Grinding Down by Dave Lewis
Savage, night-masked demon befriends you
as the fevered rambling mind is unleashed,
feel the warm breeze on the street named freedom –
Thomas Mboya lived here once.
There’s a smell of hot cakes and burnt coffee
at the stroke of a drunken 4am.
Will the ghosts of the liberators protect us?
Will they see all the muggers and shamens
that bewitch and entice you to sleep?
chapati’s so safe they surround you
with the warmth of the company chef
where there’s always some room for large talk
of revolution from any colour but mine
I’m not as strong as the tea, see,
maybe I’m a government spy?
Do you sober as quick?
in a morning too quickly for reason
and a parasite has long since tucked in
to your naked, writhing body –
teenaged and lonesome
with all your lovers overseas.
Teeming your hormones arouse lust
suppressed by sweet drugs and long absence
but black magic is sex and its blood
it will awaken the primitive man.
Meanwhile whilst electioneering
in fall it’s the genocide season
with religion no cure
for pencil-less writers
for soul-starved musicians and jailbirds.
A continent smothered in damp forests
and deserts and bushland and plains
chiefs, rulers and kings
presidents for life
mortals are just run of the mill –
heart stew anyone?
Meanwhile I’m thinking, surviving the night club,
preparing the taxi-haggle banter
the misty in-betweens and singer of songs
carefully sucking air
guarding from self-mutilation –
we are returned to the hot summer night
when Nairobi is stirring, shaking and dancing
(unlike Carnivores acceptably modern)
you eat zebra and crocodile too
but giraffe is not nearly so popular.
‘neath the city’s choking haze,
the homeless lost night
is searching for savage embrace
to regain the passion, ignite the dark past
that history books wrongly accuse.
How can you judge me?
uninspired and forgotten
by friends and by family alike
there’s a broken heart at the top of the kopje
it has my name on, added to the list
like a cup winners trophy, a memorial stone
twisting and laughing in space
through my fevered rambling’s
my honour is gone
the collapse is as complete as your face.

You're Like Black Coffee by Sophie Jarman
Sometimes I wish I was dead.

I think when a car goes past
that I could be under it

On Thursday I was thinking about
smoking dope to reach that
elusive high

but thanks to your movie tickets
i have no money

you are always saving my life
so much that I kind of hate it

Sometimes I wish I was dead

I guess I am always repeating myself
you used to make me
forget what I was saying

Sometimes I wish I was dead.

Every time I see
you my heart stops

Sometimes I wish I was dead

so much my head begins to
ache
I start counting in French
and
I dream about you in Technicolor.

Sometimes I wish I was dead.

So I could stop thinking like
a coffee house intellectual

I am always proposing
to you in my head

Sometimes I wish I was dead.

You nearly let me convert you to
classical smut.
I would buy you fur,
Anna Karenina

Sometimes I even wish you were dead
and in my arms, and we were
a Shakespearean tragedy

I wish I was dead.
And yesterday you nearly killed me.

Taken by hand, heart and storm by Ernest Williamson
beneath the bed
between the sheets
in the camera hidden by the gray mirage of wedding pictures
there
in the cavern of woven leather
resting
on the light brown
wooden
floors
I reside in your supple hand
on your inveterate moments
as you remember
our fights
which were so important and silly
as the limelight of fame seeps
like acid into our bones
we're artists
all of us who decry with the slates of stone
burning
beyond the worldly noose
constricting
phony smiles
but never mind
anything I say
just make me
listen
as I am trying to
listen
to all of what makes you
strange
like bad news
godly
like mystery
disgusting
like beauty
yet necessary and
essential
don't do that
that thing you do is so painfully grand
especially when the sun
is laughing at me
shining only on me
and my pitiful make
a man
taken
by heart
hand
and
storm

How to live with mirrors by Fiona Sinclair
Once all mirrors told the truth
abetted by their accomplices, men’s eyes.

More influential than enemies, they imposed
a tyranny of checkpoints on an inconstant teenage
face.

Most days you pursued prettiness from mirror to
mirror trying to coax your timid looks from out their
cover,

until one wicked looking glass would send you
scurrying
to the ladies for a second opinion

where you contemplated your reflection like a
disappointed Narcissus.

After years puzzling your face for the
correct formulae to permanent prettiness,

you have reached a middle aged conclusion
that no amount of labour will change a looking
glasses’ mind.

Once a day, a mirror selected for its benevolence,
gently offers you the truth which you carry like the
snapshot  of a loved one,

vigilant against contradictions from sneaky
reflections
that might ambush you in public.

Now open class no longer tempts you to drown in your
own image.

Don't Let The Bed Bugs Bite by PA Levy

Night strummed a battered acoustic,
sitting back in a rocking chair on the porch
playing the blues to a birdsong lament;
last post to the passing day,

and it passed
to the sound of children
saying their goodnight prayers:
just in time ….
here comes the moon peeping
through lace thin clouds
with a glint
intent at mischief
creating sinister silhouettes.

Night rustles a frou-frou
out on the prowl, chiffon whispers
into tree top ears as bushes gossip
on a cooling breeze;
for darkness is a predatory beast
who preys on wild purple thoughts
and flights of fancy.

All Solitude by Sean Hewitt

Tonight it didn’t take much drink

            Before the world started spinning.

Along with a pulsing headache

                        Came out words before time to think,

An uncontrollable grinning

            At some blundering, drink-fuelled mistake

And out of the bar on the wet

            Pavement, more come falling out

Of wide, dark, bouncer-guarded doors

                        All running just in time to get

The last train home, back about

            Familiar rooms and messy floors.

On a building are words, bony

            Above stark posters for strip-clubs

6.9 million people live

                        Alone in Britain . Are you lonely?

And as more come out of the pubs

Arm in arm, leaning in to give

One last goodnight kiss to new friends,

My eyes focus, the carousel

Stops. Those graffitied, scarring words

Have chiselled some self-blunted ends,

Shocked me into sobriety,

Left me stumbling across the curbs.

Ever After by Ellie Blow

Rapunzel's a lesbian now, got a crew cut.
Sleeping Beauty snorts coke for that up-all-night high,
and Snow White,
so I've heard,
takes it up the arse.

You can't rescue a damsel in distress any more,
can't even hold a door for one.
Sorry.
The dragon's in a zoo,
staring sadly between bars at little children
who coo and giggle nervously
until their parents usher them away.

Prince Charming traded his steed
for a BMW. He eyes up the girl
who lives next door. Baby,he says.
Baby.

"I want to go to the ball!"
spits Cinderella at her father,
the king. Storms upstairs,
slams her door. It reverberates
throughout the house.
She throws away her glass slippers,
wears Doc Martens instead.