Morning Breaks In The Elevator. Lemn Sissay

of grey in fading streets

      The radiating bloodshot in a child’s eye

      The dark stains in her linen sheets

      If you can see oil separate on water

      The turquoise of leaves on trees

      The reddened flush of your lover’s cheeks

      The violet peace of calmed seas

      If you can see the bluest eye

      The purple in the petals of the rose

      The blue anger, the venom, of the volcano

      The creeping orange of the lava flows

      If you can see the red dust of the famished road

      The white air tight strike of Nike’s sign

      If you can see the skin tone of a Lucien Freud

      The colours of his frozen subject in mime

      If you can see the white mist of the oasis

      The red, white and blue that you defended

      If you can see it all through the blackest pupil

      The colours stretching, the rainbow suspended

      If you can see the breached blue of the evening

      And the caramel curls in the swirls of your tea

      Why is it you say you are colour blind

      When you see me?

       CHARLIE’S PLAYING BLACKJACK

      For David Murray

      It’s got to scream like a thousand shivers.

      Shake down, break down, run like rivers of black fire-waves.

      Rise demons and spirits from the Senegalese caves.

      Rise Beloved and Seth! Rise the dead!

      For this sound digs, digs down-down were the deep down

      Is down with the deep down til it reaches the beaches of Goree.

      Until it stabs-stabs as it grab-grabs the minute minute. Hold fast.

      It flows through passages, right, like a flock of carrion crows

      And stings and blows and stings and blows,

      Makes sadness sing high and swing low.

      SWEET CHARIOTS OF FIRE!

      Quotes wrapped in rolled notes, stick into the spokesmen’s eyes.

      The hoaxmen of the mainstream deep scream.

      Deep Davis deep. So deep, Davis, I can’t sleep for the

      Sweeping sounds of your underground. This landscape

      Littered with mounds. Rise! Spirits. Rise Uncoil. Break the soil –

      The bread of the dead, the salt of the earth. Rise

      And flow like mercurial contours on a midnight sky. Cry.

      Till the tears solidify. Fly Spirits till you become a song.

      Eye to eye. Right to wrong. Untie pain. Dance again

      Till juices jive down your scarred backbones.

      This is the other world – live – and yet home.

      This sound electrifies, soars on the edge of the head.

      Waken the dead and tell them it’s here, “it’s here”,

      For duppies to wind and spirits to near home – at last.

      To brutify then purify then reunify the past.

      Rise Malcolm, the Jews, the blues and the Soledad brothers

      Shout. Bleed. Breath. Heal. Shout. Breath. Heal. Bleed

      I swear I saw another slave freed, its soul freed, it gather speed,

      It push me over the edge of the ledge, dredging the graveyards,

      the spirits – Charlie’s playing cards on the tomb, a dead man’s womb.

      Don’t you get it. It’s genetic. A musical hallucinogenic. Insane –

      The music of love through the instruments of pain,

      Shooting from the lip, from the tip of the tongues of the wronged.

      Hang on, hang on with your finger tips. Pray you don’t slip

      Cause we climbing the timing the landscape of mine

      Turn this poem sideways it’s like a New York skyline

      A state of mind.

      And through to the solo light. Right. Solo.

      How does it go? It glides like an eagle inches from the waves

      With a rush that sounds like caves should sound like.

      It rips through all mind-binds, breaks all seals, tears all seems - seams,

      Chilled as fresh-iced screams, angry as sweated dreams.

      It bites like a baby, kicks like a dog, slicker than a card trick.

      Demons spit and twist as spirits hit notes high (ha!) and snare.

      This is where contrasts explode and it’s natural to find

      Sharpness next to curves next to shadows next to verve,

      And new definitions of time. It is the blood of the vein.

      The music of love through the instruments of pain.

      Hot cold shy bold rock rolled blue soul. Rise!

      Makes an old man young a young girl old. Rise!

      It’s a slick wild blast, cast from chains of slaves.

      I found my jazz. Rise. I found my jazz. Rise.

      I found my jazz and was saved.

      Rise spirits.

       INVISIBLE KISSES

      If there was ever one

      Whom when you were sleeping

      Would wipe your tears

      When in dreams you were weeping;

      Who would offer you time

      When others demand;

      Whose love lay more infinite

      Than grains of sand.

      If there was ever one

      To whom you could cry;

      Who would gather each tear

      And blow it dry;

      Who would offer help

      On the mountains of time;

      Who would stop to let each sunset

      Soothe the jaded mind.

      If there was ever one

      To whom when you run

      Will push back the clouds

      So you are bathed in sun;

      Who would open arms

      If you would fall;

      Who would show you everything

      If you lost it all.

      If there was ever one

      Who when you achieve

      Was there before the dream