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- 80 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Rebel Without Applause
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About This Book
Lemn Sissay's poems are laid into the streets of downtown Manchester, feature on the side of a public house in the same city and have been emblazoned on a central London bus route. He has been published in press as diverse as the the Times Literary Supplement and the Independent to The Face and Dazed & Confused.He has been commissioned to write poetry, documentaries and plays for Radio 1 and Radio 4. He has been involved in television in the roles of writing, performing and presenting. He is published in over sixty books and featured on the Leftfield album Leftism, which has sold over five million copies worldwide.Rebel Without Applause is the collection that started everything for Lemn Sissay.
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MIND-WALKINGĀ
Ā
1
A stray sunshot caught
his heart.
As a child
he spent time
melting
Ā Ā Ā Ā dripping
like a fallen lolly on a kerb
in summer.
As a child
he teased questions from his
black-topped brain,
like heād
lick the bowl when his mother left
the kitchen.
There was always one ultimate question
that arose
while building
mud pies
or staring at cobwebs in hedges.
Only as the full line itched his tongue,
as it had unravelled from his thoughts like a red carpet,
only when the gravity of his question became its heaviest,
unbearable almost
would he race home and
stand with the urgency
of a young boy desperate for a pee.
āMum mumā,
who was doing the same thing as he
but in the kitchen,
āIf the earth is
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā spinning why doesnāt it move
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā if I jump up and
why arenāt I dizzy ā¦?ā
A stray sun shot caught
her heart
she would call it
brain-strolling or mind-walking
said heād walk into church
one day and say
āwhy is God not hereā.
On receiving a stiff reply
heād look at the cross and say
āwell he doesnāt have to hang about like that
he can have my seatā.
Ā
2
A stray sun-shot bled into
his heart
Ā Ā Ā Ā welled in his chest
Ā Ā Ā Ā crept up the inside of his eyelids,
curdled through his whip-like lashes
down the bright brown bony cheeks.
Ā Ā Ā Ā He had run till his breath
Ā Ā Ā Ā was almost too far ahead of him.
He had run till his heartbeat
had overtaken his pounding feet,
Ā Ā Ā Ā till the rustle of the trees
Ā Ā Ā Ā had taken his breath,
till the squawk of a magpie
had overtaken the rustle of the trees,
Ā Ā Ā Ā till the rattle of the keys
Ā Ā Ā Ā had overtaken the squawk of a magpie.
He had run till his breath
was almost too far ahead of him,
It filled the kitchen and his mother
listened to it counting
400 years
of panting.
She heard her
grandfather in him,
her grandmotherās wheeze
her fatherās defiance
her husbandās private sobbing
at being broken,
She listened until
the room was filled with spirits
ricocheting from wall to wall,
cradled in the sink
dripping from the ceiling.
Clinging to their necks like weak motherless children ā¦
Here was a question he would ask them
and it would twist their bodies each time.
FOR MY HEADSTONE
Here is the death of the son you never had
the hand you never touched
the face you never stroked
Ā Ā Ā
here is the morning after
his bruises you never tended
the laughter you never shared
Ā Ā Ā
and here are the tears heāll never feel
your eyes heāll never see
whispers heāll never hear
the apologies
will squirm in his coffin
with the letters you never wrote.
LOVE POEM
You remind me
defi...
Table of contents
- Rebel Without Applause
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Epigraph
- BEARING WITNESS
- REMEMBER HOW WE FORGOT
- WAKE UP NIGGERS II
- FINGERPRINTS
- GOLD FROM THE STONE
- OCCUPATIONS
- BOILING UP
- IMAGES OF AFRICA
- INSTANT CONSCIOUSNESS
- AIRMAIL TO A DICTIONARY
- THE CUSTOMS MEN
- MIND-WALKING
- FOR MY HEADSTONE
- LOVE POEM
- FLOWERS IN THE KITCHEN
- SUITCASES AND MUDDY PARKS
- THE NEST
- AUTUMN
- PASS IT ON
- ISLAND MENTALITY
- GOING PLACES
- GIL SCOTT-HERON
- GODSELL
- EUROMAN
- FLUSHED
- I HATE YOU
- A BLACK MAN ON THE ISLE OF WIGHT
- PROFESSIONAL BLACK
- PRETORIA PIT
- MILL TOWN AND AFRICA
- UNCLE TOM AND THE 1990s
- CLEAR AS DAY STORMS
- ANOTHER BROTHER'S SISTER
- INTRODUCTION IN TRANSIT
- MY BROTHER
- GUNSHOT
- CHILDREN AND COMPANY
- NEGOTIATIONS
- WRITER'S BLOCKOCKS
- EUROPE THE RESURGENCE
- THE BLACK MOON
- CAN YOU LOCATE PLANET ETHNIC?
- BRINKLEY PARK
- RAGE
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
- Copyright