Latest update April 15th, 2015 11:28 PM
Jun 13, 2013 World Poetry 1
– after London Riots.
In the slums I’m from
one horn player halts
to refill his slumped lungs
and blows from the dark
of an alley round the corner
from a shop still stuffed
with melted manikins
scorched plaster and soot
fall like whispers from
they who say he must
have fathered the child
who lit the torch that eve
of ripened anger, rough
lines drawn against
riot shields, missiles and
fists like scattered rain.
Me, I think him a stranger
who thinks it odd how gloom
exists this close to high streets
flickering, fat and drowned
with light; this close to
widescreens flashing cut-
throat tales of overnight
fame, fast cash stories glow
like false hope near boarded
youth centres, they glow
but don’t touch the growing
sense of loss perched
on estate walls, eyes sharp
and hood-hidden, tucked in
such gloom they search
for danger but this hour find:
a fox’s hushed ramble,
plastic bag – urban bramble
or further up, a lit joint
like a floating full stop.
He grips close his tube
of twisted metal (how snug
this instrument holds
our city’s soul) and pours
into it the growing breath
of loss. Out floats a song,
young, wild, confused
by reasons how it is
that our thriving city
starves some into madness.
He lifts his song up
over power lines, over
teaming junctions where
newspapers, cameras,
flatscreens, flash on.
© Inua Ellams. First published by RaedLeafPoetry-India 2013.
Inua Ellams was born in Nigeria in 1984 and moved to the UK as a child. Inua was the school’s outspoken, unofficial ambassador for black people the world over. A poet, playwright, performer and graphic designer, Inua is a words-smith, pursuer and interloper traversing different worlds with rhythm and slice. For More Click Here!
Jan 15, 2015 0
CALL FOR: This is an invitation call for poetry editors, scholars, professors and creative writing geniuses to be a part of a mammoth project on contemporary world poetry of major Diasporas. WHAT IT IS NOT: This is not another anthology or a mere collective of poetry. This is a much...