Poetry and Other Doodlings

Recently I’ve taken to writing poems and thoughts in a collected and organised manner. Strange huh? Some of them are clearly late night scratchings on the glass ceiling of my soul, trying to get something out. Others are performance comedy poems.


For a more up-to-date blog of poems, please see SkylarkingZooby blog

If, For A Flash, I Felt Bidden.

The empty streets glowed gaudy with
Season’s Greetings.
How empty streets gain nothing but fear of
Footsteps or shadows or the sound of muffle and hum.
“Have you seen the film about the dead girl?” you said.
I don’t need to see it.
Laconic.
I left before
We got too deep into one
And I got too deep into you.
I don’t want to feed that danger,
I cannot be more than stranger.
I want to remain an imprint on the night,
Not a fumble. Or a shackle.
But from where I stand I can
See the blurry edge of
Friendship turn to longing.
I cannot even wish for a clear day,
For clarity is what I am
Now.

The purple of the night
Makes it a lot easier but
Dares everyone, eases people to
Believing this is right.
I know.
You can’t bolt down an empty space.
If, for a flash, I felt bidden
To feel your face
I’d have ran and hidden before
I’d stirred the corners of
Your simplicity. Perhaps shadows
Of commotion would have shrouded
That intention, made you feel
Flesh, made you sense what I know.
No. It would never happen -
I don’t allow proximity.

The new night soon turns baby day
And from the dome of sleepy
Goodbyes there was a crack in
This skull of mine.
Was it in the bright bulbs
Lining The Broadway
Or was it the freckled void?
That fickle glimpse of happiness;
The simple pleasures of holding hands at moments,
Comforting in your smile’s caresses.
Breathing happy air
Calming down, sitting still.
Able to breathe. Breathing.

©JamieZubairi 2010, original date, unknown

It’s A Gift


Animals, Kensington Gardens - It's a gift.

Bad feet - great legs!

Maria Assumpta.

Mask!

Mask neutral,

Mask character.

Pushing the air.

If you touch, it's a gift.

Bump into each other, it's a gift.

Eyes that pierce, kind.

"Oh, she's so LeCoq"

"Oh, she's so French"

None of that "And 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

And 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8"

Call it!

Rising, floating, dabbling, in the mud.

Slashing, passers by, slashing, in the mud, slashing,

bumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbump

bumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbump

Suspension...!


©Jamie Zubairi 2010

For Christian Darley-Ingle, because you believed without question.

I Share Your Gift


I came to share with you

That gift to me you gave

What glows in your grows in me.

Let us sit and listen to us.


In my hands is something small

Fledgling, foundling, struggling to breathe

And take its initial stumble or flight.

It stands to see the mountains where it can soar.


I will miss the dance.

Thank you

For baring your soul's teeth.

I will miss the dance.

Showing us the sound of your voice,

I will miss the dance!

The depth of your love, your healing words,

The breadth of your pain.


Hold it, your precious gift to me.

Hold it. Take it. Here. This.

I give it back to you to share

This is the dance that I will miss.


©Jamie Zubairi 2009, 2010

For The Girl


For the girl with the long blonde hair

Please can you clean the plug hole. It’s blocked.


©JamieZubairi 2010

No Puedo Hacerlo


Un mensaje,

Un viaje,

El corazon de Diciembre.

Navidad.


Una cama grande,

Una fotografia,

Una pelicula,

El viaje que no te puedes hacer -

No puedo hacerlo.

La distancia -

No puedo hacerlo.


Tus manos

Tu cara -

No puedo hacerlo.

Tu boca,

Tus labios como rubíes,

Tu beso -

No puedo hacerlo.


Tu protección,

Tu amor

Tu comodidad,

Tu abrazo -

No puedo hacerlo.


Miréme

E intentare.


©Jamie Zubairi 2006

Incredible sadness


(not sure why it’s called that, it’s just on top of the page that I wrote this on!)


I come to you for comfort

To comfort you

But I’m shunned by your

Brittle shoulders, your

Hard eyes beat my soul

From within their sockets.


I try to hold you

But you can not surrender your grief.

Give me something

Forgive me one thing.


I come to you

I come to you, my palms open,

My heart wide, my forehead low.

Touch me.

Hold me.

I need your sorrow

To become mine.


©Jamie Zubairi 2009, 2010

It Was The Summer Of My Youth It was the Summer of My Youth We were on holiday in Scarborough When I came into myself. She was older than me Mousey haired, looking for marriage, Wore a green pinny And worked behind the glass At the BP garage Over the road. She came over on her tea-break To smoke the fags I'd bought my dad an hour ago. I kissed her body - This was Yorkshire - She smelt like kippers I walked around the holiday home And wore her like slippers. She said 'Can you prove your love?' I slipped my hand in and wore her like a glove. The North sea spume splashed On her promenade walls, The spray ran down in rivulets On her high harbour front. Her mouth was full With talk of years and ages. She protested I could be her son! I replied, 'I'm the little brother you never had - Now kiss me.' ©Jamie Zubairi 2000, 2009
No Cane Today The white sun beat down like ash in our eyes The long fields unbordered but by black railway lines The terrifying calm of the sweaty break And still, no cane today. In the distance the clump of corrugated factories No thump thump thumping of machines Shut in silence as no steam escapes And still no cane today. I watch you work, your shiny skin in rivuléts I in the cool of the room, stifled under petticoats and mosquito nets Watching as you heave your green and yellow gold. The thresher taking all you give to hold, The yearning in my limbs makes me fret and fray. Still, no cane today I sit at home listening to the ticking clock Waiting for the bootfall on the front porch The screendoor slam and sway I pray For still no cane today. ©Jamie Zubairi 2009 as an improvised Maya Angelou from an idea borne in 2000 with the Selkirk Quartet.
They Came On Bicycles They came on bicycles In September before the rains. First they were few with cameras, Documenting everything, significant of nothing. We thought nothing of it Until a break in the rains, after I started school. Locusts on velocipedes Swarmed the town from The North. Clothes and pans carried in cloths and sacks. I found out why we had to live in the jungle Only after we came back home. The 3-year game of hide and seek Going to school coming from school Being looked after by my aunties In that house hidden by tall trees No Mak No Ayah for days. At school we got new tables in Standard One! No more sitting on floors. but we were told to kept quiet about Ayah. Friends fathers disappeared for weeks Some never returned. Those that did Came back empty shells, Empty shells For eyes that saw nothing. We walked to school one day Away from the path as you were dawdling We saw the swollen orange river ran red And we didn't get to school that day So we played by the bridge Upstream where the river was clean. And I never spoke about it after. We never heard about the rapes And those buried alive We heard stories of tortured. But we never mentioned that man Beheaded by the river. And I told no one until after They surrendered in the school. In the school where my son would go A thousand lifetimes from today. ©Jamie Zubairi 2008