Graffiti Artist

​I am the ghost 

flitting from underpass to underpass

unseen

spray can in hand - the tools of my trade,

a tiny marble inside.

Shake it

hear my rattling heart 

arming the tools

used to cover the walls.

With a storm of cobalt blue or feusha pink

under the press of a finger

I write a city’s shorthand.

An artform sprayed upon a city's cold grey concrete canvasses.

I don't speak in whispers;

I speak in sudden sharp hisses, 

and suddenly 

a wall becomes a piece of art,

a distraction over which to muse,

I release the vaporised colour

that turns a dull afternoon into a streak of lightning!

​I am a rebel on a citys margins

where the alphabet is twisted into wild

colourful 

tangled knots.

Mystical phrases

unknown words,

​I am a secret handshake

known only by a few

viewed from a passing train

a hissing signature 

left by a soulless face.

My art is not for everone.

I am not what the major arthouses welcome - although my art is available in public

with no entrance fee

I'm not main-stream!

I turn the everyday into art - unappreciated by many,

frowned upon by most,

and criminalised by society, 

I am forced into the

nightime shadows

I always polarise - artistic expression,

or criminal damage?

What do you think?

This (Nonsense) Tale

This tale I tell is almost true 

let me read it silently to you

It's history; so it's all correct

the facts are wrong - I've double checked!

​Watching a heavy balloon; fly

'cross a low and towering sky

I took a hike across the floor

beyond the open bolted door

where the giant grains of sand

blew along a sheltered strand

while a fish sat clapping hands

listening to elastic bands

'neath the gloomy summer sky

two plastic chairs were piled high

I felt a muted trumpet blare

and blow my wig into the air

through a golden moon-lit morn

from this country; foreign-born

stationary I won the race

to find this crowded; empty place

come read about my tangled life

through the darkness - trouble and strife ...

Anecdotes; never over-sold

this my faithful history's bold

no tale as true as I've just told!

Change

Change is the only constant.

Change is inevitable.

Change is the river that stays in the same place

while never being of the same water.

​It starts in the way a child’s new shoes soon pinch their feet,

it is the soft face 

sharpening into rugged mountains of grown-up choices,

decisions to be made

or flights to book and pay for.

We go to sleep in a warm

soft 

comfy bed

provided by our loving parents

and wake up as a adult

with responsibilities,

commitments 

and with sheets to wash and beds to make

wondering where the hell the magic of 'make-believe' went.

​Change is our shifting skylines.

​Cities like a slow-motion earthquakes,

are distroyed and rebuilt.

The friendly corner shop where you bought sweets

is now an international chain-store

a steel and glass tower 

reaching for the sky

brick is the ghost of our neighbourhoods 

their whispers heard under the hum of the trains on the newly built railway.

Lifes map in our heads is always five years behind the reality.

The fields of five years ago

are now the housing estates of today.

​Hear the quiet rustle of a page 

from the history books

turned in a library

telling stories of power

power moving like a tide,

rushing in

then falling back to reveal the wreckage of what was,

rushing in to drown the old statues we knew and  respected.

What was once,

is now a memory.

What was once whispered in the street,

is now the anthem of the time.

​How do we prevent change?

We can't!

We can try to grab hold of dry sand,

but soon learn - for the secret is in the leaning

and we deal with it by building bridges out of the bomb site that was the past,

by the plants growing in the cracks of the recently laid concrete,

and by learning that the heart

is the only thing,

fragile enough

emotional enough - yet flexible enough 

...to survive it all.

​Change can feel overwhelming - or beautiful,

depending on how you look at it.

Social Media - An Uncurated Life

Social media has become the untutored scrolling thumb of a restless time-traveler.

​Children carry the scales by which they seek to be measured in their pockets.

A vital glowing screen 

that tells them their worth in the eyes of strangers - before they have even measured their own thoughts.

​A yardstick no longer made of wood 

or sense

or logic - but made of noughts and ones

and which gives approval in numbers

a shifting measure where the scales move

every time a stranger from a different country approves - or disapproves!

​No-one even checks the sky to see if it is morning

checking instead their feed to see if they are relevant first.

Approval is a ghost they chase through a hall of smoke and mirrors.

Not the thrill of a race well run,

not the slow reading of a book,

read,

absorbed,

finished,

understood and enjoyed - but a quick, 

hollow hit of number chasing.

​Any achievement is lost.

The "best" is a cold, 

tall peak

where the air is too thin for a child to breathe,

yet they climb,

measuring their soft, 

growing bones

against the steel architecture of a curated lie.

