Come on Everybody

by Adrian Mitchell

  bears a picture of

  my shining face

  and from my northwest

  London base

  I can ride a bus

  to any place

  wearing my crown

  of silver hair

  and having to pay

  no fucking fare

  Sorry Stuff

  sad is the toilet on the train

  with newspapers all clogged up

  sad the forgotten weetabix

  when all its milk is sogged up

  but sadder still the daffodil

  which William Wordworth squashes

  wandering lonely as a clown

  in his size twelve galoshes

  O sorry is as sorry does

  and I am super-sorry-full

  the tears of years of foolish fears

  O I have wept a lorryful

  Student

  sometimes my dog is lionlike

  facing me one ear a little bit upraised,

  licking her black lips and studying me

  as I unscrew a bottletop, take a white pill

  and slew it down with water

  as if she’s studying how to be a human being

  she drinks in everything she’s seeing

  Wishing

  Wish I had the head of a golden retriever

  With floppy ears and a black, wet nose

  Everyone on earth would have to believe a

  Poet creature with features like those.

  The Poet Inside

  It was a loving and a gentle dog

  Padded over the floor to me

  She waved her tail a dozen times

  And placed her chin upon my knee

  A captive poet seemed to stare out

  Of the deep brownness of her eyes

  Longing to sing her golden songs

  But all that she could speak were sighs.

  Not Much of a Muchness

  I think I’ll go flying this afternoon

  I didn’t know you flew

  O I can fly any time I like

  But not in front of you

  Lighting Candles for Boty

  because I believe in light

  not for god’s eyes

  but for the eyes of people

  because I believe in

  candles against the darkness

  because candlelight recalls her beauty

  February 12th, 1996

  (for Boty’s 30th birthday)

  stone breaks

  and the bone breaks

  but the heart embraces the pain it is bearing

  if only the heart could break

  instead of tearing

  The Unbroken Heart

  the heart may alter

  the heart will falter

  little by little

  the heart may be worn

  or battered and torn

  but it is not brittle

  with its nine lives

  the heart survives

  though it is torn apart

  it’s last to die

  with our last sigh

  forgive me, says the heart

  Advertising Will Eat the World

  Death in his infinite mercilessness

  Takes the girl in the orange dress

  And sends the drug to cure the pain in the head

  Two years after the patient’s dead.

  Grief is such a physical thing

  the law of gravity is doubled

  whatever is almost touched falls to the floor

  everything is heavier

  especially the head

  the kneecaps and the eyeballs melt

  if anyone should sing

  grief is such a physical thing

  On the Deadophone

  my job as a poet

  part of my job

  is talking to the dead

  part of my job

  is listening to the dead

  they tell me all sorts of stuff

  on the deadophone

  some of it I’m not allowed to tell you

  some of it I’m ordered to tell you

  but not allowed to say where it comes from

  sometimes they keep waking me up

  with that verr verr verr verr deadophone

  sometimes I ask a really important question

  and they hang up on me clunk

  sometimes I get a lot of conversations at once

  like gnats swarming round my head

  sometimes all I get is engaged

  or the sound of a snake hissing

  Apart from My Day Job

  In the train back from Cardigan passing

  the cow sheds

  the bull sheds

  a big red shed that must have been the Dragon Shed

  It was also my job

  to look out of train windows

  to record the fields unfolding

  field after field

  and the bright blue ditch

  striking straight towards the hills

  and the proud house carved out of white money

  and a flock of grazing caravans

  and a single inexplicable ten foot penguin

  standing in the shadow of an old Welsh hedge

  It was also my job

  to record the poison yellow boiled-sweet neon streetlamps

  and the grey wrinkled flanks of enormous sheds

  in which giants or dragons might be secretly breeding

  and the anti-matter spaces of gravel and old green tins

  and the contemptuous advertisements outshining the moon

  Or Something

  Sometimes I think the world’s my cheeseburger

  Sometimes I think it’s iceberg time

  Sometimes I feel like a Victorian tricycle

  Sometimes I feel like a robot pantomime

  Sometimes I’m awash with anger or something

  I wish I could change my flesh into a landscape

  A useful old park where my friends could stroll

  I wish I could turn my words into musicians

  Playing dark blue jazz red rock n roll

  So we could dance The Love or something

  I’m the People’s Hippo, the Geezer from the Freezer

  Dumping nightmare rubbish in the Werewolf Wood.

