Left to the Cats

It was a sight I’d seen many times before. This one had chosen the quiet solitude of a mountain top overlooking Souda Bay. The ruin of it was beautiful. The bare stone had traces of white; scraps of flesh over bone. In youth, the building would have been handsome; the home of some romantic Adonis who had seen the view and knew his young wife would love it too. Now, tendrils of ivy twisted and seeped into cracks to pull the walls back to the earth.

The ceiling had fallen, the walls left at varying heights and the remains of a stone archway folded itself wearily over what once would have been the entrance to a courtyard. There was enough of a structure to see what the home would have once looked like. Images of Greek houses lining the bay below allowed me to fill in the gaps. Sky blue domes, wooden shutters, pottery urns filled with petals and climbing vines, a smooth, unblemished skin of white. We all saw the potential it had; we all heard the call of a retreat in the making; we all stopped and took a moment to dream. But the cats lay claim to it now as they rubbed their dusty bodies along the rough stones and sat atop the highest points to glare down at us in regal pride. As though sensing our ambitious visions of transformation, they had appeared from nowhere in droves, as though born from the crevices themselves, and as we left more came until the grounds of the ruin, inside and out, were crawling with pads and concealed claws.    

As our coach dismounted the mountain, winding around the snaking roads that hugged the cliffs, we passed an old woman, spine bent and feet shuffling, making her way to the top. Like so many others, she wore black from head to toe and carried in her hands a clutch of flowers. She was a woman on a pilgrimage, and as we passed her slowly I wondered at her destination. Was she climbing to lay her flowers at the foot of the tired archway? To shoo away the cats and sit a while in her long ago castle? To remember the hands of her husband as they had built and sculpted her precious wedding gift? We watched her painful journey until the next bend stole us away.       

A Close Call

She calls me

with her mewling

that killer

with dark eyes

and twitching tail tip

Feathers matted

slick with saliva

and cradled

in pointed blades

of green

An eye flickers

a breath puffs

a wing splays

a foot twists

a body half hidden

I hiss her away

seal her behind glass

and with gentle finger

stroke and touch

a life now in reach

I back away

to give him space

to let him know

he can go if he can

but she finds a gap

A shout echoes

a foot leaps to shoo

and with cupped hands

I lift him

to fly away

Carp Poem

by Terrance Hayes

After I have parked below the spray paint caked in the granite

grooves of the Fredrick Douglass Middle School sign

where men and women sized children loiter like shadows

draped in the outsized denim, jerseys, bangles, braids, and boots

that mean I am no longer young, after I have made my way

to the New Orleans Parish Jail down the block

where the black prison guard wearing the same weariness

my prison guard father wears buzzes me in, 

I follow his pistol and shield along each corridor trying not to look

at the black men boxed and bunked around me

until I reach the tiny classroom where two dozen black boys are

dressed in jumpsuits orange as the pond full of carp I saw once in Japan,

so many fat snaggle-toothed fish ganged in and lurching for food

that a lightweight tourist could have crossed the pond on their backs

so long as he had tiny rice balls or bread to drop into the water

below his footsteps which I’m thinking is how Jesus must have walked

on the lake that day, the crackers and wafer crumbs falling

from the folds of his robe, and how maybe it was the one fish

so hungry it leapt up his sleeve that he later miraculously changed

into a narrow loaf of bread, something that could stick to a believer’s ribs,

and don’t get me wrong, I’m a believer too, in the power of food at least,

having seen a footbridge of carp packed gill to gill, packed tighter

than a room of boy prisoners waiting to talk poetry with a young black poet,

packed so close they might have eaten each other had there been nothing else to eat.

