x magazine issue 4

March 2004 cover art: this issue: phaZe phaZe05@hotmail.com

Editorial Wow! This was a hard issue to put together.

Because of the expansion of our parent company and the increasing focus on books we found ourselves, as editors, with a lot more on our plate.

In spite of the challenges, out track record has made it a lot easier for us to get good content and that has been very gratifying.

As always, we have laboured to get a fine balance between poetry, prose and interviews since this magazine is meant to entertain and not overwhelm.

previous issue: Theodore Harris III Artasaweapon@verizon.net

On a lighter note, our ‘old school’ subscribers will recognise the image at the bottom of the page. It’s from our first issue - we’re one year old!

Please continue to support the spoken word!

The Editorial Team March 2004

x magazine // Editor: Sally Strong Publisher: flipped eye publishing limited Poetry Editors: S. McFadyen (US) // N.A. Parkes (UK) www.flippedeye.net/xmag submissions@x-bout.com ISSN: 1477-3562 The views expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the publishers or editors.

Annual Subscriptions are available from the website, or via post to: Suite B, 17 Endsleigh Gardens, Ilford, Essex IG1 3EQ. Please note that we do not accept submissions by post.

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x fiction

About the Cover Artist phaZe

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continued on page 13...

x poetry

Trapped In The Snow Aoife Mannix The snow covers us with surprise, the black ice frozen as the wheels spin.

Unable to make it up the hill, we abandon the car, and slip slid our way back.

I eat the flakes and throw laughter in small, merciless balls, there’s a certain champagne purity in the white streets.

A beauty that hides the smallness.

This could be New York, this could be any Christmas place, cold and true and not lost in the swirl of petty grudges, breakfast hatred, muddy edges, the digging under the skin, the placing of mines, the threat of poison in the air.

I breathe white smoke and it opens my lungs to winter possibilities, a frozen moment floating free from the crazy bustle of rainy nights.

The hush of nature muffles the shouting, the words that turn to slush.

If we could keep this crystal clarity, this childish wonder, watching our feet instead of looking over our shoulder, there’s no place we really need to be.

If we had the time to build a snow man, if we had the nerve to stay out in the cold, if we no longer had anything to prove.

In this brightness we’re just specks in the distance, and the water melting in my mouth tastes like hope.

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x poetry

“Getting Past The Privates�

Bridgette Alyce finite beings frustrate easily when confronted with mortality we therefore become mired in the folds of our own flesh... the first and last frontier ever exploring new possibilities earnestly excavating, uncharted territories marking each dig with the pungent odor of our inevitable decay ~down the front-n-center of our universe we grope, probing endlessly between supple pillars of truth in search of deeper ...7

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x poetry 6 (Getting Past..., Bridgette Alyce)... understanding within dark halls & vaginal walls climax is wisdom at the height of carnal physicality but we don’t experience orgasmic spirituality we sit, in awe of the body electric the beauty dynamic the pleasure intrinsic irreverently revelling in our very skin my people wanna cum then COME let LIGHT in ...my people... true wisdom is easily imparted from soul touches felt generations ago ancestral memory embedded in our history information seduction copulation ...8

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x poetry 7 (Getting Past..., Bridgette Alyce)... instruction teaching us every teenanchie thing we ever need to know yeah, it’s about deep insemination timed precisely between the flow it’s about new life and the dissemination of L~O~V~E from the WORD “GO” more than sexual gratification more about building a ONELOVE NATION seeds sprouting LIFE and TRUE DEDICATION & the END of meaningless mutual/ masturbation...

teenanchie - black american slang from the 70s for minute or tiny

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x poetry

earthwalkers from tight belly of moon: harriet tubman poems

Quraysh Ali Lansana

guns shoot hind de dark hill devil’s fingers creepin de valley dog bark cut my soul dey bite us on de wind dese saints run so long wid no water a sunrise since a safehouse de weary rest mudrock dese chirrens bed

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x fiction

Counselling

Aoife Mannix Sarah had been on another one of her retreats and insisted on telling him all about it. Paul was polishing the bar and doing his best to tune out her words. He liked the way the deep mahogany shined, so black he could see his own reflection in it. But it wasn’t enough to shut her out completely.

