Love Defined.

This is a little poem I wrote today...

On this special New Years Eve

10...

Let the light reflect in your soul 

9...

Pearls of joy will find your eyes

8...

Hold memories like a pure dove

7...

Release them like a snowflake 

6...

Entangle your fingers with dreams 

5...

Stay safely in the shadows of passion

4...

Jazz melody wishes creating hope

3...

Move closer to a face called destiny

2...

Fireworks will explode in your heart

1...

It's a New Year, a new start, a new season to reinvent, recreate, reconcile and be whoever you desire to be. Laugh always, and life will laugh heartily along with you. Many beautiful blessings in this New Year!!!!

Poem: The Lost Sheep

Many broken fields 

Sheeples grazing 

Never looking up 

Days of roaming

Eat from this patch

Baa to that baa

Lay down again

Freedom

'Be That Girl' Poem

Don't let the rhythm 

inside you die

like a dead eyed butterfly

Be a rare, lost, multi-coloured 

gemstone in the sea

surrounded by drops of 

invisible, sweet nothings

Be that girl...

who stuffs too much wisdom

into her purse

beside her lipstick and hair gel 

hoping for a makeover 

of political injustices 

Eat the flavours of success

to give access for the poor

With your voice 

scream 

forgiveness until 

your eyes are sore

Hold open the door

of a compliment 

to let someone beautiful in

Let no trouble reach 

the mind's scaffolding 

Smile, 

because the weight,

is not impossible 

for your holding 

#orangeyourhood #16days

'Broken Window' Micropoem

Poem: The War in Love

To continue of the #16day theme of activism for women who have experienced domestic violence which finishes on 10th Dec, here is another poem I have written...

Love is captivating

A grandeur of irresistible strength

Bars of your bent arms 

Around my glass stomach

Squeezing 

Until each bit of sharpness

Becomes it's own in a rainbow

I'm yours 

Forever

Reflect me

To know love you must know war

Breaking down walls to conquer dreams

In the forgetfulness of sleep

Charge with a battering ram

Into my constructed soft meat

Until there is nothing left but

Surrender

I'm yours 

As I lay helplessly 

On your floor 

Love takes prisoners

Surrounded by muscular men with scars

Who choose their own prisons

And your company

Time has no nights

Torture is optional

So, you choose to scream

I'm yours

Until you die

In his hands

Love is not love without war

Micropoetry: Face me

We all love parts of people that are ugly.

New Poem. Sometime you can feel so many colours.

America And It's Many Creations Of Art

So I have been spending time on my journey soaking in the atmosphere and looking around with eyes that find the uniqueness in everything that I see. A fresh pair of eyes for inspiration and creation of life from raw materials. 

I see art wherever I turn.

And as I stumble across a lot of art on my journey, my first question is... what is art?

I don't have an answer for that specifically. 

Modern art doesn't have an answer for that specifically. 

I will try and be non-specific then...

Art, in a non-specific way, is the essence of who we are and what we do. You are a piece of modern art, with your poetic word choices or the way you put your dinner on the canvas plate to make it visually appealing to appreciate it and eat. It is all art.

I take my art to the stage but there is not much distance between the stage and a business presentation where you present yourself to make an impression and effect an audience with a different perspective of subjective words, facts and figures. Public speaking. Confidence. Visual prompts. A smile. All art.

Or you can choose to express yourself in a place where all the suits come off, on the street. These artists are risk takers putting themselves 'out there' for the world to get inspiration. Whilst the world is walking down the street with their clothes as a canvas as inspirational food for the street art makers in a cycle of cause and effect.

Pick up a piece of curved wood and nylon and pluck it. Or if you lived before 1900, you'd have plucked the gut of a sheep or a goat to make melodic rules from sounds that float. Then creatively express that through symbols and lines so others can read and appreciate your art without your physical body to guide them. Sharing art through rules. Breaking artistic rules.

Or maybe one day someone created a pinhole through which the laws of physics determined would invert the image of an object unto a surface that would allow that image to be drawn. From this room size camera which would fit one or more people inside, to a hand size computer whose photographic memory is so powerful it can also tells us when to eat our lunch, orders it and then allows us to instantaneously upload that lunch to Instagram in a just few buttons.

What is art? It is science, it is engineering, it is choices, it is actions it is the silence in between, it is passion and expression to another person, or secretly for another person. 

It is patience, it is boldness, it is an investment and risk. It takes belief and faith; it is spiritual. 

It is your firstborn child. It is your love. 

Take centre stage, the audience is in silent anticipation.

But please when you walk daily towards some destination that you may not even be sure of, be sure that art is everywhere and can be expressed in anyway you choose, and interpreted in as many ways as words in our dictionary. The only certainty is the uncertainty of the journey, and the expression of self in the process.

 `

Live life and create art.

 I am in awe of artists, hence, I am in awe of you.

(Next post I will be discussing the role of art in domestic violence survivors...)