  What did you say, Miss Earthquake?

  Has the Killer Caterpillar gone for good?

  It’s a rainy day and the forecast is rain and it’s raining hate or love or something

  Selfepitaphs

  I Was Lucky

  That’s all. It was good.

  Love was a planet

  full of amazing creatures.

  This Death is only a dark little town,

  in a country, in a continent,

  on a planet full of amazing creatures,

  a planet called love.

  Alternative Selfepitaph

  I stopped living

  but kept on loving

  FOR THE AFRICAN CENTURY

  ‘Being certain that not always were we the children of the abyss, we will do what we have to do to achieve our own renaissance. We trust that what we will do will better not only our own condition as a people, but will make a contribution also, however small, to the success of Africa’s renaissance, towards the identification of the century ahead of us as the African Century.’

  President Thabo Mbeki at his Inauguration on 12 June 1999

  Here in My Skin of Many Colours

  here in my skin

  my redwhite skin

  will, in a thousand ways,

  guard me, advance me,

  promote me and reward me

  reassuring to some

  a warning to others

  till I am dead

  and colour-free

  I never chose it

  from the flesh boutique

  it looks too much like

  butcher’s meat

  now I inspect my hands for colours

  a purple-pink knuckle

  viol
et fingernails with creamy cuticles

  golden hair sprouting

  from the back of the first joint of each finger

  rivery blue veins

  running downhill from my thumbs

  light pink merging into dark pink dips

  dark pink merging into light brown furrows

  light brown merging into medium brown

  all the tints altering

  in warmth and cold

  all the tints altering

  with the altering light

  these are my colours

  till the day I die

  these are my colours

  till I whiten into ghostliness

  Malawi Poems

  The Radio Thief

  They caught a man in our village

  The other night

  He broke a window and stole a radio

  They caught him and poured petrol on him

  And took out their matches –

  You’re going to die!

  I couldn’t watch

  I ran away

  That’s what we do with thieves

  We burn them

  Or chop off their hands like this

  Or take pins

  And go pee! pee!

  In both their eyes –

  Now you can’t see to steal!

  Nowadays we all take care to keep

  A litre can of petrol in our homes.

  You have many thieves in England?

  African Elephants

  at the first sight of elephants

  our boat fell silent

  close to each other, touching each other,

  taking note of us, warning their children

  standing so calmly

  dark as charcoal

  it was a deep and holy silence

  inhabiting all five humans

  only the almost submerged hippo flotilla

  hooted its derision

  The Beautiful Ghosts

  The fortresses of Rosebank

  Shine in the sunlight

  The fortresses of Rosebank

  Shine in the moonlight

  And there’s a smell of money in the air

  And there’s a smell of tear-gas in the air

  And there’s a smell of panic in the air

  And here come the ghosts

  Through the high white walls

  And the spiky railings

  Here come the ghosts

  Through the curling razor wire

  And the signs saying Armed Response

  Yes, here come the ghosts

  Zooming on transparent motorbikes

  Swooping in transparent feathered wings

  Here come the ghosts

  Weeping with joy

  Laughing with sorrow

  Here come the ghosts

  Like an amazing rainfall

  Upon the sunlit, moonlit

  Fortresses of Rosebank

  Here come the beautiful ghosts of Afrika

  Scattering from their delicate hands

  Ghostly black roses,

  Black roses everywhere

  [Rosebank, Johannesburg, February 1997]

  A Song for Thabo Mbeki

  Out of the enormous shadow

  of the beloved tree

  he walks into the ferocious light

  vultures clack their cynical beaks

  hyenas tingle with greed for his flesh

  but the elephants raise their trunks in hope

  the eyes of the mountains slowly open wide

  he walks into the light

  into the fierce light of work

  to grow whatever can be grown

  to save whatever can be saved

  to heal whatever can be healed

  to free whatever can be freed

  he has walked by moonlight

  he has walked through the mists of morning

  he has walked through dirty warm rain in the cities

  and icy clean rain upon the mountains

  now

  out of the enormous shadow

  of the beloved tree

  he walks into the ferocious light

  [Pretoria, 16 June 1999]

  A Poem for Nomtha

  My name is Nomtha.

