Molly takes third. But I smell sex
and Dog in dark has X-ray specs …
While Psycho and his wife snore phlegm
like philharmonic, Al pokes Jen:
Got an itch I gotta scratch!
I noted way she eyed that lass,
no psychedelic psychopath
will stop Butch Al when high on hash,
she’s on that Molly in a flash
who’s up for owt and understands
and yields like putty in her hands …
And look at Jen, our lump of lead!
The wife gets up to piss, Jen grins
and moves bairn’s cot to foot their bed.
So on way back, wife bangs her shin,
confused, she mounts their bed, gets in:
Jen mounts her, wrists her, hard and deep,
mad as a dog while Psycho sleeps!
Still dark, when Al yawns, stretches, wakes.
Moll tells her that our dope were muddled.
I swapped it back, made cosmic cakes.
Check the porch. Then, one last cuddle,
Al gropes round for cot, befuddled,
jumps inside the cotless blow-up,
pulling Psycho’s earlobe. Wake up!
Three times I’ve gloved up Psycho’s lass
whilst you’ve been having purple dreams.
Psycho roars, pull out his cutlass,
missus hears him shouting, screams,
Si, there’s a man on top of me!
Meaning Jen. Grabs Shepton Mallet
in pitch dark and raises it,
strikes down on what she thinks is Jen,
and hits her husband! Jen and Al
grab dope, the space cakes, t-shirts, jeans
and me – I leave a parting growl –
and run through site, au naturel,
to tent to tell our saga of
free food, free dope, free cakes, free love.
Roving Mic
Roger of Ware
Roger on the mic,
host, take a hike,
bards, on yer bike …
used ta have acne
worked in a factory
till the boss sacked me,
now I’m the chef
of a city caf
but the riffraff
don’t get a look in
if they don’t book in.
Roger, what’s cooking?
Here’s what I’m spitting
out of my kitchen
hot and hard-hitting
none of it written.
Rhymes rough and raw
weeping like a sore
bruised and ruptured
rude, interrupted,
but if you lick the spit
you’ll get a taste for it …
If you can’t flow, sing,
this mic is roving
passed like a baton
till it gets spat on …
First up, The Reveller,
raves like a traveller,
he can tell a tale
for a yard of ale,
cunning linguistics
vital statistics
of the cash he owes
and the blondes he knows
every time he flows.
So put your hands together,
let’s hear it for The Reveller …
Girls say I look Italian
I wear a gold medallion
they ride me like a stallion:
bet on me daily
Kirsty and Kayley
Kylie and Hayley
Millie and Mai Li.
I have fun and games
remembering their names
but cos they sound the same
they never notice when
I cheer another femme
when I’m on top of them.
Talking of horses
bets and racecourses
cards and casinos
ask H if she knows
if they pawned my phone,
waiting on a loan,
crashed on my credits
dashed on my debits,
lend me fifty quid
won’t ya jelly squid,
Kylie’ll lend me
she owes me plenty
for her boob job
cost a few bob
what a huge flop,
now she can’t stand up
cos she’s a triple cup
but her affliction
fits her job description.
Talking of wages
I been owed ages
from the corner shop
where we used to pop
pills and wine tasted
we were well wasted
battered and basted
then we’d mob the pub
then a city club
to rub-a-dub-dub
up against a Kirsty
who is hot and thirsty.
Best of all parties
Stop the City marches
bang outside my work,
see me go berserk
door wide open
latest slogan
windows broken
end up in a fight
in a cell all night
an my purse was light,
but I wasn’t hindered
always been light-fingered,
boss got heavy-handed
challenged me red-handed
spent a fortnight stranded …
Then I moved to Southwark,
shacked up with a brother,
missus is my lover
rents a shop for cover,
only say I love her
so I get the sex free
but the blonde suspects me,
every day she texts me
says she wants my baby
and her name is Hayley.
Ello ello ello
here comes the ho
to get the cash I owe,
but I’m the gigolo
and you’ve got the dough
which means a battle so
the mic is fighting fit
to hear you spit some shit
on how I tricked your clit:
play the game, sister,
lay the blame, mister,
say the name, it’s The …
SHOOTER’S HILL
Joined-up Writing
Memory Anesu Sergeant
1.
My son’s a writer, aye, but he’ll not write
to me, his poor old mam. I could be dead
these twenty years, sat in this chair, bone white.
Detective novels. Crime pays, mam, he said.