She was describing how they’d dug their own graves and slept in them for the night.

‘Wasn’t it cold?’ he asked despite not wanting to encourage her.

‘No, no, there was a big fire lit and they had drummers going the whole time so we didn’t feel alone. The only thing was I should’ve dug mine a bit wider ‘cos there wasn’t much room to move around.’

He shuddered. He could barely cope with the tube at rush hour, the thought of being buried alive made his throat constrict. He wasn’t going to tell her that though. Instead he forced a laugh.

‘I would’ve thought the one thing you could be guaranteed in this life is that someone else would dig your grave for you. Unless you were a terrorist or a gangster or something.’

She gave him her pitying look that made him want to slap her. Like she thought he was too stupid to understand her spirituality. It was keeping track of it was the hard part. In the year she’d worked for him in Riley’s bar, she’d done yoga, hypnotherapy, aromatherapy, psychotherapy and every other therapy known to man. She wore these strange beads round her neck to ward off evil spirits and read him his horoscope every evening.

Utter nonsense of course, but he still preferred when it was good. Today it said he should be wary of strangers and that he was in denial of who he really was. Sometimes he suspected she made them up to irritate him, but he never checked because that would be admitting he cared.

It was just gone six and the after work crowd were shuffling in. Business people mainly. Their voices loud with their own self-importance. Sometimes he wished the large dream catcher she’d insisted on hanging over the bar were able to keep them out. The after work crowd were a nightmare.

A bald man in a nondescript grey suit was ordering a round very slowly.

Paul blinked at him.

The man began to repeat his order more loudly. ...11

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10 (Counselling, Aoife Mannix)...

x fiction

Sometimes Paul felt like saying, ‘Just cos I’m not English don’t mean I’m deaf.’ Other times pretending not to speak English was very effective.

Silence could be a form of attack.

Sarah was staring at the bald man like she’d seen a ghost.

‘Robert?’ she asked.

The bald man looked her over lazily. ‘Do we know each other?’

His voice was polite but vaguely sleazy. Like he thought she might be a prostitute he’d once visited.

Sarah had gone bright pink. Paul was surprised. He’d met most of Sarah’s boyfriends. A long string of hippies who hung round the bar morosely sipping beer and predicting the end of the world. Not one of them possessed a tie. Maybe Sarah was finally branching out.

She seemed to have lost the power of speech. Suddenly she turned and ran out of the bar. Paul called after her but she didn’t look back.

The bald man shrugged. ‘Never seen her before in my life,’ he told Paul who didn’t believe him. Really Sarah had terrible taste, but this was scrapping the barrel. The guy was well into his fifties and in addition to his lack of his hair he had a paunch that hung over his belt. Paul expected she’d gone for a good cry and would come back in a bit. He was furious when there was no sign of her and he had to work the rest of the shift on his own. He was run off his feet with all the suits shouting and yelling. He nearly had a riot on his hands. He cursed her as he pulled the pints. As if the vegetarianism and burning incense that stank the place out wasn’t bad enough. He ought to have fired her long ago.

She didn’t show up the next day either.

He tried ringing her. There was some deeply annoying Buddhist chant on her answering machine so he didn’t bother leaving a message. He’d never been to her flat, but he had the address and he knew it wasn’t far. She’d told him she’d been on her way home from a support group meeting when she’d seen the sign saying, ‘Help Wanted.’ He didn’t know why he’d hired her, she’d no experience and she was always dropping glasses.