The Place I Want To Get Back To

by Mary Oliver

is where
    in the pinewoods
      in the moments between
        the darkness

and first light
    two deer
      came walking down the hill
        and when they saw me

they said to each other, okay,
    this one is okay,
      let's see who she is
        and why she is sitting

on the ground like that,
    so quiet, as if
      asleep, or in a dream,
        but, anyway, harmless;

and so they came
    on their slender legs
      and gazed upon me
        not unlike the way

I go out to the dunes and look
    and look and look
      into the faces of the flowers;
        and then one of them leaned forward

and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
    bring to me that could exceed
      that brief moment?
        For twenty years

I have gone every day to the same woods,
    not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
      Such gifts, bestowed,
        can't be repeated.

If you want to talk about this
    come to visit. I live in the house
      near the corner, which I have named
        Gratitude. 

Understanding Squirrels

He sat and ate a berry in front of me

his mouth working so fast

as though he had a lot to say

so I listened

intent before I realised

I could not speak squirrel

and yet I knew

he was annoyed

when I edged nearer

and he scrabbled away.

My Faith to Me - Re-write

is a sloppy kiss

on the smooth of my forehead

that I am all too quick

to wipe away;

is a strong hand

reaching out

to brush the dust from my skin

when I have sat too still;

is a licked finger

smearing

across my chin

to eliminate the dirt;

is a friendly voice

blasting through

the din of a mocking crowd

with truth;

is a trail of footprints

stretching ahead

deep troughs in the sand

like inverted stepping stones;

is the first bite of dinner

that fills my tank

and sends me out

to jump in the puddles;

is a letter

in permanent ink

folded in my pocket

until the creases crack;

is the warmth of fire

on frostbitten fingers

and lashes frozen

by tears;

is the spread of a map

leading

always in the right direction

rarely by the shortest route;

is the place

I rest

and take time 

to breathe.

If Only

The lift doors winked gold and silver. I’d been waiting for this day ever since we arrived. The Empire State Building was the cherry on top of the icing on my New York cake. Long queues of colourful tourists snaked between ropes and chattered in what felt like seventy six different languages. Irritable children leaned against patient parents, asking for juice, for crisps, for I Spy, for 20 Questions, for the fun to start.

Inside the lift my excitement grew. This was it. The bell pinged, the doors slid open and…it was tiny. Cramped. I had to utter ‘excuse me, pardon me’ about twenty times. How had they made it look so spacious on Sleepless in Seattle? I approached the edge, rested my hand on the viewer that may have been touched by Tom Hanks, and stared out over New York. The view, at least, was not tiny. Although cramped it was. How did people find space to move between all those buildings and cars and bus shelters and kiosks? The city was a smart grid of tarmac, an ordered circuit board of electricity and sparks. Central Park sat like a postage stamp. It had taken us ages to walk its length and width, and an entire afternoon to appreciate the zoo situated in one corner. I couldn't even see that zoo now, couldn't fathom how it fit. I felt like a child in my father’s arms, looking down on the world with a new perspective. I imagined standing on street level and seeing myself looking down from the top, my head a tiny pinprick balanced between brick, glass and sky.

The man in my ear told me to locate the driving range set over the Hudson River. This was where the Titanic had been due to dock. He told me to move round (excuse me, pardon me) to look at Ground Zero. He told me that at 9.49 am on 28^th July 1945, Lieutenant Colonel William Smith had crashed a B25 bomber into the north side of the Empire State Building on the 79^th floor, and yet here it was, still standing.

Later, I thumbed through a book of photographs taken at the time of construction. I looked at the flat-capped men stood precariously on girders, the city a flow of microscopic activity beneath them, and thought ‘If only you’d been around to build the Twin Towers.’  

Private Parts By Sarah Kay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AxQZlXFL_4

An origin Story by Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esgfG3BoAPc

This is crazy!

When Love Arrives by Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdJ6aUB2K4g

So so good!