Only in books. In life, you pay twice over,
you cannot close a chapter, purge a sin.
I wronged my laddie, Ollie, Oliver.
Oliver Robson. Have you heard of him?
You’ve not? You’re not from Tyneside are you, pet?
Milk, two sugars, boil the kettle, mind!
Ollie wrote seven books for Coronet,
his last one’s autographed, see here, it’s signed
Oliver Robson. Every paragraph
pure gold, a fortune in that autograph.
2.
She read her fortune in his autograph,
that Constance, but he’d not believe it, Ollie.
He got a grand advance for Epitaph
and bought this foisty townhouse to console me
after he married her, out of the blue.
Wouldn’t let me arrange it, his own mother,
church wedding and all. He said ‘I do’
knowing I disapproved. How could he love her?
She wasn’t bonny, always overdressed,
I’d never understand her when she spoke.
Not that I’m prejudiced, some of my best
friends are foreign. These days folk are folk
but then was different: Constance was coloured, brown,
a name so long you’d sweat to break it down.
3.
Didn’t belong, nigh verging on a breakdown
and Ollie such a softy. African.
She’d not talk much, her face a constant frown,
must have been pity made him take her hand –
raped, or so she said. We were dead close,
Ollie and me, until she came, from nowhere:
whole house smelt of sadza; all his clothes
designer labels; cut his bonny hair
and marched him off to church twice on a Sunday!
Ollie, the atheist, who had no shame.
She must have used Black Magic that dark day
to make him say I do and sign his name.
We all lived here, I had no choice, she’d won.
Aye, Constance gained, and me, I lost my son.
4.
That year, she gained three stone, gave birth: a son.
Maurice: the image of his da, abroad
plugging his latest book, but back home soon.
Only said three words, Constance: Praise the Lord.
The flowers arrived first. Chrysanthemums,
delphiniums. I treated them as mine,
pretended that his note had said, To Mam,
and saw her eyes well up, dark as the Tyne.
Next day, that slim blue envelope, first post.
I steamed it open, read his spiky hand:
My darling wife, Bless you! Now I’m the most
happy soul alive since God made man …
To see it written down, his love, his faith,
stabbed by his pen, I felt. Stabbed in the face.
5.
A stabbing pain the left side of my face,
I took a fresh white sheet and scrawled the line:
Dear Constance, Whore of Babylon, unchaste,
you lied about the rape, the child’s not mine …
I knew his hand, his long flamboyant ‘I’,
the exact angle, leaning to the right,
the mild slope of his ‘s’, his loopless ‘y’.
How could I not? I taught my son to write
his name when he was four. I trained his hand
to copy mine, letters with tiny tails
dying to be joined up – You must leave England
and take your bastard with you – cut his nails
to help his grip. Raised him for literature.
That fateful day I signed his signature.
6.
She fainted when she saw his signature …
I helped her pack her suitcase, paid the fare –
it cost a fortune, flight to Africa.
I would have topped myself. What saved her? Prayer.
Poured myself a Scotch, if truth be telt,
when I got back, sat in this armchair, pet,
the chair she fed the laddie in that smelt
of milk and sadza. I still smell it yet.
I let it ring when Ollie phoned that night,
headache so bad, I couldn’t take to bed.
He rang to say he’d just got off his flight –
each ring was like a stab wound in my head.
I heard the key, stood up, I don’t know how.
If there’s a God, I thought, God help me now!
7.
There is no God. Only you home helps now
who make weak tea and ask about my son.
There’s dust on the computer screen. God knows,
I’m fast forgetting how to switch it on.
It hurts my hands to use a mobile phone,
he’ll never ring it anyway, no doubt,
they’ll not have phones in Africa. Alone,
I’m dying a slow death since he walked out.
I trawl the bookshops searching for his name,
gold embossed letters lighting up a spine,
five hundred pages full of guilt and shame.
But naught in there comes equal to my crime:
I signed his name; betrayed, in black and white,
my son, the writer. No, pet, he’ll not write.
DARTFORD
What Do Women Like Bes’?
Mrs Alice Ebi Bafa
My name is Mrs Alice Ebi Bafa,
I come from Nigeria.
I’m very fine, isn’t it?
My nex’ birthday I’ll be … twenty-nine.
I’m business woman.
Would you like to buy some cloth?
I’ve all de latest styles from Lagos,
Italian shoe an’ handbag to match,
lace, linen an’ Dutch wax.