He was thinking about her clumsiness as he rang the bell over and over again. Taking out his outrage on the buzzer. Eventually the door opened a crack. Sarah looked like she had the flu. She was very pale and her hair hung long and lank when normally she had it up in some bandana wrap. ...13

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x poetry

Pillow Talk

Susan Richardson I’ve slept through thunderstorms, transatlantic phonecalls, four meals and two movies from London to Bangkok, the yawning, snoring and sleep-talking of a ten-bed dorm, two attempted burglaries, the nocturnal activities of three hamsters, sixteen dogs from the houses on my street howling at full moon, a bus trip in a blizzard and I bet I’d have missed the Blitz too.

So I’m sure I can sleep through you.

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x fiction 11 (Counselling, Aoife Mannix)...

She let him in reluctantly.

‘If you’re ill, you should’ve rung to say,’ he began.

‘I’m not ill’ was her reply. Her voice was oddly hollow, none of the bouncing positivity that grated on his nerves.

Her flat was much how he’d imagined it, only smaller; Lots of brightly covered throws, a lava lamp, and some kind of shrine in the corner.

‘Don’t tell me it’s cos of that guy?’ Paul asked. ‘Hardly worth losing your job over some bloke who doesn’t even remember you.’

Sarah began to sob. Paul looked at his hands. He couldn’t bear women crying, it made him feel panicked. He knew he should put his arm round her or try to say something comforting, but instead he just stood there. Eventually he lit a cigarette. He offered her one and she accepted, even though normally she turned her nose up and complained that his smoke was aggravating her asthma. He lit it for her and she seemed to pull herself together.

‘I always used to wonder what I’d say to him if I ever saw him again. I thought by now I’d be strong enough.’

Her voice had a tremor and he was afraid she’d start crying again.

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said more roughly than he intended.

Sarah was always going on about self-discovery and inner strength, but Paul wasn’t in the mood for it. He regretted coming round to her flat, he should’ve just stuck a new sign in the window and forgot about her. It was never a good idea to get involved.

‘He’s your ex?’ he asked impatiently.

‘No’ Sarah replied taking a little gulp of air. She was twenty-five but she had the face of a twelve year old. Pretty in a kind of fragile way.

‘His name’s Robert. He used to go out with my mother.’ She sucked on the cigarette.

Silence stretched between them. He just stared at her. He’d already guessed what was coming next.

Eventually she said, ‘One night, when I was about six years old, he came into my room,’ Sarah faltered and then her words came out in a strangled rush. ‘I told my mother what was going on. She was very upset, told me I was lying.

The next day I came home from school and she was dead. She took an overdose. I was the one who found her.’

Paul stared at his shoes. He hadn’t felt this angry for a very long time. ...14

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x fiction 13 (Counselling, Aoife Mannix)...

‘My therapist says I’m making progress, that I’m finally starting to get over it. But then when I saw him...’ Sarah looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

Paul stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Sarah,’ he said slowly. ‘There are some things in this life that nobody could ever be expected to get over.’

Then he got up and left closing the door softly behind him.

It wasn’t hard to find out where Robert worked. Paul just asked the crowd he’d been with. They were regulars, and the bald man was a client of one of them. Something to do with advertising. Paul sat on the wall outside Robert’s office building for three hours until eventually he emerged. Clearly working late. He headed for the tube at a brisk space.

Paul followed him. Watched him as he sat on the train reading his paper.

He got off at Greenwich. Crossed the road and went into the offey.

Paul saw him through the window buying a packet of fags.

The moment Robert stepped out, Paul put the knife up to his face.

Without saying a word, he backed him into the car park by the supermarket. The bald man was gibbering like an idiot. Trying to hand over his wallet, his car keys. Paul put his fingers to his lips and the man shut up.

‘You do know her,’ he informed him keeping his voice low. ‘Her name’s Sarah.’

Robert looked puzzled, then a look of terror spread over his face.

‘I’m sorry,’ he gasped. But it was too late. Paul had already stabbed him.

The blood spread quickly over the bald man’s shirt in a dark stain. Like all the years of his life were flowing out of him.