My Faith to Me

is a big sloppy kiss

on the smooth of my forehead

reminding me

I am never alone;

is a strong hand

reaching out

to brush the dirt from my skin

when I have fallen in mud;

is a friendly word

blasting through

the din of a mocking crowd

with truth;

is a trail of footprints

stretching before me

deep troughs in the sand

so I know where to tread;

is the first bite of dinner

filling my tank

and giving me energy

to jump in the puddles;

is a letter

in permanent ink

to say that my faith to me

is You. 

Another Day

Flo, would you please turn off that clock?

Thirteen years I’ve heard that crock.

Darling, I know, I’ll change it soon

It’s high time we had an updated tune.

Remember we’re leaving nine at the latest

I’ll fetch breakfast

- Flo, you’re the greatest!

Love, fill the kettle, the boiler is out

You should have given the plumbers a shout!

I know, I’m sorry, I’ve been slightly busy

Work’s been a drag, we’re all in a tizzy.

I really should give this beard a trim.

Is that a cornflake? Oh that’s grim.

Look at that toenail, it still looks infected

I’ll cover it up, at least it’s protected.

Flo are you ready? We need to leave quick!

We’ll get caught in traffic, by this time it’s thick.

Oh dear George, that tires still low.

One more trip won’t hurt it Flo.

And have you changed the front headlight?

Darling, it’s early, let’s not fight.

Oh, there’s Mrs What’s-her-name

Begging on the street again.

We should really buy her lunch.

Dear, we’re in a credit crunch.  

George, did you change your vest today?

I can still see the egg from yesterday.

Flo, let’s go abroad this year

You really should conquer that flying fear.

But I haven’t had a passport since ‘92

And you know I hate forms as much as you.

Bognor it is, at the same B&B

I heard they serve scones now for morning tea!

George what’s that noise? I don’t like that sound.

The tires gone flat, it’s sparking the ground!

Well that was a disaster from start to finish

I had no idea the air would diminish.

Oh George, I felt so very ashamed

It’s our neglect that should be blamed.

And now we’ve missed our day with mum

Oh what a shame! What an absolute bum!

George that’s enough, we owe her our gratitude

I really wish you’d change your attitude.

Well anyway, we’re home and thank goodness for that!

If home’s what you’d call a poky old flat.

Now Flo, please don’t moan, we’ll move in a while

We’ve said that for years, since I walked down the aisle!

Come on, dinner time, and I’ve bought us a treat

Just for you dear, a sweet for a sweet.

Oh George no! Your cholesterol’s high.

Silence woman and hand me that pie.

Bed time already, let’s hit the sack

Give that broken lock a whack

George, you really should shave your beard

Flo, get that toenail checked, it’s weird.

I’ll set the alarm, seven thirty ok?

Yes, now goodnight love, I’m too tired to pray.

Discovering Slam Poetry...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuAbGJBvIVY - 'Hands' by Sarah Kay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY - 'Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus'

The Seasoned Celebrity - a re-write

He carried her until he died.

Now she sits on a sand sponged wall spread open behind her like a blank canvas. People comment on how small she is in real life; I blame that wall with all its height and width. A low, thin rail separates her from the hordes of pushing fans. They breathe hot air and vie for front row with jabbing hands. But she is not fazed; she has been doing this for years. Mouths form little ‘ohs’ as critical eyes land upon her; some are ‘ohs’ of wonder, some of disappointment. Mine is an ‘oh’ of surprise.

She is the most known, visited, written about, sung about and parodied work of art in the world, and yet she is humble and strikingly plain. Her clothing is not aristocratic; her transparent veil, delicate and dark like the aging of her portrait, is perhaps a symbol of simple virtue. There is a plump fullness about her, yet she is shrouded in the mystery of supposed identity. Leonardo used Sfumato, the blurring of sharp edges to leave the corners of her face in shadow.

I have read that when enlarged and under infrared glare, her beauty is infallible. But for me, this is how she was meant to be seen; small, unimposing and dipped in shadow.

