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Tagged: poetry

Jun 29

The Nod

Pride month draws to a close this weekend, so I thought I’d post this poem as a thank you to all those who have gone before me, and made my path safer as a result. I know I have a responsibility to keep making it safer for the generation after me, and I hope I am doing that in some small way. The poem is called The Nod, and the words are below if you need them.

We were walking in town my wife and I,
When an older gay couple caught my eye.
For a moment as they walked right by,
One looked straight at me, nodded and smiled.
I nodded right back and then thought as I walked,
How those nods weren’t just nods they were so much more…

A representation, a kind of me too,
A way of saying there are others like you.
That the path has been made and you’ll find your way,
That you’re not on your own, you’re not walking alone.

An affirmation of the love we’ve all found,
Shouted from rooftops without making a sound.
A celebration of love that was formed through struggle,
Refined by fire, flowers pushing through rubble.

A thank you for all you had to go through,
The battle you fought just to be you.
Your fight means I can be who I am,
That I can walk with my wife hand in hand.

I hope you remembered as you walked past,
That because of you every ceiling has smashed.
Please know that in us your legacy lasts,
That all you hoped for has come to pass.

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Mar 24

Our Love Story* (*as told by WhatsApp)

It was my 8th wedding anniversary recently (11 years together!) and I was inspired to write this by another social media post I’d seen. If you press play below you can hear me introducing the poem which will help it to make sense! I really like how this poem captures the love in its most ordinary sense, the everyday, mundane moments alongside the life-altering, earth-shattering ones, good and bad.

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May 24

Hall Pass

I’m in my primary school hallway
Council coloured walls and closed doors
Between classrooms standing on coffee stained floors 
A gateway

Lessons are in session but I’ve got the principal’s blessing
A hall pass of sorts permission to explore
To wander and ponder and search for more
An adventure 

I’ve never been out of place in these liminal spaces 
Always sat on the edges always outside the fences
Finding friends as I walk this way – a kid sent out, another running late
Familiar faces

Did I mention I stole that hall pass while in detention?
An open store cupboard door I just couldn’t ignore
It was a dance between chance and circumstance
Divine intervention 

So when they try to keep you confined
When they insist you must fit and colour inside the lines
Resist it and show them a different existence 
A life undefined 

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May 01

#NewProfilePic

This spoken word poem below was inspired by this photo, taken by my wife while we were on a weekend away recently.

It became more than a photo and took on a deep meaning for me – how sometimes just smiling and living fully are acts of rebellion against all the despair and hopelessness we can sometimes experience in our lives or read about on the news. Not many of us have had an easy time in the last few years, and sometimes it’s just lovely when a moment of joy like this is captured.

I hope it inspires you to be you, to recognise joy when it finds you, to live fully, and to love your imperfections and quirks! The full words to the poem are below the film if you need them.

I uploaded a new profile pic today,
The one I made you take.
The one where I sat with my back to those cool wooden slats and you made me laugh,
Reminiscing about that clip from that show on Netflix.
I realised how brilliant it is to exist.
How existence is resistance to all the shit-ness I’ve witnessed,
My smiling an uprising an insistence of aliveness.

I uploaded a new profile pic today,
The one I made you take.
No I’m not holding a mic and it’s not with my wife or my kids,
Ok I don’t have any but if I did,
They wouldn’t be in a picture or a visual description of me,
They wouldn’t define who I am or who I can be, don’t you see?
I’m enough when alone I have worth on my own.

I uploaded a new profile pic today,
The one I made you take.
Light is shining right above my head,
A reminder a spotlight on the good times ahead,
Or the divine guidance and kindness that’s been mine every step.
There’s a part like a shard that’s pierced the darkness,
Just a shimmer just a glimmer but it still softens the starkness.

I uploaded a new profile pic today,
The one I made you take.
It shows my tattoos including the one that’s still new,
Like me not yet healed and it’s partly concealed its design not quite yet fully revealed.
If you zoomed in you’d see wrinkles and dimples, crinkles and pimples, imprints on my skin,
But these marks are battle scars I’ve made my peace with.

I uploaded a new profile pic today,
The one I made you take.
And okay I’ll spend way too much of my day, having a play in Photoshop
But I won’t change, rearrange or display what I’m not.
Maybe a filter is needed, some aligning and refining,
Some shifting and lifting and colour defining.
But this picture will still be the real me,
Both who I am now and who I’m trying to be.

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Mar 30

Holding Hope

Hope is heavy.
Sometimes I cannot hold it.
My arms ache with the weight of it.
I have to let it go,
Let it drop to the ground,
Embrace the free-fall. 

