Tender Fingers in a Clenched Fist (1988)
- African Metaphor
- Listening
- Nursery Rhyme
- Some Quotes from Neatherton Man found in Deepest England Somewhere between 1974 and 1980
- Negotiations
- Englabetween
- What Have We Got
- Moods of Rain
- Wasita
- Sing a Song of Sick Penance
- The Black Writers’ Workshop
- Understanding Difference
- The Day Will Come
- The Invasion of the Mancunoids
- The Red Death of Edgar Allan Poe
- Trying Me
- Dead Wood Poetry
- Fell Off and Fell Out
- Bad Trip – L.S.D.
- Burn My Book (Burn In Illusion)
- Tense Tattered Tortured Tried Tested and Torn
- Mother Thatcher
- Today Will Pass
- Spell Bound
- Gold from the Stone
- Everything Is Rhythmical
- Sleep Is a Songbird
- Director’s Notes (For the Daily Shun and Daily Killer)
- She Read as She Cradled
- City Sigh
- Spell Me Freedom
- Interim and Cost
- Ace Under My Sleeve
- Traces
- The Show Goes On
- From Rebel without Applause (1992)
- Bearing Witness
- Remember How We Forgot
- Fingerprints
- Occupations
- Boiling Up
- Instant Consciousness
- Airmail to a Dictionary
- The Customs Men
- Mind-Walking
- For My Headstone
- Love Poem
- Flowers in the Kitchen
- Suitcases and Muddy Parks
- The Nest
- Pass It On
- Going Places
- Gil Scott-Heron
- Godsell
- Flushed
- I Hate You
- Professional Black
- Pretoria Pit
- Uncle Tom and the 1990s
- Clear as Day Storms
- My Brother
- Children and Company
- Writer’s Blockocks
- The Black Moon
- Brinkley Park
- Rage
- From Morning Breaks in the Elevator (1999)
- The Waitress and the Nights of the Round Table
- Colour Blind
- Charlie’s Playing Blackjack
- Invisible Kisses
- Slipping
- Murdering Bill
- Immigration R.S.V.P.
- Fair
- The Repossession: Lot 67
- Baptism in Mire
- Controlled Explosions
- Children’s Home
- Walking in Circles
- My Dad Is a Pilot
- Guilt
- Sandwich Love
- The Elevator
- A Flock of Sound
- The Graduate and Her Secret Thesis
- The Bruise
- Quiet Places
- Mourning Breaks
- From Listener (2008)
- Let There Be Peace
- Rain
- The Actor’s Voice
- Patterns
- Laying the Table
- Perfect
- Gambian Holiday Maker
- Listener
- Ricochet
- Elephant in the Room
- Architecture
- Moving Mountains
- Manchester Piccadilly
- Some Things I Like
- The Lost Key
- **** This
- Magpie
- Before We Get Into This
- Advice for the Living
- The Battle of Adwa, 1896
- The Gilt of Cain
- Applecart Art
- I Will Not Speak Ill of the Dead
- Transistor
- This Train (Sing Along)
- Spring: Mayday Mayday
- Barley Field
- The Boxer
- Torch
- New Poems
- What If
- Whale Translation
- The Spark Catchers
- Shipping Good
- Open Up
- Night Mails
- Lock and Quay
- Listening Post
- Fallen
- Belong
- Rest
- Adventure Flight
- Endnotes
- Index of Titles
- Index of First Lines
Bearing witness to the times ref1
Before we get to know each other ref1
Between the empty cans and dustbin lids, ref1
Black is . . . the shawl of the night, ref1
Breaking out from the plane, ref1
Bring on the dancing juries ref1
British? Black and beautiful. ref1
Can you spread me lightly on this street? ref1
Cold winds have frozen us, ref1
Connect cold ice with fire ref1
Dead fast this. ref1
Dew drops in the morning, ref1
Don’t bandage my words around the wrong bruises. ref1
Don’t take what I have because what I have is me. ref1
Dust spurts from the track ref1
Each cloud wants to be a storm. ref1
Each immaculate table a near perfect reflection of the next; ref1
For the radical faction to change the constitution ref1
Gil Scott-Heron shines ref1
Gnarled tree of silence, ref1
Have you seen the churches of Lalibela? ref1
He held in his mind the fear ref1
He saw riots scream and the blue sky scream ref1
Here are the past messages of the first born, ref1
Here is the ask price on the closed position, ref1
Here is the death of the son you never had, ref1
How is it that we still smile when the pressure comes? ref1
Humpty Dumpty was pushed, ref1
I ref1
I am a tree with no roots . . . or dead roots . . . or chemical-ridden roots. ref1
I am the snake ref1
I can always tell when it’s spring. There’s this plane crash, ref1
I can see your fingerprints ref1
I climbed a mountain for her, ref1
I don’t need an occupation ref1
I expect you might at some point tonight ref1
I got the bruise, the bruise, ref1
I know, if you knew when you lost it you wouldn’t be looking. ref1
I like wrecks, I like ex-junkies, ref1
I lived next to Pretoria, ref1
I saw a single magpie, ref1
I shall be totally honest with you ref1
I speak to you on this memorable day ref1
I’ll rein in then chain you in. ref1
If there was ever one ref1
If you can see the sepia in the sun, ref1
In shells ref1
In the interval of each footstep ref1
In the orchard I catch a falling leaf and wish to make no wish. ref1
Instant consciousness comes in the pound, ref1
Instead of rolling my tongue around a juicy adjective ref1
It isn’t what’s said, it’s what’s not said ref1
It was embarrassing for him. I sixth-sensed it. Me. ref1
It was the evening before the eve of her deadline. ref1
It’s children who spot sand-pits ref1
It’s got to scream like a thousand shivers. ref1
It’s in the secluded moment ref1
Let there be peace, ref1
Listening, and we’re listening ref1
Mother, what will I say to you? ref1
Move ref1
My dad is a pilot. Everybody knows that. ref1
On buying her flowers ref1