She was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, smuggled beneath a painter’s smock to be returned to Italy. Standing before her, I understand the motives of that man. This room is too removed from the quietness and slow intimacy of the artist and his muse; the steals of impatient cameras too harassing.

Behind her, two worlds are painted. In the middle distance, the world of men with its winding road and warm, comfortable colours. In the far distance, a wild, uninhabited world splays into the horizon with jagged rocks and waters. It is this world that is level with her eye.

There is another Mona Lisa, deemed to be the original. The sitter is younger, her face smooth and sweet, but the painting is unfinished. The far distance is unknown just as sense of self in youth is often a mystery. How beautiful that the portrait depicting the wisdom of years has found greater value and fame. How beautiful that she was the one Leonardo completed.  

How beautiful that he chose her to carry with him until he died.

Taxi!

As I sat for the first time in the gouged seat of a bush taxi, hoping that its lack of stuffing was not due to the teeth of some burrowing creature, I decided a green taxi and its weed smoking driver seemed like a better deal. I peered ahead through the smeared arc of the windscreen and winced at the uneven terrain we would soon be traveling, the bare metal spring digging into my bottom suddenly mouthing new threats. That, coupled with the fact that the heat was sitting on top of us like a stubborn toddler, told me this would not be a comfortable ride.

Our guide was still haggling with the driver for a reasonable price, so we had nothing to do apart from chatter in nervous tones and gaze out of the smeared windows. We all watched a car drive passed, rising and falling across the sandy roads like a ship on a rolling tide. We all watched as one of its front wheels fell off and a bystander ran to catch it. We all watched as the driver remained motionless in his seat and the catcher rolled the tire back to the car. We all watched as the catcher removed what can only be described as a large rubber band from his pocket and secured the wheel back in its proper place with a few twists. We all watched as the driver continued on his way without acknowledging his helper.

Finally, when our bush taxi was full of passengers inside, outside and on the roof, we set off. It became very clear that the rules of the road were patchy at best. It seemed that vehicles could swerve and glide across the entire width, taking the easiest route possible over the swallowing dunes. When another vehicle approached, they passed on the right, but that was debatable. I wondered if drivers were required to take tests in The Gambia.

Along the way, we found ourselves passing money forward from locals to the driver’s assistant. Their debts paid, they would exit the vehicle, often when still in motion. When it was our turn to disembark, we did so with sickened stomachs and orange cheeks from the breeze that had stung them with sand from the open windows.  

Later, in the smooth motion of English cars on English tarmac, we looked back on the bush taxis with affection.

Wide Awake

I stayed very still in bed, not daring to move as the room shifted around me. My eyes rattled in my head as though it had suddenly grown too big and the single white sheet that covered me rippled like troubled water. Across the room, my sister slept soundly.

The roar of the earth came from somewhere so deep that I felt suddenly unsure of the ground I had trusted to be solid. I imagined myself on an angry sea, and felt panicked by the potential of the body of rock and lava below. The lamp on my bedside table trembled as the windowed doors shook in their frames. The wardrobe edged towards me with a jagged stagger. The tiled floor shrieked with protest as more furniture scraped across its surface.

I wondered if my parents were awake in the next room. Still my sister slept, and I felt the urge to wake her for fear of being alone, but I was paralyzed, watching the wardrobe stumble ever closer and wondering if it would topple.

The noise continued and I managed to persuade my eyes to close. I imagined a fleet of Lorries rumbling through the centre of the room having been led astray by faulty sat navs. Suddenly I felt the urge to laugh. What a ridiculous situation.

Then I heard the children crying in the apartment next door.

Finally, the noise lessened and my eyes settled back to stillness. The life went out of the furniture and appliances, and they once again sat quietly as they should. With renewed courage, I called out to my sister. She roused slowly and grumbled at me to let her sleep. When I asked if she had heard the earth quake, she told me to stop lying and rolled over to face the wall. I marvelled at her ability to sleep like the dead.

