After Parkes Drugstores came
Timothy Whites and now
by Boots, on the corner
of Electric Avenue,
they're selling soul food.

Strange at first, but
slowly came a liking for
Jamaica's patties.
Opened the way to foreign roots
formed into 'Back Home Foods'
eddoes and achees
sweet potatoes and callaloo.

Faces reach from scarves,
head-tied against the cold.
In days ahead, bustling
for cow-feet and pig-tail,
the women offer open bags
for warmer foods to tumble into.

I

wind brushing my face
creases the river lifts vultures
off tree branches

II

earth tipped over
the river's waters sail out
make sea waves tidal

III

wind snatching my words
river gambia swallow them
ink runs up river

To set up house - the linen baba would sort you out.
He'd understand; he'd come, you see,
from Pakistan in sixty-two.
Selling on deposit blankets for the cold,
door-to-door, until a countryman said:
there's Market Row instead.

Aurora towels, bright parchment linen,
clouds of quilts and misty mosquito nets
high up on the ceiling. A home store
for a generation of sojourners who came
expectant, filled with respect.

Baba, aging now, held up by crisp Sundays
(best tablecloths and arm-rests)
retired from being in the market everyday,
now sees friends' and old customers' children
come to shop, emerging bright from
his stalls' linens and quilts.

I don't remember a lot of things
quite deliberately shoving them away inside me
imploding later when I least expect
I don't remember
why should I
walk with it hold it know it
for all its unpleasantness feel it
choke me smoke me dope me
I don't remember is
my favourite reply when put on the spot
about how I got broken that time

I don't remember the sound
the jab of your words shattering me
as you chatted on dismissing a quiet plea
saying again don't be boring shuddering
as another piece hit the playground tarmac
spreading into a pool of once-me
trampled again and again
by my big sister's silences and refusals
to look me in the eye at least

I don't remember my wanting you
to do the enid blyton best friend thing and
rescue me from little girls that bullied me
or you bringing the taunting into our front-room
laughing at my swan neck, my cowardy-custard ways
I only remember the mirage of my hopeful fantasy
of ever-lasting super-glue love
like the infant fingers of that boy in my class
doing everything together
grown as on like twin plantains
that could never be parted with whole skin
that would not re-member itself
always being in half

I don't remember being unwanted
that day I ran out the school gate
away from the isolation of everybody else's eyes
witnessing another humiliation
to get away from - who
I don't remember
Mr Grant with his big six-foot army self
charging after me escorting me
an easy captive in biting April sleet
white as his big hand
leading up to the hair in his nose
a crowd of schoolkids telling me
I was really in trouble now
and the only eyes I wanted to see me were yours
away over at the other end of the playground
you wouldn't see me there

walking home I could never tell
feeling too shame in your this-isn't-happening-eyes
convenient forgetfulness stinging
from your mouth to the soothing front-door
our Yelverton Road home
where you were all the world I thought I needed

Journeywoman. Journeyman.
You were a generation dreaming;
journeywoman, journeyman,
stepping off the plane
to an unknown future
from a certain past that
became more and more like
the promise that escaped you.
You were a generation
dreaming to change the pattern,
undo the seams, re-style
the suits you wore
as you stepped off the boat,
Windrush-style.

Frederic: this not so young man
had struggled as a juvenile,
thirties-style, to unionize,
enfranchise. A troublesome man,
proud to be a darkblack
worker, survivor. You
split the seams
to suit your schemes.

Linda: jouneywoman, Journeywoman,
you were a generation dreaming.
Coming from a certain past,
coming to an unknown future,
coming to bear us and
spare us from the masterpattern,
styled, cut, ready-to-wear suit
of canes, molasses
thick-set in the heat. Burning
good white sugar,
raising a glass of rum
in the sunset of the master
as you sailed away;
meeting this mancountry,
face-to-face with dreams.
Journeywoman, journeyman,
you were a generation,
dreaming a world, to change.

Medusa was a Blackwoman,
afrikan, dread
cut she eye at a sista mirror
turn she same self t'stone.
She looks really kill?
Ask she nuh! Medusa would know.
She terrible eyes leave me stone coal.
Medusa lost
looking for love
kept behind icy eyes
fixed inside the barricade
for anybody who come too close,
runnin' from she own
in case the worse thing happen
an' she see she self like them see she.
The blood haunted:
if you black, get back
if you brown stick around...
Is that okay? Being black your way,
whitewashed an' dyed-back black,
am I easier to hold in an acceptable role?
...And if you white comelong y'alright...
Make it go away, the nappiheaded nastiness
too tuff too unruly too ugly too black
...Get back...
Scrub it bleach it operate on it powder it
straighten it fry it dye it perm it
turn it back on itself
make it go away make it go away.
Scrub it, step smiling into baths of acid
and bleach it red raw
peel skin of life-sustaining melanin.
Operate on it
blackskin - lying, useless - discard it powder it.
Head? Fuck it, wild-haired woman,
straighten it fry it, desperately burn scalps.
Banish the snake-woman
the wild-woman
the all-seeing-eye woman.
Dye it,
remembrances of Africa fast-fadin'
in the blond highlights,
turn us back on ourselves
slowly making daily applications
with our own hand.
My hair as it comes
is just not good enough.
The blood haunted:
if you brown stick around
and if you white comelong y'alright...
Say: make it go away make it go away
da nappiheaded nastiness!
Is too tuff too unruly too ugly too black
too tuff too unruly too ugly too black.
Get back
Medusa! Black! [Steups!] Get back.