In the letting go,
In the slow motion of the fall,
I notice someone who loves me,
Catching it, holding it, protecting it.
Keeping it safe,
Until I am strong enough to hold it for myself.

What else can love be?
We hold hope for each other,
When we cannot hold it for ourselves.
We raise it high above our heads,
We become the searchlight, the beacon, the lighthouse.
Until the darkness lifts.

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Feb 18

Unravelling

I keep thinking at the moment about the word unravel/unravelling, and how it has so many distinct meanings. When something is unravelling it can be hugely destructive as it comes apart and is destroyed, perhaps never being able to be put together in the same way or for the same function. There are also positive meanings, perhaps an unravelling being an unveiling or revealing of something that was previously hidden or unseen. I think an unravelling also provides the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the parts of something and what makes it work. This poem is about trying to capture some of those different meanings, particularly how they might relate and apply when our own lives feel as if they are unravelling.

I am unravelling,
I wonder what kind of unravelling it will be.

Will I come apart at the seams,
Insides split open, completely revealed.
A deconstructing disruption,
A rupture, a ruction,
A demising, dismantling, total destruction.

I am unravelling,
I wonder what kind of unravelling it will be.

Will I sever, untether what I know should never
Have ever been threaded together,
A separating, a disintegrating.
Remaking, replacing,
They start with a breaking.

I am unravelling,
I wonder what kind of unravelling it will be.

Will I finally start to see,
As all that’s concealed is gently revealed.
A code that’s cracked after loads of hard graft,
Unfurling, unfolding,
The veil drawn back.

I am unravelling,
I wonder what kind of unravelling it will be.

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Feb 10

The Cathedral

This one felt important to post this week, with everything going on in the Church of England around inclusion, or lack of it. I don’t take for granted how lucky I am to be part of a church where ‘there’s nowhere I can’t go’, and I hope one day, that’s the experience of everyone.

A shaky old man put the welcome pamphlet into my hands.
With a smile for a while he told me facts and stats,
Asked where I was from, asked why I’d come.

I didn’t know, I guess I was just passing by,
A tourist just curious and this place looked glorious from outside.
But I realised why as he spoke his reply.

He said it so casually, passively, with a blind kind of apathy,
“Just so you know, there’s nowhere you can’t go.”
I looked him in the eye, this time my turn to smile,
I said “thank you, I know.”

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Jan 31

Wreckage

I saw it coming.
In that moment of slow motion as it got closer,
I had only seconds for preventions and protections.

I checked my seatbelt was clicked into place.
I slammed on the brakes, I tensed up and I braced,
Breath bated I waited and then it came.

It collided into my side.
Glass shattering metal clattering my body taking a battering,
Then it went quiet.

I realised as I breathed in relief I’m alive,
That despite all I’d done to ensure I’d survive,
The crash had still come and the damage was done.

Some things can’t be won, undone or outrun,
No matter how much you’ve overcome.
They’ll find you and hide you and one day they’ll try to
Make you the wreckage you crawled out from.

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Jan 28

Bread

I see you.  
First to arrive, last to leave.
You start in the dark, while the world still sleeps.
Your hands, sore from mixing, kneading, shaping, baking.

I see it.
The bread you make, broken over a table.
The central element, a family staple.
Torn and toasted, sliced and fried.
Smothered in butter, it satisfies.

Don’t forget.
It’s ok, to take from the table you bake for.
To enjoy the fruits of your labour.
To lay down that apron, to say what you came for.
Take, tear, receive. 
This is your feast to eat. 

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Posted in Poetry

Jan 14

This Is My Voice

I think the angry, rap-metal loving skater girl I used to be in my teenage years would love this one! It was so cathartic to write and record – there’s something so powerful about speaking out words that acknowledge experiences or people that may have tried to silence or gaslight me in the past.

This is my voice
And I know what it’s like to lose it
So I choose to use it I refuse to diffuse it and you will listen.

Cause you can’t buy my silence
And I won’t be compliant won’t be a liar.
I won’t make tweaks to what I’ve said I’ll speak
You can’t edit or take credit for this testimony.

This is my voice
And I know what it’s like to lose it
So I choose to use it I refuse to diffuse it and you will listen.

I bet you’ll make threats but what you shouldn’t forget
Is that truth can’t be changed rearranged or reset.
You say hold back don’t attack think of the impact
Well fuck that.

This is my voice
And I know what it’s like to lose it
So I choose to use it I refuse to diffuse it and you will listen.

And I won’t just write these words down, oh no…

I’ll speak them out I’ll shout them loud
I’ll drown you out and I’ll do it proud
Won’t stop it won’t drop it till you’re shutdown.

This is my voice
And I know what it’s like to lose it
So I choose to use it I refuse to diffuse it and you will listen.

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