In the morning the locals of Kefelonia told us it had only been a tremor. A slight squirm of the earth, like a baby rolling in its mother’s belly. I shook my head in disbelief and decided not to imagine what a real quake felt like. No doubt that wardrobe would have shimmied with a little more gusto.

A year later, another fleet of misguided Lorries rumbled through my room in England, letting me know that the Earth was awake in every part of the world.    

Illusions of a Poetic Mind

It happens every day

When you have a poet’s mind,

You’ll see a word in everything

No matter what you find.

Patches in a balding lawn

Will form a sign of age,

Of moments wasted, ticking clocks

And a life to leave the stage

A line of four smart gentlemen

In regimental grey,

Once had me staring quite in awe

Till they quacked and flew away.

A field becomes an ocean,

A cup becomes a soul,

A pen becomes a person,

And an ache becomes a hole

My world is now a metaphor,

My mind a simile,

My heart a hidden meaning,

But my poetry is me.

The Monkey Woman

She sat in her wooden booth, the corrugated roof hanging loose at one end, pushed aside by tendrils of the jungle that framed her in green. Her thick black hair sat like a soft halo around her face, a perfect orb. She appraised the world through hooded eyes and dark lashes free of makeup. She took our money and tore our tickets with bored hands that afterwards reached to rub at a fray in her jeans, pulling strands of cotton to twist between her willowy fingers. I wondered how long she had sat there, the monkey woman in her booth, accepting money she could not keep from travellers who gawped and agreed with each other in whispers that she was too beautiful to work in a place like this. ‘She could be an actress, a model, a singer!’ Promises thrown about her head of contracts and glamour if she only lived in the western world. Did she know? Had anyone told her that she was ten times as striking as most beauties seen in magazines, even without the hours of gruelling nips and tucks and air brushing. If others were like me, I doubt they would have even taken a breath to speak before being distracted by the monkeys they had come to see.

At night, Sene Gambia was owned by men and I wondered where the monkey woman went. Did she sleep in her booth, upright against the wooden slats, her halo of hair a pillow against the splinters? Or did she tend to children in a home barely bigger than three booths in a row? Did she have a husband to serve, who she loved and loved her back? Did she have an elderly mother to care for, who relied on her daughter’s routine of returning every evening with a hand of dalasi and the strength to cook and clean? Did she cry at night for a miracle?  

Perhaps she was happy, content with her life. Perhaps an offer of a better world was in her mind not better at all. Perhaps our western way of thinking, of wanting more, of moving forward and craving the spotlight was just not how she thought. Perhaps it seemed fake, too far from the real world she knew and the people she loved. Perhaps she had never even thought about it.

Or perhaps, simply, she just loved monkeys.

The Oddness of Us

He never spoke

unless his finger tapped

on the round of his chin

and so

I ruined him when I asked

who gave his finger permission

to tap?

He speared the peas in twos

never threes

and the green beans and cabbage strips

but the carrots he ate in ones

because obviously

they were orange

She kept a mouse in her bag

and fed it

on sunflower seeds

that she found on the bird table

her father made

She wore holed socks

so her feet could breathe

and the smell could leak

from her foot to the shoe

Then I scrunched my nose

as I do

and they laughed at the oddness of me

The Seasoned Celebrity

A low, thin rail separated her from the hordes of pushing fans, more of an inviting seat than a barrier. They breathed hot air and jabbed with pointed hands as they vied for front row. Then their mouths formed little ‘ohs’ and they gazed adoringly at the face they had only seen on postcards and television. But she was not fazed; she had been doing this for years. She smiled her infamous smile, revealing nothing of herself except the suggestion of a secret.

The sand sponged wall behind her spread open like a blank canvas. People always commented on how small she was in real life; I blamed that wall with all its height and width. She looked vulnerable, pressed with her back against it. The security guards that flanked her left and right leant with wan grins and tried to smother yawns.

