Secret Agent Artist

One afternoon, in the middle of delivering
a poetry workshop, my mother appears
and without even knocking (as usual,
of course) shoulders her way in.

She stands, Marks and Spencers coated,
sensibly shoed and commanding
the full attention of the entire group,
announces quite simply: “Lydia.

Your father and I are getting divorced”.
Nobody says anything. My mother
pulls up a chair and makes herself
comfortable, arms folded over lap,

2 huge, bulging bags placed like sphinxs
round a throne - the room’s paused.
My mother says: “I can wait-
or you can just give me the keys.”

****

My boyfriend is a terrorist.
We’ve been together 6 years
but one day, when we’re in the sky
flying over Tokyo, he stands up

and tells everyone that
despite all this time
appearing to work in
Literature Development

having a degree in Media Studies
an MA in narrative theory - and no interest
whatsoever in any kind of religion
he’s actually been a member of the Mujahadeen.

He’s got 12 pounds of semtex
hidden in his trousers -
when our Ikea sofa comes
he won’t be taking delivery.

****

I’ve just finished taking a relaxing bath
when I get out and being alone in the flat
walk naked into the hallway.
Sadly,

My landlord has removed the front door there
and sold tickets for people to come and watch
People are asking what size bra
and if lap dancing

costs extra.
In a fit of post
post feminist, avenging angel
I high kick the punter leering at my navel

and, having speedily reattached the towel
jab squarely in the groin, my landlords,
lying, cheating, Peter Stringfellow.
The next day I go looking for a new flat.

Another day it smells of coffee,
like my mother found in Panama
returning from her cruise.

It fills a warm house,
the inside cuff of a woolen cardigan;
anxious on a bus, it comforts you.

Sometimes, hope tastes
like a cough sweet, reminds of the time
you lay in bed - sits on your tongue,

hums like a gun, alpine forest,
sharp ice cube. It’s a bell ringing,
sail stirred - blue sunlight over hull.

Hope anchors you. Touching it,

you feel dunes - feathers,
the clean bowl of a silk bag,
the balloon cord that you tried to grab

but missed, as a child.

If hope were here -
it would watch for you,
would move quickly,

press it’s string into your hand.

On the other side of this
wild night - someone else cups palms;
feels beating, wings brushing -

something small, light as fire.

The Furniture Dinosaur

Upstairs - in number 5
it’s swishing like a crocodile.

It’s tapping out a beat
like a drummer with a stool.

The furniture dinosaur knows how to move.

It’s doing the rumba -
sashaying numbers
that would make you blush
if you could see them groove.

The furniture dinosaur knows how to move.

It’s flexing it’s sections of oak paneled thigh,
raking it’s bar table - aluminum
clavicle over linoleum tiles.

The furniture dinosaur
scrapes shelves
of stacked hearts -

only comes together
when it’s dark

I’d like to go up there
and shake a case, jut my pelvis,
shimmy and shake -

but times like these
it’s far too risky.
The furniture dinosaur

can’t be predicted-

cracks glass.

The Table of Longing

The table of longing was like two lovers -
separate but vital -
to each others continuing survival.

It’s two sets of wooden legs
ended in a set of four
perfectly sculpted oaken pegs.

The table of longing smelt of all the years
they’d ever eaten: butterscotch pudding,
hot fruit with vanilla coulis.

It tasted of the wine
occasionally spilt, the skin of the hands
brushed like silk.

The table of longing was the sound of
all furniture ever moved. A distant sea
in the ear of a grand piano.

It was a tree uprooted
and black soil stirred. A car moaning
at the foot of a hill.

The table of longing was lined paper
written verse, varnished leaves
bronzed wood. It was three panels

of a painted screen,
sheets to hide it’s naked dreams:
a desire to be folded - rest limbs.

The table of longing was a pair of wings.
Gold hinges,
glowed in the dark.

Yesterday was a really odd day. Mostly nowadays, my days are good. Up beat happyish affairs. Not to sound too idyllic - but there are sometimes runs, often cups of tea. There are pieces of cake. There are episodes - of the Sopranos. So, yesterday came as not entirely welcome. Odd mood. Tearful. Like the whole world was going to end. Obviously, it got better.

It got to the end of the day and I’d been planning on doing the Live Box (poetry jamming session) down at The Y Theatre - but in my then present mood, I was starting to have doubts. Getting up on stage, moving and shaking and performing over live jazz - in a mood like a mud scraped shoe - didn’t seem like the best plan I’d ever had. Like alcohol you know - if you’re down, you should probably leave it alone. However, the alternative was staying in. And stewing. And we’d completely run out of Sopranos episodes.

So I went. And it was wonderful.

This month’s band was a group called Z-U (pronounced Zu). When I got down there the audience wasn’t the fullest it’d ever been - none of the Leicester artist crew (as I’ll call them here) had made it along. But Sureshot had, and so had I.

The music was dense like a concertina. Multi-layered like a mille feu. The group was a proper jazz trio. Base guitar, sax and drums and as the first song played it was liked stepping into a snowstorm - notes buzzing everywhere, tingling down your spine in tiny explosions. As the set continued, things started to settle down a bit. Melodies started to edge forward, but all the time there was that same energetic tension of sound on the edge of freestyle.

In the second half there were only 4 Live Boxers. Me, Sureshot, a drummer and guitarist. Sureshot did his blues for black. I put a couple of new pieces together (Strawberry and Oboe) and just went with it. Had such fun and we seemed to go down well.

