Not a love poem

I want to write a poem
That is not a love poem
That is a poem of opening

How I unfold in front of you, shyly
Laughing, so you smell the bees,
Hear the pollen in my centre

I want to write a poem
That is not a love poem
That is a poem of holding

How my hand lives in yours
Alive in a language of skin
Peaceful quiet

I want to write a poem
That is not a love poem
That is a poem of hoping

How I lose myself as an apology
Find myself as a laugh
Between my mouth and yours

I want to write a poem
That is not a poem
That is an invitation exploring

Maps of your muscles
Beaches of my bones
Contour lines finger-traced

I want to write you a poem
That is a breath
That is a breaking

That cracks the sky open enough
For us to slip away
So I can kiss you in the dark

kiss me

kiss me soft
your hand on my cheek
gentle

you are
early evening light
I am early morning

so kiss me
soft
let me forget my name
in your hand cupping my cheek

kiss me hard, too
I am rock with cracks for you,
waterfall, to slip into

meet me in the sun on our lips
in the stars in our teeth
in the secret place we store our laughter

in the pockets of need in our bodies
meet me tomorrow, today,
meet me now and kiss me
soft

armies

we build armies
slowly
consistently
of madness and misfits and
terrible beautiful power

we don't realise we are building
armies
i don't think

not until the attacks start
not until we are needed to march

then as the armies rise and we
see we are inside family

we realise what we have been building

Hani and Biko

I wonder what Hani and Biko would have become

Black consciousness
And ANC communist and
Militant
Hard
Fighting


I wonder what balloons this racist,capitalist
Post-apartheid
Would have made them

But maybe that was why they killed them

Maybe that was why they died

Their heads broke

But their hearts didn't

Maybe they were lucky in that

Very close and very hot

I will make myself very small
But I will burn very hot
A small coal
In the middle of the ash
Only if you come very close
If you stand for a minute
You will feel the heat

The way you love

I love the way you love
Have loved
Love now in the past

The way you coat your pain in magic
The way you sew
Star clothes

And the way you won't let death go black

I want to hold your heart while you speak

I hear your voice
Slow
Untangling itself into strands of colour in my head
Yellow pain
Purple clouds into in and
The yellow is now stars

I don't know if you know how finely your face reads
Joy, pain, loss, magic
Love
Flow across your face like
Weather

I wonder if everyone sees these seasons?

I want to hold your heart
Not contain but just
Feel in my hands for a few seconds
Just for you to feel held for a few seconds

Just to say to you
That you are held

I never see you alone
I never see you lonely

In my head you are a wizard
Magician and
At the same time grass
Flowing, spreading,
Mushroom like

And never alone

But there are some moments
Where I get a sense of what your chest tree might hold

And I would like to hold your heart

(or lie naked with you
With a pen
Drawing nudibranchs in your
Chest tree)

And kiss you
And say I love how you love

We will stand

Darling
Do not lose yourself in these
Tentacles
Of despair
Everything looks dark now but
Through these tentacles you can
See fragments of sunset

Allow that you can
Let yourself go into the
Deep, natural, mourning time of night

But when the sun rises again
Do not let these tentacles of despair
Destroy you
Do not let them pull you apart
Give one to each of us,
They are ice, no on can carry
More than one

But we are many
We can take them all

You are an Empress here
We feel your magic woven into your hair
Your smile
The warmth that flows
From it embracing everyone in the room

And darling, your future is fire
Still. Now, in the depth of this despair
Your future is fire

We will not let you go
We will stand in a protective kraal
Around you
Blowing your embers so they don't go out
Pulling the tentacles of despair from you
One in each of our hearts

They paralyse us for a day
A week
But our hearts grow round them
Until they are just a dark spot
A pause
A silence
Because there will never be words


Let us hold you
Because your future is still fire

Light in the Window

This flicker of
Fragility I will
Neither fan not squash

I will rather place
It in the corner of
My window as a
Small signal for gentleness

If you see this light
Knock gently
My door will be open
I will be sitting by the fire

Come and sit next to me
Slowly, touch me
If I do not flinch
Put one arm around me
One arm holding my book
In case my eyes are heavy

Let us be gentle together
In my fragility

If you cannot be gentle
When you see this light
Do not even breathe
On my window
Keep walking,
Wrapped in your lights

If your lights dim
If you one day
Find yourself fragile

Put a light
In your window

If I am able,
Feeling warm

I will knock gently

See how strong
Our fragile lights
Can be, one arm
Around me
One arm
Around you

Thriving

This space of near death
We must live from
We must live from
Second by gasped second

We can only be great
If we are nearly dead

If we were more confidently alive
We would not have to fight as hard
These would be more energy, maybe,
To dominate, not flutter
To be present, unapologetic,
To not car about spaces of fitting, or looking
Or sitting
Energy to do more than survive
Energy to thrive

Could you imagine how colourful
How powerful
The world would be
If all my BeautifulBraves were
Thriving?
With me?

Dying Living

I’m scared of
Being close
To you of being
Vulnerable and
Open of being
Hurt of dying
I’m scared of
Living

My graves

Visible and invisible graves
That we fall into without hearing
That we build homes in without tasting
That we walk over without shivering

Histories holed up in our heels
Under each step like slipping stones

Give me your hands, love
Hold my graves with me

Let’s pack our graves up
Into each other like
Babushka dolls

Close. Tight
An intimacy that pierces
An intimacy that is perfect in death

Language of sleep

Ghosts speak
In snakes
That swallow, that spit
That do not know the language of sleep
That do not know the language of sleep
That do not sleep

Heart-Doors

The way hearts
Fly open
Like cupboard doors
In a kitchen:

Here- drink, eat
Share
Break

Cook, weave, smell
Spell, magic, mix,
Make, sew, fix

Hold

Hold fix hold
Fix, cook, bake
Mix eat share

Hold, share, hold
Fix, share, warm,

Hold. Hold. Hold.

Come Gently

One day these wings will rain, will walk
Will not need to fly, to soar: will walk

Rain makes poems in insects: locust ladybugs bees
Rain swallows wings, they fall from the sky tumble spill walk.

Labyrinth-speak: hear hold enfold
Dreams held in lips we will, to fulfil, walk.

“Come gently,” he whispered, “carve me safe into stone”
“Reach me” he breathed, “Gently come to the hill, walk!”

I survived you: a wonder surviving the winter
Even after you I can still walk.

Against Hope

Us. Here
High. 12th floor up
Into the cold

Dressed warm
Heads full, scared, hoping
Mountain on wall
Hope cascades over it
Runs
runs
runs out
runs away

We are not allowed to hope here
Us. Warm.
High
Wet only by delicate accident

Our hope for better worlds
For less guilt for ourselves
no.

We must live with our guilt
Like worms

we are not allowed to have hope
also
with everything else

hope is there for a sun
for a sunset
for a ray
that illuminates where Black is a queer death

we are not allowed hope
up here
on the 12th floor.