I only buy de bes’
an’ I travel first class.
Some say I have blood on my han’s
’cause I like to paint my nails red
but others call me femme fatale.
My father had four wives
so I’ve had five husband.
I cast a spell with my gap-tooth smile
an’ my bottom power!
Three were good and two were bad.
The first three were old and rich
an’ I was young and fit.
They died of exhaustion!
The first from Ghana, second Sierra Leone,
the third was white Englishman.
Short or tall, black or white,
I had race relations with dem.
They were quiet simple men
so I told lie to pepper de marriage.
Why you drink Guinness in my neighbour’s house-o?
Is she so fine in her Jimmy Shoe?
You go vex if I meet Justice Bafa
in Lagos bar and off my phone! Ah-ah!
Am I Delilah to cut off your head?
I accused them of fornication
when they could barely stand on their two legs.
To enter my good book, they go beg!
The fourth one was ladies’ man,
I could not count his women on one han’
but he’d rage if I looked at another man.
He puff his ches’ like King Solomon
with wife and concubine
but woman must be faithful and sober.
Such talk is not worth one kobo!
I am not a feminax,
I do not believe women are equal to men,
women are better!
Our chamber of Venus
is for both birth and pleasure.
I was very wild when I was young.
I was not considered a good wife
but I always respected my husban’.
He died when I returned from dis London.
The fifth one I married for love.
Chief Justice ‘Aboniki’ Bafa.
He was studying law at University of Ibadon.
He was not yet twenty-one,
wicked in bed and so handsome
but he liked pornographic magazine.
His favourite was Playboy.
One day I threw it on fire
to teach him a lesson.
He turned into wife batterer.
He was to regret his action.
I beat him till he begged for his ancestors!
Now we get on like house on fire.
Some say I’m a witchcraft
’cause I did not bear dem children.
They do not understand the Western medicine.
Since my first husban’, from Ghana,
I had freedom of procreation.
He wanted ten children to pass my hip
but I learnt how to wield de whip.
Ghana is very advanced,
the female owns the children not de male.
This is their folktale
I tell in my own tongue:
‘What Do Women Most Desire?’
A big man soldier
resided in king’s household.
But outside de compound
he saw small girl, fourteen years of age
and took her by force!
He was disgraced and sentenced to death!
The
y must cut off his … head.
In Ghana, woman was goddess.
But the queen pitied his sorrow,
she would spare his life
if he could answer question
What thing is it that women most desire?
in a year and tomorrow.
The soldier went on his two legs.
What do women like bes’?
Some said gold coin, or fine cloth,
some said man be chilli-pepper hot,
some said freedom, some said marriage,
some said we want husband think
we can keep secret to chest.
None were correct
and he failed the brain to guess.
The year end he mus’ return.
Off road he heard beating of drum
an’ saw plenty women, fit and young,
dancing in kente cloth,
traditional dress of Ghana.
They must give him answer.
But they disappeared into hot air.
Only an old old madame
suffering from eyes, leg rough like yam.
Greetings, Nana! I beg you your wisdom.
What is the greatest desire of women?
She smiled, I reveal secret!
But sozaboy, promise
to grant my bes’ wish.
He gives her his word.
The old madame is elated.
Nex’ day old and young congregated
to hear soldier response.
Even mosquito quiet for his reply:
Women desire to have sovereignty
over their husbands, or lovers.
They want to have mastery over him.
If I lie, I forfeit my head for sin.
The palace sings jubilation.
No woman can contradict him,
wife, widow or virgin.
But the old madame with eyes
must have her wish:
That he must take her hand in marriage!
He think say it worse than death
but soldier mus’ honour his debt.
That night old madame be smiling in bed.
It pain him to look his newlywed.
Husban’, pay your dues to wife!
Am I too poor for love?
I can amen’ myself, Sir,
but you must amen’ yourself also.
Your family not give virtue, dat from God.
Your pride not worth one cedi!
You say I old. Respect your elder!
And if I ugly, I not take lover.
Ugliness an’ age keep me chaste.
Still he refuse to look her face.
I make amen’, my husban’. Choose!
I remain ugly an’ old
an’ faithful to your body,
or young an’ fine and flirt any body …
What a dilemma!
He frown till he resemble old papa.
My wife, he says, Choose for your husband.
I place myself in your capable hands.
This so pleases the old old madame.
Kiss me, my husban’, so handsome!