Paul turned and quickly walked away. He’d never been a great believer in counselling.

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x

x poetry

I Run Deeper Ebele I run deeper than the colour of my skin deep deep deeper than the love my man has for me deeper than when he’s loving me kissing me holding me deep deeper than when he’s holding me rocking me ‘won’t let go of me’ deep rub my skin – real hard underneath my brown-black skin is brown-black earth (carpet of the gods, so they tread carefully...) soil rich as unrefined cane sugar soil richly-infested with big, fat, brown-black worms each layer of earth moist with light-brown to jet-black shades of history. but I run deeper than that deeper than a dream within a dream within a dream ‘cos underneath this brown-black earth...

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x poetry 15 (I Run Deeper, Ebele)...

Underneath this brown-black earth is a naked soul that yearns to see as a blind man sees borrow a fraction of his perception for 24 hours break down each hour into frozen nano-seconds then study each nano-moment in intricate detail outlining my soul with each and every tick-tock each revelation until I can see - truly see.

Underneath this brown-black earth is a naked soul who wears her color with pride but when she dies, she will shed her cocoon of color (and gender) but will take her inner shadow her spirit her essence with her...

Yester-day I rubbed my beautiful rich earthy brown-black skin real hard with my own truth and now I know I run deeper deep deep deeper deeper than the color of my skin.

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x poetry

Freedom in Jeans Heather Taylor The boy Sits On the curb His visit’s almost over With his Mom and half sisters Almost over tiptoeing Around their new dad.

This time Old bruises stayed yellow Wooden spoons stayed in drawers And belts stayed on trousers Even fists stayed out of clenched hands.

The boy Sits On the curb No longer the shadow kid In jogging suits worn Down to knees and elbows Or dressed in saggy polyester pants He sits Instead In jeans and a t-shirt Dressed in the anthem Of every other kid.

In his new school He has friends Who wear jeans and t-shirts too They don’t see in his clothes now That run-down place he came from Where washing machines And nightly baths and cuddles Were as foreign as the Sahara To Eskimos.

The boy Sits On the curb Those clothes of strangers ...18

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x poetry 17 (Freedom In Jeans, H. Taylor)...

Sitting familiar on his body Like the confidence He never had Before they entered his life -Gifts from a social worker Whose son outgrew them And moved on to other brands But gave The boy Who sits On the curb, Waiting for the grandparents he lives with, Normality And that feeling of love For the first time.

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x poetry

Bullies Amita Chatterji Bullies are those born with cells that are small…

They bully to have one at their beck and call They bully because they want to be tall They bully because they’re short of a ball They bully because they want to impress all…

They bully because they’re hungry for power They can bully others hour after hour They like to taunt and see people cower They could be insecure or simply dour They want to show how important they are Bullies are people who are usually sour A bully, he or she, should be sent to the Tower!

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x poetry

salt (for oul, elian, amadou)

Jessica Mkakyera Horn birth brings blues in the scarlet canals of its passage bruises and blisters call in the night she came over pacific oceans cambodia to LA clothing tight around her refugee limbs with every newborn tug she feels at her breast nausea rises red appears on the walls red-rouge-khmer-crying bruises and blisters call in the night he came through gulf streams reciting prayers to the exiled saints of cuban cathedrals his young fingers clinging to an innertube batista chants wrap around him like seaweed salt-sand-CNN stick to his conquistador skin birth brings blues in the scarlet canals of its passage bruises and blisters call in the night another returns over atlantic oceans soaked in the silent sirens of new york’s assassins 19 holes through his charcoal body charcoal flesh embraces bullets in the wails of cameroon’s coast bullets slat rocks flesh ...21

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x poetry 20 (salt, Jessica Mkakyera Horn)... salt sand seaweed skin these are the fossilised fables that wash up on the shores of the north immigrant dreams of home and safety blasted from their saline sanctuaries onto sidewalks patrolled by shadows oul, elian, amadou scrape out a place in these hostile ports, drift blistered and bruised through the scarlet canals of birth’s passage calling out blues to the northern night.

