MY VOICE

White is the colour

Black are the hearts and souls

Red is the colour

blood spilt

blood trod in the ground

Black brothers, fathers, sisters, sons

born free

born kings and queens

born to live equally

weighed in the balances worth something

 these lives have

value

you

are weighed in the balances and found wanting

killing citizens of the kingdom

They did not come home

But they will return home

They will return home

Now, and always these voices are relevant.  

SUBMARINE

Guess it’s futile to say

I was not myself

I was dealing with my pain 

and it’s physical constraints

our apologies were well meant

but they did not bring us forgiveness 

in the end

There’s no contest who’s at fault

We both played our part

You know as well as I how to break a heart

“I’ve been finding it hard to process my feelings.”

RECYCLING 2020

“I can’t believe it I got the crossword done in five minutes!”

BEAUTIFUL DISTORTION 2013

Katrin drags her stool closer to her building and settles herself with her book.  She looks up at the sky and takes a deep breath.  It’s a relief to be outside of her small apartment.  As much as she loves its Berlin charm, its altbau grandness, after three weeks of isolation the walls are beginning to close in on her.  It is Sunday and there is no work or significant other to give shape or structure to her day.  Sometimes, she finds it is an effort to get out of bed on a weekend.  There is the imperative to find something to do, make meaning out of this new normal.  She is quite solitary by nature, an einzelkind from a small village in the South of Germany.  Surely there is only so much of herself she can take, stranded In her late thirties and still unmarried.  With men she has no luck and she accepts that.  Lately she has hazarded a few Tinder dates with disappointing results.  

Out here on the street she watches the people taking their daily walk.  The old woman who lives on the second floor shuffles out of the door then stops as if unsure of which direction to take or if she should have left the building at all.  The young wheel past on their bicycles.  She knows they are heading to the local park to congregate in a group.  They are heedless of the rules, cocky, all-knowing and thinking themselves invincible.  This is an old people’s disease.  Only their parents and their grandparents need worry.  There are mothers and fathers too pushing prams with wriggling toddlers.  Katrin is grateful that she is spared the responsibility of parenthood.  From her own observations it is effortful.  Trying to channel such wilful bundles of energy into a narrow path of obedience seems to defy the laws of physics.