Contents
Let Them Eat Chaos
A Note on the Author
This poem was written to be read aloud
Without contraries is no progression.
– William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
– John 4:18 (KJV)
Let Them Eat Chaos
Picture a vacuum
An endless and unmoving blackness
Peace
Or the absence, at least
of terror
Now,
in amongst all this space,
see that speck of light in the furthest corner,
gold as a pharaoh’s deathbox
Follow that light with your tired eyes.
It’s been a long day, I know, but look –
watch as it flickers
then roars into fullness
Fills the whole frame.
Blazing a fire you can’t bear the majesty of
Here is our Sun!
And look – see how the planets are dangled around it
and held in their intricate dance?
There is our Earth.
Our
Earth.
Its blueness soothes the sharp burn in your eyes,
its contours remind you of
love.
That soft roundness.
The comfort of ocean and landmass.
Picture the world.
Older than she ever thought that she’d get.
She looks at herself as she spins.
Arms loaded with the trophies
of her most successful child.
The pylons and mines,
the power-plants shimmer in her still, cool breath.
Is that a smile
playing across her lips?
Or is it a tremor of dread?
The sadness of mothers
as they watch the fate of their children
unfold.
In now.
In
fast.
Visions.
The colours like drugs in your belly,
churning.
Your skin pulled loose as a pup’s,
shaken
then tightened.
Now everything’s flashing.
The waves are magnified as they roll up
towards you
And you’re tiny as sand,
just a speck.
As you approach the surface
all of that
peace
that you felt is replaced with this
furious
neverknown
passion.
You’re feeling.
The people. The life.
Their faces are bright in your body.
You’re feeling.
You want to be close to them.
Closer.
These are your species,
your kindred.
Where have you landed?
Uncurl yourself.
Stand up and look at your limbs.
All intact.
Clothed in the fashion of the hour.
This is a city.
Let’s call her
London.
And these
are the only
times
you have known.
Is this what it’s come to?
You think
What am I to make
of all this?
At any given moment in the middle of a city
there’s a million epiphanies occurring,
in the blurring of the world beyond the curtain
and the world within the person
There’s a quivering.
The litter in the alleyway is singing.
People meet by chance, fall in love, drift apart again.
Underage drinkers walk the park and watch the dark descend.
The workers watch the clocks, fiddle with their Parker pens
while the grandmothers haggle with the market men.
Here, where the kids play and laugh until they fall apart,
it’s kiss-chase and dancing
till it’s mistakes and darkened rooms.
Too fast too soon
too slow too long
We move around all day
but can’t
move
on
Is anybody else awake?
Will it ever be day again?
Overflowing plant pots.
Fence-posts.
Decorated door numbers.
Motorbike beneath a tarp.
Beaten-up Punto.
Goalposts painted on that green garage door.
There’s a rainbow on that wheelie bin.
There’s stickers in that window.
Smart flats. Rough flats.
Can’t-get-enough-cat flats,
you know, seventeen cat-flaps.
Rich flats, broke flats.
New flats.
Old flats.
Luxury bespoke flats.
And this-has-got-to-be-a-joke flats.
Pensioners, toddlers.
Immigrants and Englishmen.
Family with six kids.
Single businesswoman.
Everybody’s here trying to make or scrape a living.
The fox freezes on the alley wall and stands still, sniffing.
Bare branches sway in the front garden.
The lionmouth door knocker flaps in the breeze.
Streetlights glint on the Beware of the Dog sign.
The beer cans and crisp packets dance with the dead leaves.
It’s 4:18 a.m.
At this very moment, on this very street,
seven different people in seven different flats
are wide awake.
Can’t sleep.
Of all these people in all these houses,
only these seven are awake.
They shiver in the middle of the night
counting their sheepish mistakes.
Is anybody else awake?
Will it ever be day again?
Is anybody else
awake?
Will it ever be day
again?