Spoken Word Sunday with The Mouthy Poets

I am organising this event alongside some Mouthy Poets in association with Nottingham Women's Centre and Women's Aid for a cause that is very near and dear to my heart... empowerment of vulnerable women. This event is going to be a special one with spoken word, storytelling and singer-songwriters collaborations. Please do attend and support a worthy cause.

Interview with Pitman Browne

New 'Science of Digestion' Poem

The Artisan Workshop with Indigo Williams

In my last article I wrote about self-development and today I want to be specific about my latest self-development journey. 

I decided I wanted to develop my writing skills in regards to poetry so my writing can be authoritative without having to be performed to bring life to it's words. I wanted to cultivate my writing to bring out it's own power on the page. I had high aspirations for them to create the same elegance and refinement in poems I have wept over in crumpled books. I wanted to finally make the transition from writing selfishly with the purpose of venting to make myself feel (a lot) better, to writing for an audience which invites them in to share these feelings alongside me. 

I was hungry for knowledge regarding the theoretical skill of writing poetry.

So I asked around.... "Where do I go to become a better writer?" 

I kept hearing the name Indigo Williams, and if I was serious about understanding the technical side of poetry then that was the person I needed to go to, and luckily for me she was having a workshop coming up in the next few weeks in London. 

I was excited. 

Here is some of her work so you can have a taster before I go on... Indigo William's Poem: Dark Black

So now you understand. 

Indigo Williams was one of the first spoken word artists I most admired when I first learnt about the art of spoken word poetry only a few short months ago. I would see a chemistry lesson's worth of colours being exploded within fire as she would perform on her YouTube videos. She had something mysterious to me about the way she put words together and I could not miss the opportunity to be in a workshop with her and unravel first hand what made her writing so powerful. 

I live in Nottingham. The course was four weeks in London with one week at an open mic at Come Rhyme With Me - (by the way an unmissable night of spoken word in London). I didn't care, I just had to find a way to be there for every session or miss out on something great. In my eyes this was the same as travelling long distances for true love, for which people would suffer intense rainstorms, exhaustion and spend their life savings, just to get to their love's front door. Except this time my "love" was poetry, as taught by Indigo. London was the rainstorm and I exaggerated a bit on the exhaustion and life savings by watching too many romantic movies. 

But the question really is.... how far would you go for self-development?

Apparently I was willing to 1288 miles and this included the journeys back and forth over the five weeks. Now, if you are sitting at home and your self-development journey involves you going 10 minutes down the road, then you really have no excuse not to go!

My gut told me that this journey would be valuable and I am glad I listened. A whole new world opened up to me where dead poets, and those that were very much alive, started talking to me from the page telling me about structure, style and meanings in their poems. Between sessions, the Poetry Library in South Bank beckoned me in also out of the rainstorms (and often snow) and told me to keep warm from all the knowledge and experience these books had to offer me. I would get my list of books out that Indigo suggested to the class to read and I would get lost again in middle of London. 

In the sessions we dissected poems like dead bodies. I use this smilie because we had to say something interesting about ourselves in the first session with Indigo and I said that I used to dissect dead bodies for my anatomy class for my science degree which always gets an interesting response from people (...big up King's College, Biomedical Sciences class of 2008!) So I feel this smilie is rather fitting for this strange reason. 

Back to the point. Indigo's class was possibly poetry habit changing, like when you realise you are an addict and need help to break your old addictions, my hand is broken now to my old poetry habits. I now will read every new poem with a suspicious eye, knowing some poems would be bad influences on me to try to entice me back to my old way of thinking but I will laugh at those poems and move forward to better poems with a promise and a future. Now I am able to analyse and break each poem down knowing how to interpret a poem and the elements and stylistic qualities it used to create it's central voice.

After all of this intense learning, I must admit that the secret highlight for me was listening to Indigo's theories of life and looking at how her brain puts together the different truths of life into one thought provoking sentence. All I am saying is that you need to get yourself down to Indigo's next set of workshops to experience this yourself. 

If you are a poet you will learn from someone who is experienced and willing to give you all of her knowledge for the minimal price of the cost of the workshop. If you are not a poet then after Indigo's Artisan workshops you will become one. Any human being will benefit greatly from her life lessons. You will leave feeling awe-inspired and either not want to leave the building when she is still in there to share her passion of poetry or be scrambling for the nearest pen and paper to start writing for your next class.

Find all about Indigo from her website: http://indigowilliams.co.uk
She post a lot of insightful posts on her Tumbler: http://thestufflifeismadeof.tumblr.com
She is very opinionated on her Twitter: https://twitter.com/Indigowilliams
...and check out her videos on YouTube for some more good stuff. 