Was she behind glass? I couldn’t tell. Her face was so clear, hardly aged at all, and yet with all the flashing and snapping going on around my head I wondered at her preservation.

Her sisters had not received the same treatment. They were left out in the long halls, suffering the touch of oily fingers and close up scrutiny. I’d been shocked. I had expected more respect for them, a greater separation, not an up close and personal encounter. I had held my breath around them, not wanting to release a single harmful molecule onto their already cracking faces.

I reached the barrier as those ahead of me grew bored and moved on. It pressed into the tops of my legs as she drew me closer into her knowing stare. She seemed to look right at me and I felt a connection form between us, stretched over hundreds of years. I wanted to know who she was, how he had come to know her, what she had been thinking as she sat and he painted. I was filled with a sudden sadness; she had moved from the slow intimacy of the artist and his muse to the steals of impatient cameras. I wondered how many of the pressing crowd actually stood in awe of her, and how many were there only to take the bragging iconic shot to show friends and family.

I am ashamed to say, after removing the flash and apologising to Leonardo, that I took my own and walked away.     

Woman in a Wide Brimmed Hat

cut at the waist by waves of green

she looks down at the companion she knows is there

and smiles at his invisible play

Soft curves and rises surround her

speckled yellow and white

there is always more on the horizon

as they roll out of sight

Beneath her feet

banks sliced smooth

splurge a deep red that bleeds into the water

where Medusa weeds splay

caught in a draft of tide

and an artifice of sugar rests on the surface

For You

Sweet words with a price, they said. They suggested a gift, but we were told not to believe it for payment was ultimately expected. Money, clothes, a flight out of Africa. Turn away from ‘for you’ with your hands closed.

The first ‘for you’ came when I was given a plate of Benachin by a trio of chuckling ladies dressed in gold, their hair swept up in swathes of tie-dyed cloth. ‘For you,’ they chimed, and my radar bleeped in warning. But I ate it all, mopped the juice with my fingers and chased the last grain around the plate. Payment came in the form of an empty dish.

The second ‘for you’ came when I bought a doll, her dress mimicking the fine batiks of the women I saw. I paid the vendor and he asked me to wait as he reached up into a ceiling of beads and plucked a necklace. ‘For you,’ he said as he fastened it round my neck. I looked up, expecting to see an empty, impatient hand held out, but instead he smiled and wished me safe travels.

The third ‘for you’ came in a Bakau, a fishing village where men and children pulled nets into bright boats. The smoke-filled huts on the shore boasted fish dried to leather and overlapped like scales of a larger creature. ‘For you,’ a child said as he wiggled one free and swiped the flies from its skin. For the strange white visitors he had only seen in books.  

The fourth ‘for you’ came when I woke early and ventured to the market to buy a gift of clothing for a child. The vendor, a woman with a dozen thick braids, caught my wrist and wrapped it with bracelets. ‘For you,’ she said, her first customer of the day who would bring her luck.

The last ‘for you’ came when my money was spent. He caught my eye and gestured me over to stand amongst his stall of carvings. He asked my name and beamed when I told him. He told me to come back in a minute or two, and when I explained that I had no more Dalasi he waved me off with a dismissive hand, insistent still. When I went back, he was polishing an ebony dolphin with a dirty cloth. ‘For you,’ he said, the girl who shared a similar name.  

Lady of the House

He sucked on seeds

while she made buffalo stew

with a splintered spoon

that rose to scold

unruly children

as they scavenged beneath chairs

She lit lanterns

and hung them in trees

they warmed her face

dabbing away lines

and bathing her in softness

while inside the television glowed

Lips muttered the dreams of sleep

she touched them with a kiss

one by one

then slipped into jeans

and stretched bare toes

on a floor she had neglected to sweep

The Black Parade

It was the saddest day.

