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"These next three poems have been inspired by personal life experiences and the news.

They explore the theme of the Spoken Word, freedom of conscience, association, thought and of speech"- Lizzie 20.11.10

Real Voice - Opened

It was beating against the hardened walls, of a box

Jumping and struggling to break out. But I kept it

Neatly wrapped in, my real voice, hiding away

Under dusty layers, shadows of doubt.

It slid into that box 10 years ago when the older boy said, “Oi you, shut up!

You’ve nothing good to say” and ever since that day, my voice

Has been drowned.

Surging through my veins like electricity down a phone wire, or

Like a black Frankenstein, woken with jolts.

Passion fuses my heart with a purpose so electrifying and so highly charged, it gleams,

To come out.

Winding like a putrid smell, rising from the slab of a tomb, shut

Now prised open and, allowing in light.

Rising from the depths on an ocean heart, bringing forth light visions, of future and past.

Bruised lips, squeezing out spoken word, through a microphone burnt and decaying.

No longer allowing Sumo voices to wrestle, my one chance of speaking, away…

A flood of words like falling tears, or falling rain

Darting upon the drums, of where you hear sound

Feeding you my pent up pain

In doses of rhythm and melody,

Dealt, with each reverberating round.

So trample my quiet mind

And blot out, my weaker voice

Still, I don’t need to swear to avow.

Pandora’s been opened up
and stark words come soaring out in every variation, of sound.

You can’t crucify my wilting heart

Or peal away the open stage, from me, anymore.

My pressure pot’s boiled to the top, like it’s time to speak up

And I feel, no need, to implore.

And how, can you know, what I really want when you block

And barricade the transmission door,

Express highways are staying open all day, every day

From junction one to junction ninety- four.

My lungs expel and brain does tell (me)

That there’s room enough to talk, for us all

For if cats screech and, birds tweet

Why can’t we, be, allowed to exhale?

Bearing verbs of fire through an unlocked voice

Cutting at a barge of human ice…

All this time, I’ve been waiting for this miraculous moment where I,

Can close my eyes, and

Open my mouth

Let down my tongue, and

Just let my voice… finally, (blow) breathe.

Real Voice – Still locked in

Still locked in. Not my voice, but the tongues

Of many around the world. I see their pain,

And, their fortune calling.

As I scale the length, the breadth of the marble sky, I see them

Jumping and struggling, to break out.

Struggling against the megaphone of conformity, these voices have no names,

No labels… but, they know my name and, I hear their voice.

From lands of peaked hats to straight noses, people with long necks

To these with veiled faces. Their voices can’t speak out

They have veiled hope.

Blistered. And beaten until the sound jumped off of

Her tongue and hid within the chords of her throat.

Scarred and dragged till his tongue was striped deep with red, stripes

Filled in deep with scorn.

(Even the wind whistled and cried out.)

Kicked in dirt and poked with coal

Until his breath collapsed, exhausted back, into his arbitrary lungs.

Pierced and lacerated, flogged…

Because they refused to sing their song.

A thousand trampled voices – all sprawled out across grey floors,

Ten thousand weeping voices that just couldn’t take life, anymore

Ten voices stoned. Left broken by the road.

These are the voices of those who fought back,

Of those who’ve become ignored.

These are the tongues of thought- pioneers turned prisoners,

And the voices of the innocent child.

These are the breath of the visionary spirits

And the dying boxed souls of the world.

Then, there are the voices of those left

Echoing in a hollow room because they’re trapped in boxes of their own.

Of multi-layered velvet sheets, hung like a veil

But not to cover, gloomy smoke filling their tired lungs.

The darkroom of their fears develop, their negatives she no light

The pricking in their thoughts like their consciousness, prevents all words

From coming out.

Panning, I spy a familiar voice familiar voice although it holds a different form. Causing body quakes that move to shake and crack the hearts of man.

Stirring. Like a vicious torrent, sweeping nations

With curt words. Curtailing like a mighty whirlwind,

Throughout the unknown world,

A voice that curls the toes of others whose political consciousness, is too smart

Boxing, palm like voices

Behind the steel of human hearts.

Voices that would be free to tell, of travesty and change

Salubrious minds that would leave drops of insight,

Upon hungry tongues throughout their land.

Voices channelling energy. Into overflowing liberation song

And those, painting the with the colour of the imagination upon

The walls of opened minds.

But these voices,

Of people with straight noses and people with long necks, those with veiled faces to those, with peaked hats

Are still locked away- in hiding, inside solitary holes.

Their tongues scratching, ever silently struggling, secretly to get out.