We start on the corner,
with our backs against the wall
next to the old phone box
where the tramp leaves his bedding.
The road runs ahead of you
Houses and flats either side.
Walk down it;
go past the yard with the caravans,
there behind the hedges.
In the house opposite:
black gate-post
with the concrete frog squatting on top of it.
Through the hallway,
ancient wallpaper,
nicotine gold.
Up the stairs, rickety,
loaded with history.
Here in the top flat – flowers on the windowsill,
little breeze
fluttering the petals
as they stare out at the city streets.
Jemma is awake.
What woke her?
Open eyes.
Streetlights float slowly through broken blinds.
She watches as the light plays across the tattered carpet,
and she holds herself tight in the room’s half-darkness.
It’s cold.
She wedges her hands underneath her armpits,
It’s 4:18.
And Jemma’s thinking
Before I was an adult, I was a
little wreck,
peddling whatever I could get
my grubby mitts on.
&nbs
p; Ketamine for breakfast,
bad girls for drinking with.
I gave them puppy-dog eyes
for the acid on their fingertips.
Heads in the bass bin.
Lips without faces,
getting feisty,
halfbaked in the bakery
eating pastries.
Desperate for a body
who could save me.
But I never really wanted
what they gave me.
Boiling in the chill of the dawn.
Sweating in the dole queue.
Spitting like a villain in a pantomime,
old shoes,
bad teeth.
Drinking in the rain
with my ghosts,
sitting in the back of the class,
comatose.
Villains on my back in the dark
hold me close,
but you never held.
I did some things I swore I’d never tell.
That night you tried to kill me,
run me down with your car in the snow.
I didn’t realize
how far you would go.
Every day I’ve lived
lives in the day
I wake up in.
My dreams are all screaming and fucked
but I’m fine now.
Happiness reigns
its carts pulling me.
Yeah, my future is bright
but my past’s trying to ruin me.
Tried to change it
but I know,
if you’re good to me,
I will let you go.
Tried to fight it
but I’m sure
if you’re bad to me
I will like you more.
I saw some things
when I was young
that made me
who I would become
I feel them with me
every day
coz if you try
and run away
They run beside you
pace for pace
trip you up
and drag your face
Through the mud
of every wasted chance
and every
bitter taste.
My heart is sprayed up
with the names
of all my friends
who lost their way
It doesn’t change,
it all remains,
it eats your strength
and feeds your shame
All I want
is someone great,
to make me
everything I ain’t
But the only
ones for me
are the ones
that shouldn’t be.
Even though
I’m doing good,
I’m working hard,
the work is strong
It might be fun,
just for a while,
to go back where
my hurt is from
And rinse myself
to emptiness
and push
my body close
To anybody
that can recognize
the presence
of my ghosts.
Tried to change it but I know
if you’re good to me I will let you go.
Tried to fight it but I’m sure
if you’re bad to me I will like you more.
In the basement flat by the garages
where the people dump their mattresses
Esther’s in her kitchen, making sandwiches
The slats on her blinds are all wonky and skewed
You can see her from the street
before she moves out of view
to kick her boots off tired feet
She wipes her forehead with her wrist
She’s just back from a double shift
Esther’s a carer
doing nights
Behind her
on the kitchen wall
is a black and white picture
of swallows in flight
Her eyes are sore
her muscles ache
She cracks a beer
and swigs it
she holds it
to her thirsty lips
and necks it
till it’s finished.
It’s 4:18 a.m. again.
Her brain is full
from all she’s done that day
She knows
that she won’t sleep a wink
before the sun
is on its way.
She’s worried ’bout the world tonight.
She’s worried all the time.
She don’t know how
she’s supposed
to put it
from her mind . . .
Europe is lost
America lost
London is lost
And still we are clamouring victory.
All that is meaningless rules
And we have learned nothing from history.
People are dead in their lifetimes
Dazed in the shine of the streets.
But look how the traffic’s still moving.
The system’s too slick to stop working.