On the eve of Good Friday, the long parade of the hooded make their way slowly through the streets of Sorrento like a black mist. At first sight, tourists catch their breath and shake disbelieving heads as an inaccurate association spills to the forefront of their understanding. But this is not a procession of hate.

The incappucciati wear their pointed black hoods with slotted eyes as a mark of tradition, sorrow and shame. Like Adam and Eve, they cover their sin and hide from the Lord. Pale hands clutch torches to light the silent streets and the solemn faces of two thousand spectators. Faint footsteps tap the ground as a prelude to the hymns that follow, the mournful voices that drift after the parade and mark it with pathos. In the distance, a drum beats like a deadening pulse. Yet I smile a little as men with authority and wooden sticks dig and knock the hooded back into line when they happen to drift. This parade is for the Lord; it shall be precise.    

Women cross their chests and bow their heads when their Lady passes. Dressed in black, the Madonna mourns the death of her son and searches for his return. Sceptics fidget in the silence, feeling out of place and yet unable to move away from the transfixing event. Soon they fall still and watch with the saved. In this moment, everyone is a believer.

Symbols of the Saviour’s end sail in the regimented sea of the hooded: the jug in which Pilate washed his hands of all blame, the bag that held the money of the betrayal, the rooster that marked Peter’s triple denial with its crow, the cross that encompasses the faith of Christians in solid wood and weight.

This is a funeral march, but as in all Christian deaths that follow Christ’s, hope overrides in the promise of new life.

You have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy. John 16:22.   

          

Six thousand three hundred and fifty six miles away, Filipino men walk in their own parade along the streets of Subic. The symbols they bear are different: deep slashes across bare backs and the holes of crucifixion held in open palms. For them, it seems the death of Jesus was not enough.  

Barely enough for a can of coke

They took us to an aluminium recycling plant in the heart of Serekunda. Immediately western images filled our heads with walls and workers and health and safety laws. But here we met two men, with more skin on show than was covered by shorts and fraying shirts, sitting around a pit of molten fire, their burnished toes hanging over the edge of the melting pot. The factory was cramped, the floor no different to the ground of outside and the corrugated walls seemed to lean in as though they too had begun to melt under the agonising heat.

We took it in turns to fill the tight space and gaze into the inferno inches from our canvas covered feet. Those that were taller could barely stand and the sweat on our noses began to drip and make potholes in the dust. Moulds hung from the walls for pots and cauldrons and various utensils. The men just sat and watched and stirred. A few moments was all we could manage before we tripped from that place and let the next batch in.

In the next section of the factory, consisting of a yard situated at the back of the hut we had come from, aluminium products were being plucked from mountains of rubbish and collected in a heating vat to begin the process of transformation. I looked at what counted as precious to the people who worked there, and was ashamed to see many items that I would have deemed unusable. 

       

Finally, we stood in a cavern of matt silver as the final products dangled from ceilings and leant against walls. ‘Please touch’ was the invitation given by a bobbing vendor. The surfaces were rough and satisfyingly grainy. Tiny hollows where tools had beaten the metal into shape were visible, trademarking each item as handmade and unique. We bought generously, baffled at the prices that seemed so little. I traced the delicate outline of a leaf, its veins spreading like tributaries to the very edges of the perfect dip in my serving spoon. Twenty five Dalasi, barely enough for one can of coke, and yet a handful had gone into making my gift.    

Later, as we drained the last drops of water from our plastic bottles, children with orange feet held out their hands for what they could use and we would throw away. 

The Dispute- a poem found in 'Shadow of the Silk Road' by Colin Thubron

Blackened pillars on shrunken gums

chop littered talk

onto dangling beards

that sift an argument

of hot air

into a cloud of dust

I can barely understand a word

Secretly Inside

It starts with a speck of grit

an irritating splinter caught between

that must be covered

to make it unseen

but it grows

round like a baby

and then they come

fingers fat

to prise it out

with gushes of pleasure

they dribble with many

 

my flaw becomes your pearl