Voices – Unleashed

Set loose like a scorpion’s tail, the unleashed tongues do damage. Whip lashing young minds into a smoke filled world,

Where reality consists of violence, and not courage.

Swaggering, noxiously from the reinforced box that contained it, this many years

It escapes suddenly like snake venom from a ghettoes mouth,

Polluting and abusing the air.

Riding upon tight beats, flying out with the popular sound,

Ministering hate, not peace.

Incubating, “breakdown”, “breakdown”.

These beguiling voices unleashed, leading smiling voices astray,

Performing rabbit tricks, but no one told the crowd that rabbits don’t have to be grey

And even the voice itself, was deceived.

Gathering, rattling tongues that lie

And soiled, dank voices throughout dry lands.

Hailing down, a barrage of bleak verbs,

Till barrenness sweeps across the earth.

Joined by armies of sharp tongues, causing conflict with the sharpness of their tips.

Plus the voices of those publicly warring, like urine left open on the street.

And the tongues of those who govern, not the land but their riches,

Depended by unschooled prep tongues

And domestic voices of verbal violence.

Flipped one hundred and eighty degrees south, I am bringing you to your North.

Because the scene created by these tongues

Has let its fire singe, your thoughts.

Form a Pandora that should have kept shut,

If it could contain the heat of their words.

Instead they smouldered their cage and turned,

Their malignant message on us.

But like the good story goes, there has escaped a vibe of hope, coming from the

Tongues of unlocked voices, voices that spoke through their veiled hope.

Purity of the spoken word is the weapon that they chose.

Slicing through the unleashed tongues

Knocking back their unleashed words,

Real voices, opened up, bringing visions form the clouds.

Contending with bloodied voices, which mount up and then are, struck down.

Observing the earth my unlocked voice, sees the voices and I see, the choice.

The unleashed tongues or my real voice,

I decide to join the lighter force.

And so, high above the transmission of the unleashed, unwashed verbs,

Real voices

Are speaking and their new tongues, fill the earth.

For through all the word bog mire, and all the verbs, form A to Z,

Unlocked minds and souls and voices, throughout the world

Begin to free.

Set loose like a scorpions tail, the unleashed tongues no longer

Do damage. For they’ve been boxed in, by the purity of the spoken word,

Of real voices.

Uncle

They told me my uncle was a monster

And I believed them too

I saw his menacing Black face in the paper

And on the evening news.

And he deserved to be locked up

No pity for a man whose skin was so dark

And whose hands were so large

They told me my uncle was a monster

Crazed look, eyes screwed, ruff hair

But they forgot to report the breakdown

In his mind

That got him there

They forgot to tell that his medication stopped

And that he wasn’t referred for care

They forgot to tell that he cried for help

But was told – there’s no help for you here

They forgot to say

That he was normal once

And that I used to curl up on his knees

They forgot to say

That he longed to learn and wanted to do a degree

They forgot to say that he’s been here for long

Yet his neighbour’s don’t know his name

They forgot to mention that he used to live close by

And that he is my mother’s younger brother’s best friend

They forgot to say that he once had a family too

A little son

Who used to call him dad.

They forgot to report

That when they took his son away he was never again

Quite right in the head

They forgot to say that his favourite sport is football

And that he likes garlic mayonnaise with his chips

They forgot to say that although he looks big and scary

In his mind he’s still like a kid.

They told me my uncle was a monster

And I believed them too

I can still see his picture right up on the screen, each night on the evening news.

Let My Body Go

Let my body go

That I might worship Him.

With my afro freed from texturizer and the oppression of gel

Like a proud Olive tree in the sun

Let my body go.

Let my body go

That I might worship Him

With feet bare and glorious brown

Un-shackled from the buckles of four- inch designer heels

Let my body go

That I might worship Him

In Label-less skin

Un-branded by colours and names

Except my own

Let my body go

That I might worship Him

With a lipstick free smile

Sweet as honey and milk

Let my body go

That I might worship Him

In clothes not fashioned by a man

I have not known

Who has eyes but cannot see

My cries

Dumb

To my mercy pleas

To be liberated from fashions that tempt and

Squeeze me out of my innocence

Let my body go

That I might worship

In a range where the- seasons

Adorn my face.

Let my body go.

Blazing Eyes

They blink.

Eyes blazing like a Mexican bull,

In the darkness.

Angry tyres shock me into standing still.

Like a ball shot clear of a cannon

It goes

Flying furiously to get home.

My shopping bag slips

As fruit tins roll out unto the glistening road

I look

And see a signature of smoke...

The only trail left

By the beast of the road.

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