Adam in Orange

On the afternoon of the twenty first of September 2001 a commuter, crossing Tower Bridge noticed something orange floating in the Thames. On closer inspection the object was discovered to be the torso of a young Nigerian boy aged between six or seven.
The police named him Adam and an autopsy found the remnants of a bean in his stomach. The bean, which originated from West Africa, paralyses its victims, while leaving them fully conscious. After several years of investigation, by the British police, including a journey to Nigeria , nobody has been charged with the ritual murder of Adam. To date, there are no official Nigerian Police records of any investigation into the murder of Adam or the many thousands of Nigerian children that disappear every year.


Adam in Orange

Through freezing mud water
I behold
My brother, my father, my son
A stubbed torso winks back
The story of an ill night
In the shape of the slaughter
Of an African child.

They stand over you.
You peer up, your trusting eyes wide with
The promise of sweets and football
They call your name. Lost
Not Adam.
You drop your pail
As leather skinned palms pull you
From a sandy castle
In a slum
Into the stomach of a steel bird
That screams as it carries you sky bound
Up and up
And down and down
To the grey incubus
In the fist of a hoary asphalt jungle
Immaterial child say goodbye to the indigo star lit skies
And look down
There- soft red carpeted stairs on stiff bear feet
There- goes a matchstick boy.

Filled with the promises of rainbow splashed sweets
Who stares up at a cartoon ceiling?
Where a supple drum murmurs from another soul’s arid skin
Rhythmic soft, amber, naked waxed lights
Hushed voices. There is something static in the air.
Mouths that show smiles as clean as bone
Cherry eyes that simmer your soul away
Adam? Did they tell you to always respect your elders?
“The sweets?”
Straw tongues rasp “Hush Hush, eat this”
Small brown bean.
Bang!
CAN’T MOVE
Your eyes are paralysed
But they scream
Tonight they will aputate your life
I see a crimson terror
pumping through your tiny heart,
H-E-L-P leaps from plush black velvet eyes
“Adam, take my hand hold it. Let me-
-too late”
Looming shadows approach.
The air screams
Horror, horror, horror,
Yours eyes leak the last of your life
Balmy saline down your frozen cheeks
Razor edged blade coldly smiles
And kisses you soft sweet neck
Gushing streaks of crimson and red
To a steady pump
To none
To
Adam
Headless, Limbless, stumped
A face?A name?
A soul
Floating orange on grey
One day, my son
I will reach deep into limbo
So deep
And take your hand and fold it in mine
As warm as a heart beat
As fragile as glass.

Hypocrisy and the Death of Michael Jackson

Al Sharpton stood on the stage at Michael Jackson’s funeral and declared to Prince Michael, Paris and Blanket ( still can't believe anyone is seriously called Blanket)
‘Weren’t nothing strange about your Daddy.’ with a straight face and in all sincerity.
Is it not possible to be talented and emotionally damaged at the same time? Apparently not, according to the outpouring of grief and finger pointing from Jackson’s family and fans.
Earlier this year an acquaintance spoke of her frustration about being unable to purchase tickets to the ominously named ‘This Is It’ concerts that Michael Jackson was (being forced) to perform in London this summer to slave his way out of debt. ‘He is the greatest performer of all time’ She said, ‘and I want to go and see him this summer because you never know, he might be dead next year.’ She punctuated the end of her lament with an embarrassed giggle. Her desire summed up the carnivorous atmosphere surrounding Michael Jackson in his later years. For the last nine years of his life he became increasingly emaciated and even more out of it. Since the year 2000 Michael Jackson hadn't looked as if he could handle anything more than rehab, intense psychotherapy and six months convalescence.
‘We see you ill and thin and broken, we see you emotionally crippled unable to recover from the childhood you never had, but we will buy tickets to your concerts this summer just in case you’re dead by the end of the year., don’t get well first Michael- entertain us’. Oh, how they brought out the fan in the word fanatic.

They saw his extraordinary physical metamorphosis over the years, his extreme skin bleaching, was surely a first. What was left of his nose became as thin and sharp as the needles used to satisfy his addiction to painkillers.
I along with millions of others of my generation grew up with the music of Michael Jackson. He was the ONLY handsome young boy of African descent on the TV screens back in the day. He was someone who filled so many of us with something beyond pride - a sense of self-satisfaction, after all he was that good. But then came the cover of the Bad album and he no longer looked like Michael Jackson to me, worse was of course to follow.
Regardless of his iconic status as an entertainer and trailblazer.. no matter how wonderful his music and dance moves, his physical appearance, bizarre behaviour and fixation with holding pyjama parties with cute young boys, made me feel uneasy and embarrassed.
Michael Jackson's life from beginning to end was strange and after a certain point I think we all knew it was going to end in tears.
May your music live forever.
Once you were my hero, but that was a long time ago.
RIP Michael.

My weekend

I believe that any artistic or creative endeavour worth undertaking, has a greedy energy that needs to be fed. Which is why it was refreshing to jump in Fairy's Art Mobile yesterday and leave town for a day in Hertfordshire.
I went from an incredibly morose mood (Michael Jackson is dead and has taken my youth with him ) to refuelling my creative energy.
First we drove to an arts fair, and had a lovely time with the some members of the late Stanley Kubrick's family plus guests. Regardless of the medium you use to express your art, good art is good art and being in that stunning natural envioronment fed my creative enrgy.
Then it was off to peruse the house of the late Bernard Shaw. I stood in the living room for a long time staring at his wheelchair and walking sticks. Strange, old battered objects from the past, carry the ghosts of their late owner and are a never ending source of fascination to me.
My mother took me to Madame Tussuad's when I was a kid, and I stood in the Chamber of Horrors for an uncomfortably long time studying the actual toffee bar that the child victim of a serial killer had eaten, along with the actual kitchen units where the murders had taken place. Eventually mother dragged me away from the display. 'That's the last time we're coming here' she said. What can I say? I was a Dark Child in more ways that one.
There is something so fascinating about studying historical relics, which are mute witnesses and bearers of so many secrets and clues.
We strolled around Shaw's beautiful garden and went to see his writing room- a small wooden hut that looked more like a cell than a creative space. Through the window one can see his old desk ,his typewriter and some note paper. There was also a single bed with old blankets, against the opposite wall. The stark, and rather dull character of the writing room surprised us both. It did not look like a creative space, but it was private, it was secluded, and it was neat.
The most interesting thing about the writing room was the revolving mechanism beneath it, which enabled the construction to swivel on it's axis, allowing Shaw to revolve the entire room in the direction of the sun throughout the day.
By the time we left we both felt inspired. And for me something had definitely shifted and lifted, giving me the energy to write.
The story I'm writing is emerging slowly and painfully as with any birth, but their are certain days when even though it's a first draft, and even though their is so much left to do, you feel that you have made some real progress. Today was one of those days. Let's see what tomorrow brings.