Searching For Love... Poem by Sacha Wise

I learnt love from the guy who loved me

I didn't want to be with him

    But still he loved me

I learnt heart break from the guy whom I loved

He didn't want to be with me

    But still I loved him

I learnt hostility from the guy I married

I learnt patience

    But he said he had never loved me

I will stop searching for love in basements

under stairs, in cupboards and on book shelves

Where instead all I find is dust and cobwebs

   and empty space. I will start recognising 

love when I see it and not fall for it's easier, 

uglier sister, who is more like 

a well meaning brother

     I will find you 

Or you will find me

Because like love 

we are meant to be together

I will 

one day 

love you

"Cover Me With Lace Not Bruises" Video Footage From Say Sum Thin 4

2nd edit of "No Name Except The Name In My Head"

Fingers tap away on my heart
as if trying to create rhythm

I can't dance when your watching
or when I am sober. So I drink red wine

Moods change into a salsa

creating raw energy from our minds
intellectually moving me

to the floor where childish dreams
lie between my bruised thighs

and your biceps pin me down

assertively aching my insides

Facial muscles tense but lips tender
looking for saliva to heal cuts

Unqualified to service you with kisses
Everything is gone in my first aid box

But I never expected to find bird songs 

in the rough mines of your vocal cords

It's so hard to find steel toe capped boots 

that protect you these days

So I'll keep creating wishes for you
even if I have to blow them out

The light looks so free dancing
as if lost in the darkness of your eyes

In anticipation beautifully packaged boxes
are stroked but can't yet be opened

Make your wish
I'll borrow the one that's left over

I wish

You stop searching for heartache
and find what your looking for

because then you will find in yourself
what you most admire

'A Poem That Is Calling For Respect' by Sacha Wise

RESPECT ME

without dismissing

RESPECT ME

like I am human

RESPECT ME

without changing me

RESPECT ME

I am human

RESPECT ME

like I'm you

RESPECT ME

I bleed brokenness too

RESPECT ME

I want so many things I can't have

don't need but admire

You

I feel bottled up inside your words

as you smash them on me

skin is broken

I bleed

so

do you

I ask for what you

find impossible to give

RESPECT

Mighty word

with action

so your sorry

is just a sorry reaction

Leave me empty and alone

I'd rather that than saying your my home

Treasure us like the past

because you don't

know me

or

owe me

Just respect the need for you to

not be in my life

I can't keep

saying it

with

empty words

that miss your ears 

and miss

mine

like

please 

one 

day

respect 

me



Then we can start again

like we never ended

my friend

This Is A Poem I Wrote From A Memory I Had Today

Broken From Birth

Being heart broken the way to healing

Women choose men for this reason

Decision made from broken homes

left on cold conciousness of stone

and forgotten

Until a woman in love remembers 

all the maternal faces he has known 

And guides his mouth towards hers

as she sucks in his pain as her own

poison

Trust her to also go

She looks just like the other women

so he pushes her

She falls

She is not safe in his crumbling tower

She can't be stronger than his mother 

He blames but she no longer listens

to his pain

His moans sound the same as

ice-cream falling out of undeveloped hands

and tantrums 

throwing her to the ground

Poetry Dies Because A Guy Has Spoken That Word?!

Poetry I knock you out!

Your dead cause I SAY so....

Wrong.

My friend Nathan A Thompson your wrong. 

Basically from what I can see there was a bit of a scandal in the UK poetry scene about two weeks ago when a young spoken word slam artist kind of turned his back on the performance poetry that he actually still teaches young people, through an article in the Independent. 

He declared poetry dead.

Here is the article he wrote, titled, "Poetry Slams Do Nothing To Help The Art Form Survive"...

Read The Original Article Here

I must say I say 'poets united' came out in full force and there were Facebook posts, Twitter tweets and blog posts galore.... where the performance poets fought back with their pens, or laptops, towards something of victory. I saw a tweet that said something along the lines of... 'you don't want to upset a poet as their attack with their pens will be brutal.' That made me chuckle.

I think at this point Nathan Thompson was in the corner surrounded by some angry poets all waving their pens very high to the sky and shouting loudly (after all they are performance poets) until Nathan realised it was getting too dangerous to be silent amidst the LOUD metaphorical disses that were dirtying his otherwise unheard of name.

He posted a response, a kind of justification and kind of acceptance of his wrong... but not really. Check it out:

Interview With Nathan Thompson

From this response, I got he actually does like poetry slams and apparently was attacking the attitude that slam is more authentic because it is underground. Obviously he cannot see the value of slam when he teaches it to young children in schools I presume. Oh but yes but he says he does see the value in slam to inspire young people to write. 

Now I am confused.

Maybe it was something to do with the £100 he was offered to write the piece... I don't know.

All I do know is I have seen many talented and hard-working spoken word artists who put their scars out there in a brave and selfless way. They craft their art and polish their acts to create something which can bring a bearded, butch of a man to tears. 

I know I have seen it. 

The magic they create is the similar to a conversation with a lover who you thought you would never see again and have missed sorely along your path. It's a similar type of aching performance poetry fills.... and longs for that one person to smile, laugh, or be touched in a way that forever changes their path. 

I know I have felt it.