  Will you write a poem about my name?

  Nomtha means sunrise.

  Nomtha is the rays of the sun.

  Nomtha stands for hope.

  The eyes of Nomtha,

  So wide and dark,

  Shine their light upon me

  Like beautiful twin planets.

  The golden fingers of the sun

  Close around my heart.

  Nomtha tells me a poem.

  Her poem is for peace.

  She longs for the wounds of Africa

  To be washed and healed.

  Next day I shut my eyes

  And, in a Nomtha vision of hope,

  I see Nomtha walking

  Down the pathway

  Leading to peace and justice.

  I see her smiling as she bandages

  The broken arm of an old woman by the path.

  I see her stoop to a motherless baby

  And lift it up and comfort it with songs.

  I hear her telling stories to a little boy

  To give his tired legs courage on the long long journey.

  I see Nomtha and her friends stand on that pathway

  Protecting the weak from men with whips and guns.

  I see Nomtha walking down that pathway

  And I see the sun of peace and justice

  Blessing her with its rays

  As it rises over her beloved Africa.

  [Guguletu, Cape Town, 1998]

  SHOWSONGS

  Shake My Soul

  O shake my soul with sweetness

  Good guitar

  Yes shake my soul with sweetness

  Good guitar

  I know what life is

  I have held a guitar

  And played it till it rang

  I know what life is

  I know what life is

  I have held a baby

  And rocked it till it sang

  I know what life is

  A dance and a song

  Doesn’t last very long –

  O shake my soul with sweetness

  Good guitar

  Yes shake my soul with sweetness

  Good guitar…

  Four Windows

  Living in a house with four windows

  Eating in a house with four windows

  Loving in a house with four windows

  Sleeping in a house with four windows

  Eastern window and I slide back the screen

  Springtime landscape of brilliant green

  Cherry blossoms a pink and white dream

  Willows tickling a swivelling stream

  My window in springtime

  Southern window – the pond has displayed

  Water-lilies of every shade

  Frogs are croaking around the blue rim

  Blazing waterbirds skitter and skim

  My window in summer

  North window

  East South and West

  Which window

  Do I love best?

  Western window – each autumn the same,

  Forests wearing kimomos of flame,

  Scarlet maples and swallows must fly

  And chrysthemums perfume the sky

  My window in autumn

  Northern window – a shivering sight

  All the countryside covered in white

  Snow keeps falling and waterways freeze

  And deer are eating the bark from the trees

  My window in winter

  North window

  East South and West

  Which window

  Do I love best?

  Living in a house with four windows

  Four beautiful windows…

  Orpheus Sings

  (based on a painting by Roelant Savery

  in t
he Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge).

  Guitar in his hands

  Leaning on an Elephant

  Orpheus sings

  A Wolfhound and St Bernard

  At his knees

  A grey Ox

  Cocks his ear

  Two Swans

  Lift their snaking heads

  Towards the music

  The Geese are paddling in the shallows

  Gathering peppery green weeds

  A flowering Ostrich on a rock

  Throws back her wings

  In ecstasy

  The Waterfall bounces

  Silver notes

  A Leopard reclining

  Like a streamlined blonde

  A Lion and Lioness

  Roll their golden eyes

  A Heron taking off

  On a journey to the hidden stars

  The Peacock flaunts

  His starry blue

  Waterfall of a tail

  A million Birds

  In proud mid-flight

  Scattering their colours

  All over the sky

  A lurking Buffalo

  With guilty eyes