Commonword Blogs

"I could sense your happiness even though I was your small dot of hope and your bond to faith. Sounds of celebration, contentment, I could hear them all. We spoke about us, our lives after I arrive. Your caressing touch as you spoke to me. I wish I could touch your hands back. Early days they were, was a matter of time.

I received an email to say that my short story ‘Maya’ has been selected as one of the winning entries in a competition run by Sampad.org and the British Council. Sampad Arts are celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of Rabrinath Tagore, the first Indian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The story was chosen by the judges from 1400 entries of poems and short stories from over 30 countries.

I've tried to reach out to you 
but you just push me away not recognising 
or listening 
to what I'm trying to say 
It's  not all me 
I know that 
I do my part
 I cry when I need to 
I love when I need to 
speak when I need to
 I think when I need to 
I love when I need to 
but I can't do that for you 
you have to do that for yourself

I speak
U deny
I cry
U ignore
I despair
U reassure 
U hide
U cry
Ui ignore 
U deny
U understand
I cry
U apologise 
U try
? 

 Md (c)

Then rain arrives
and salves the ground,
saves the sound
of snare drum days.

Unbeknown lengths
blunt chocks of steps
a sky of hearts
with rope for clouds.

Resist this as hill
after hill persists,
cuts of breeze plague
those tethered floors

where comfy lovers
come and go, weaving
their wistful ignorance
with ligatured ways.

I dream of swimming
through noon seconds,
I dream of swimming
to the tinder banks.

Staring at her reflection, she could hardly recognise the face that she had lovingly pampered, that morning. Whilst rubbing it with the granules of the latest product that would give her skin a new life. She wandered bitterly, if there was some mixture that would breathe new life into her body, perhaps it would erase the memory of what had happened. She had, in carefree moments actually imagined herself with Darren. These thoughts had plagued her mind when he had been safely married, or when she herself had been in one of her relationships.

Hi everyone, just wanted to share a couple of poems, one recent one from earlier in the year. The first is quite playful and the next is from a set focusing on one character through a span of 200 years.

Companions.

Time is changed through the spectacle of retention.
Frost bellows from under the pebble,
‘Feigned friendships have forgone this feckless
fastidiousness, but few! (Well, the two).’
Heat stretches the short scars of drought,
‘Hear, hear, herald of a hermitous haven.’
The pebble, sporting a Saturn like ring,
holds all planes of ‘existential’ ingenerate ideals.

This has been a mixed month that I have enjoyed. I have been writing this month just talking a lot about the Shake the Dust project. It is getting really good at present, a lot of my group in Young Identity are becoming very proactive and seem really driven. Their excitement is infectious and I look forward to more of this during the following months. However this process has made me think I used to sit where they sit so out of no where I feel really old, yet only slightly wiser I guess it is weird what can spark your own thoughts of mortality.

I wrote the following two poems after attending Commonword’s three very informative Ghosts Project workshops (celebrating Moss Side and Hulme night clubs of the 50′s to the 80′s and the local community life), skilfully led by Yvonne Mccalla.

Any constructive comments are welcome.

(1) Staying Power

Gotta make a way out of no way
(Traditional black saying)

Wishful thinking brought us here –
we thought you so rich, you would
embrace us with your song and dance.