Business is good.
And there’s bands every night in the pubs,
And there’s two-for-one drinks in the clubs.
We scrubbed up well
We washed off the work and the stress
now all we want’s some excess.
Better yet: a night to remember
that we’ll soon forget.
All of the blood that was shed for these cities to grow,
all of the bodies that fell
The roots that were dug from the earth
so these games could be played –
I see it tonight
in the stains
on my
hands.
The buildings are screaming
I can’t ask for help –
nobody knows me.
Hostile. Worried. Lonely.
We move in our packs
and these are rites we were born to
Working and working
so we can be all that we want,
then dancing the drudgery off
But even the drugs have got boring.
Well,
sex is still good
when you get it.
To sleep, to dream, to keep the dream in reach.
To each a dream.
Don’t weep, don’t scream.
Just keep it in,
keep sleeping in.
What am I gonna do to wake up?
I feel the cost of it pushing my body
like I push my hands into pockets,
and softly I walk and I see it:
this is all we deserve.
The wrongs of our past have resurfaced
despite all we did to
vanquish the traces
my very language is tainted
with all that we stole to control and erase and replace
in a country still rich with the profits of slavery.
As yet, there’s been no reparations.
We clothe the corpse of our culture
parade it as Great Britain,
hark back to dead times and dead thinking
Call on the pillars of dead men
stifled and unloving.
No isle is an island
unsure and divided
just one little clod off the mainland, sinking.
I am quiet
Feeling the onset of riot.
But riots are tiny
though systems are huge
Traffic keeps moving,
proving
there’s nothing to do.
Coz it’s big business, baby,
and its smile is hideous.
Top-down violence.
Structural viciousness.
Your ki
ds are dosed up
on prescriptions and sedatives.
But don’t worry ’bout that, man.
Worry ’bout
terrorists.
The water level’s rising!
The water level’s rising!
The animals –
the polar bears
the elephants are dying.
STOP CRYING START BUYING!!
But what about the oil spill?
Shh.
No one likes a party-pooping spoilsport.
Massacres massacres massacres/new shoes
ghettoized children murdered in daylight
by those employed to protect them.
Porn live-streamed to your pre-teen’s bedrooms.
Glass ceiling. No headroom.
Half a generation live beneath the breadline –
oh but it’s Happy Hour on
the high street!
Friday night at last, lads,
my treat!
All went fine till that kid got glassed in the last bar, place went nuts – you can ask our Lou – it was madness, road ran red, pure claret. And about these immigrants? I can’t stand them. Now, mostly, I mind my own business. But they’re only coming over for the benefits.
England!
England!
The blood of my kinsmen.
And you wonder why kids want to die for religion?
It goes:
Work all your life for a pittance,
maybe you’ll make it to manager
pray for a raise
cross the beige days
off on your beach-babe calendar.
The Anarchists are desperate for something to smash
Scandalous pictures of glamorous rappers in fashionable
magazines
– who’s dating who?
politico cash in an envelope
caught sniffing lines
off a prostitute’s prosthetic tits,
and it’s back to the House of Lords
with slapped wrists.
They abduct kids
and fuck the heads of dead pigs,
but him in the hoodie with a couple of spliffs –
jail him
or deport him.
It’s the
Boredofitall Generation
the product of product placement
and manipulation,
shoot ’em up, brutal
duty of care,
come on! new shoes!
beautiful hair.
bullshit
saccharine
ballads
and selfies
and selfies
and selfies
here’s me outside the palace of ME!
construct a self and psychosis
meanwhile the people are dead in their droves
but nobody noticed
well actually
some of them noticed.
You could tell by the emoji they posted.
Sleep like a gloved hand covers our eyes
The lights are so nice and bright
and let’s dream
But some of us are stuck
like stones
in a
slow stream
What am I gonna do to wake up?
We are lost we are lost we are lost we are lost we are lost we are lost we are lost we are lost we are lost
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