Afterwards, people came up and asked if we often performed together. Nearly said no, but then realised that we actually do. Obviously, The Freedom Showcase - but nowadays also every live box - and we often travel to gigs together. I love performing with him

The band were so cool. Afterwards we sat talking for ages and they invited us down to the Birmingham Drum, to live box with them next Sunday. Definitely, definitely, definitely. Also gonna see if I can get more of a crew together though…

The furniture dinosaur’s moving again.
Flexing it’s sections of oak paneled thigh,
raking it’s bar table - aluminum
clavicle over linoleum tiles.

The furniture dinosaur
only comes out when it’s dark; scrapes
stacked drawers of crushed hearts,
up against the wall outside.

Upstairs, in number 12,
it’s swishing like a crocodile -

which always means
that I must stay
dust quiet -
and not attract attention.

The small stone house
with it’s hard to light engine.
The cold pine floor
with it’s warm kitchen.

The carpet covered lift,
seventh floor balcony, huge room
with the white sheets, tea
we got from room service.

We remember:

cycling down hill,
rain hammering
plastic rivers over overalls -
collecting in the collars of our hoods.

We remember:

Hatshepsuit - the female ruler with the
stone beard. Wedding cake of
wide stairs, Egyptian children
running down them with their

arms spread full tilt.

At five in the morning, listening to the
sigh of traffic - waiting for the
sky to lighten
meaning work -

I can’t not think -

of the wind trapped hill, walk along the Nile,
man who asked for money
’cause he knew us from the
hotel.

I can’t not think -

of the place we bought the calibir
the freezing cold November pier
the crammed souks,
and the dark mud,

the lost coat;
things found.

On Wednesday morning, 8 o’clock
I lie in bed and eat some squares of
swiss chocolate.

You can do that when abroad
and when in Bern, the capital of Switzerland
you have no choice -

must also drink a cup of
dark velvet, ski in alps,
or fabricate.

In the kitchen, Uncle Michael scrapes toast,
like climbers chipping ice caps,
motorists on windshields.

Through the window
vanilla sunlight falls on net
shocked blue is worked by slate.

This morning, Uncle Bundi came
to find me typing in his
loaned bedroom. “Lydia-

she is always writing?”.
Can almost see him
pushing back

the folds of coat,
bending down to stroke the fur
of Ida’s neck.

The Egyptian Glasses
took us 4 days to find
5 hours to fly
2 months to break.
But we got there in the end

I don’t like to whinge. Actually, fuck it, I do like to whinge. Whinging is a healthy and sterling activity which should be encouraged in all circumstances and at regular intervals. Such as this. I’m feeling icky. I’ve had this cough for over a week. It’s not making my voice sound sexy and gravelly it’s making me sound like a phajama wearing boy with a hoop in his chest. I could be in Peter Pan emerging from the gloom of a darkened room, rubbing my eyes and holding a small bear. Don’t ask me to explain myself. This is how I feel and now I also have my period, which is like a dull weight throbbing in my middle and trying to kill me with every kick and I’m not even pregnant. For the last 3 days I have been crying at things - that even as I’ve been doing so - I’ve been seeing as entirely ludicrous to be emotionally demonstrating over. I have cried at: adverts for washing powder, numerous sections of a BBC period drama, the sight of my boyfriend clearing out the kitchen cupboards, my tax returns. Outside it is January. It is cold and dark and wet and in act almost symbolic of everything I’m talking about here, this morning we murdered the Christmas Tree. In a scene starkiling reminisent of a gangland clean up, we wrapped its brittle body in rolled up bin liners, pushed another over its head for good measure and threw it in the skip. My boyfriend wore thick, black gloves as he did this. He had wanted to first cut off it’s limbs but we didn’t have the clippers, so instead he snapped off it’s tiny arms wherever they’d give. When it was done the carpet was covered with sap green needles which we’ll probably both be stabbing ourselves with till next December. Because we are bad people. We live in the city and we do not have a shovel and we did not take our hopeful little tree into the countryside, we did not dig it a hole and gently pat soil over its innocent roots. We killed it. I am half of a Christmas Tree murdering duo and I have a cough and a period and no children and a bike with a back wheel that a car at some point last week most probably ran over. And it’s going to cost me 50 pounds to get it fixed.

It’s incredible how these things work out. I like doing poetry workshops - it’s actually something I really enjoy - but it’s just so odd how they sometimes come along at once. And then there are the wildly varying briefs.

First off, I’ve been doing loads of work at this one particular, pretty well heeled county based school. Initially, I did a number of poetry sessions with their year 7 classes - using wicked museum objects, which in Leicestershire, I’m lucky enough to be able to borrow.

Next, same school got me in to do after schools intensive tutoring sessions with Year 9 SAT students. I’ve done 2 of these already with a third tomorrow - and only one of them has focused on ‘creative’ writing. Tomorrow I’m going to be showing them how to reply to a problem page letter, looking at everything from how to express empathy to how to identify problems and structure advice!

Today’s session was on more familiar ground. Completely different school, Year 8’s - who’d been given the poetry session as a reward for being good!- you know, when I was at school we din’t get nothing like that…mind you, when I was at school you could probably have seen me right with a monthly ice cream van voucher.

Anyway, today I spent the whole day focusing on slavery as a theme for poetry - I guess a carry over from the Freedom Showcase. Would you believe though - I DIDN’T do my Heyrick monologue (the piece I was commissioned to write and know off by heart) No, instead I weirdly decided to write something entirely new, just for the session. Not sure how it would stand on its own, but it felt quite nice to perform. Then again, I guess Year 8 pupils were never going to be my most critical audience, lol

Anyway, here’s a picture of the whole thing in action earlier today….

You should see the other pics. They’ve actually made me clucky!