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x poetry

Your Silence

Susan Richardson Your silence comes with a fanfare of trumpets, with oompahs, a roll on the drums.

It burps and barges to the front of queues, farts and gatecrashes parties.

It’s a car alarm that won’t switch off, six hours of TV ads, and Talksport round the clock.

Your silence slams doors, spraypaints walls, takes the Olympic torch and burns down buildings.

Your silence turns bright blue from screaming.

I leave it to run out of b r e a

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t

h

x poetry

Song Nii Ayikwei Parkes For seventeen years the same dream: a woman with blood on her nipples an orange-headed lizard nodding two hundred babies drowning in a triangle a bag of green eyed marbles a pocket full of questions and I wake up sweating‌

For seventeen years without fail; dark lips kissing a crack pipe a balding man with round spectacles the smell of burning flesh a harbour on a desert a crying sunset and I wake up shivering‌ Bent under the weight of my eyes the motherless pull

of my ears,

always licking the ledge of a levitating past for the taste of a trend a gene of sense in the snake coiled barrages of sex soaked mysteries packaged in dreamland blinks: a boy, a cot, and a bus a jar of pearl teeth wings stuttering as they beg for a dance with a blue-eyed gust of wind a brown man in a white cloak leaking from a red hole a pen, a plot, a plane ice cubes in Congo Cubans in a conga line a hawk, coal and a man drumbeats trapped in a capitalist yarn

...24

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x poetry 23 (Song, Nii Ayikwei Parkes)... excess production of cotton X-X-L jeans the story of hip hop a snot-nosed old man with flies on his lips humming In my head in my head in my head for seventeen years‌ until a pin tickles the hardened valleys of a black vinyl city and a bird emerges with a horned beak to tell a tale: the children became greedy and bit the mother’s nipples the lizard nodded I told you so for two hundred years while the green-eyed monster sold his siblings as slaves in exchange for a crack pipe and after seventeen years of confusion I see Gandhi starving for lynched men while Lumumba drops like an ice cube from the sky I hear Coleman Hawkins blowing and see Miles Davis frowning.

There are questions in the wind about the sale of a drumbeat.

I feel the vibrations of defiant slaves dancing the conga on Guantanamo Bay. The earth questions the link between slavery and extra large jeans.

And I understand.

It was a song; a beautiful lullaby of truth that could not be silenced because Bille, Bird and Coltrane heard it because Donny, Ella, and Mingus felt it because Nina, Sarah and Tupac voiced it and they could not be silenced.

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URSULA “...Sometimes I wish that I’d had some of these experiences that I talk about that other people have had so I could really do it the ultimate justice when I write… translate it.”

x’ing paths interviewed by Nii Ayikwei Parkes

RUCKER 25

x interview Ursula Rucker’s voice has lived in headphones for a long time; lurking between broken beats, dance and jazz inspired tracks – a sweet and memorable sound. Naturally, when I am invited to interview her, and she says hello I feel like I know her already. The feeling is not mutual.

Although she smiles, shakes my hand and nods her head of proud curly hair, she is cautious to begin with. Who wouldn’t be in a sparse hotel room in West London so far away from her home in Philadelphia?

I try to set her at ease by asking about her new album, silver or lead, and how it felt to work on a sophomore project. She comes alive. “The new tracks were exciting to do because it’s always exciting to record with people you respect, and make art. And i feel the need to say that a lot of the tracks are new but they were made a while ago so it was interesting to have that mix and choose which ones would work together and sound good together. That was a first for me because with the last album everything was recorded new so this was a new approach and I wasn’t quite sure how it would come together.”

It’s obvious from her enthusiasm that she loves her work and its challenges. I try, but don’t manage to get her to pick a favourite of her two albums, or admit to being slightly more hesitant to flow on her first, Supa Sista. However, she does admit that she was nervous and didn’t want too much music since she is primarily a poet: A poet so dedicated that she wants to experience everything herself.