The beautiful sunset seen from the peak of the understanding of the book 

is ignored for the sake of its very likeness 

created on a screen

by a computer 

from somewhere in the world.

​We have taught the child to outsource their joy,

to hand their compass to a machine

that doesn't even know what real joy is.

They stand in the center of their own bright lives,

waiting for a world they cannot touch - and that they cannot have,

to tell them they have finally arrived.

The idea that this arrival 

or that a definition of joy 

is now something determined by an algorithm 

on a server 

on the other side of our world

rather than by the person who is looking into this mirror.

This is not something 

as adults

we should ever ignore

and is not something we should ever walk away from.

Getting Old - No More To Return

​Old age happens when you're not looking.

It happens with recurring events 

like; January snow 

long hot summer days

and you no longer celebrating birthdays.

It doesn't come with the crackle of fireworks

more; the way a river reshapes a stone over time - persistently 

quietly and unnoticed.

Finally the stones sharp edges become smooth,

like it would fit more comfortably into the palm of your hand.

​Although the reflection in the mirror becomes a stranger

that too becomes more comfortable to you over time

telling you the truth - even though you don't want it,

nor did you ask for it.

Your face becomes softer

telling your story

the story of who you are - who you were.

Lines in the corners of your eyes

tell of times of sun

of times your heart was

full of joy  - as well as full of hurt.

​Your knees have an uncomfortable language of their own.

'Clicks' and 'cracks' cause groans and sighs

which speak of miles walked and burdens carried.

Lifes pace slows,

time seems burdensome - there's not enough it

yet somehow; too much of it.

The inevitable destination 

not being further away

simply; you slowing down and the littlest of things demaning more attention than they used to.

​There are things to let go of.

Things that previously seemed important 

now; seems less so.

The need to be the loudest,

to have the newest,

the fastest,

the largest - are now not so important.

The heavy armor we used to wear to keep the world out,

now sits uncomfortably about our shoulders.

And why is the air cooler?

Is the skin more delicate,

or is the once flowing hair now thinner and more grey?

And that silence inbetween words

is no longer an uncomfortable empty space,

more a joy,

a refuge,

like a comfortable chair where you can finally sit down and rest.

​The light too is different at certain hours.

Where once uncomfortably bright - it now glows,

turning the everyday ordinary;

into gold.

You notice the stars have come out

with a calling to look up 

and gaze

and wonder

and enjoy the light

before it fades one more time - no more to return.

Being British

I am British,

but what does that mean?

Where did I come from; and

...who am I?

Let's start with the map of my blood-line - just after the earth thawed.

This changed many shorelines under; many tides.

I came walking over the now lost expanse of 'Doggerland',

blue-eyed and dark-skinned.

I carried flint in my hand.

 

Moving like a slow wave from the warmer Eastern climes,

​I am now the farmers.

I carry with me the secret of the seed 

I am the heavy stone to turn the soil of my chalky downlands.

I built circles to worship the sun

I added a sprinkle of knowledge brought by the Beaker people,

their use of copper 

and their 'Eurasian' songs which were sung.

Together we rewrote the genetic code of the whole of my island - and all in just a few hundred years!

I was a genetic flood 

a tide that never really turned.

​I built my story in many layers.    I am 'Celtic' with added iron-age. I am 'Celtic' innovation and agriculture - but I am also Roman.               

My dead straight roads brought the world to my gate 

as well as my soldiers from the Rhine.  

I became merchants from the 'Atlas Mountains'.

I am 'Angles', 'Saxons' and 'Jutes'

carving my names into the very soil on which you stand.

Names featuring 'Ham', 'Ton', and 'Ley'

turning my island into a patchwork quilt of kingdoms

before came the dragon-ships ...and I became Viking!

I planted the Norse roots in me, into the cold northern soil. 

Hear the many vowels which can still be heard on my tongue.

​Later I am Norman. 

I became a builder of stone towers 

and I took their Latin word 

changing my tongue 

...but not my heart 

and that tide; also never turned!

So who am I, 

what does 'British' mean?

I am as British is the Huguenot weaver.

I am the fleeing Jew

running from persecution - and who is still running.

I am the 'Windrush' generation.

Hopeful souls who came on ocean liners from the colonies - to build a better life.

I am the doctor from Punjab, 

the sailor from Canton.

I am a small part of everything they brought.

I am a trillion drops of rain that became an ocean.

I belong to nowhere - because I come from everywhere.

I am the strong "island nation".

I am the "genetic mosaic" which covers this islands floor.

I have been made over thousands of years

I am migration of all kinds - the result of immigrants 

and that is what I feel

that is what I mean by...

being British