“Sometimes I wish that I’d had some of these experiences that I talk about that other people have had so I could really do it the ultimate justice when I write… translate it. For instance, after September 11 (2001)… maybe a lot of people felt this but don’t want to say it, but I wished I had been there. I mean like the people in New York who ...27

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x interview 26 (Ursula Rucker Interview)...

were right there… to feel that intensity. All I know is how I felt when I was witnessing it but there was still this TV thing in my way. I wasn’t actually there.”

I am particularly struck by the way her intensity hikes up now that she has settled. In spite of the presence of her PR representative, I feel like we are completely alone as she expresses how central poetry is to her life.

“When I’m feeling totally lost and you know… at a total impasse, poetry is all i have.

When I can’t find solace in my child’s smile or something simple like that. When it gets so bad that things like that which are so natural can’t break through, my poetry is my way of catharsis. It keeps me from ending up in jail. Really! Because that’s how I get; really angry and I could do something… i could easily cross that line. I have an understanding of that (violence), that passion. Writing helps me hold my temper down but it hasn’t gotten rid of it yet.”

Ursula’s experience of urban America in its many forms has influenced ...31

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x poetry

Naming Clouds (for Luke Howard 1772-1864, Namer of Clouds)

Valeria Melchioretto In this corner of my life, happiness comes like a local Chinese take away.

I take up the hobby of collecting clouds, crowd them into my afternoon, measure them for colume, name and catalogue them. Not an original pursuit.

It is almost a tradition since the namer of clouds lived in this neighbourhood.

Persistent the spiders now take over each corner, weave webs with the consistency of clouds in which my thoughts get caught like winged things. They are arrested suspended by sticky threads, thin and temporal as hope. Perpetually trapped.

I force myself to stick to business and weigh the humid constructions in the sky by means of great scales from the judgement hall. Scales with which the heart ultimately must be weighed against the body. When night falls, I suspend judgement about empty or full chambers of heart and certain flesh, kiss each cloud good night and wait, wait, wait for dawn to fill the corners of my eyes.

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x poetry

revolver

from tight belly of moon: harriet tubman poems

Quraysh Ali Lansana reason

dead niggas tell no tales you go on or die harriet

i am temple threat cold steel poke she shows me weary midnight tired hope what’s on the other side must be something brutal something more than the seeds in my belly

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x poetry

As Sure As from fourteen two - twenty eight love poems - ISBN: 0954224790

Ainsley Burrows Not sure if there is a God Not sure if I am alive only centuries communicating in this surreal curl of existence This subtle whispering of bones surrendering light like ecstatic eyelids laughing the smothered death of dreams the eclipse of veins penetrating needles under the seductive grasp of sexual oil strangling motions electric pulse of breath falling faithless magnetic staggering of a frantic tongue spirited beating back and forth feverishly exhaling steel trembling lip lung emotions blue-red the naked smoke filled tunnels of screams and daemons pausing A barefooted twirl of blood and saliva bleeding a weeping Jesus like broken slices of a blue dove cooing a collapsed April Not sure if any of this is real Not sure if today is Saturday or 1964 but I know that the music that moves you is beautiful.

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x interview 27 (Ursula Rucker Interview)...

her work and it doesn’t always allow the use of pretty words or safe sentiments. Nevertheless, she has seen the media constantly pick up on the negative elements of the Black American experience and it frustrates her that certain Black artists help perpetuate the false myths. Despite losing her brother, jazz guide, and inspiration for the song return to innocence lost, to the rougher waves of urban America, she appreciates the exceedingly positive sides that never get as much media attention; Like the support of her husband, whose flexibility, and love, and willingness to stay in the background mean that she can tour without worrying about her three children; and the support of artists like the Roots who gave her worldwide exposure on their Things Fall Apart album – especially ?uestlove.

“He had confidence in me and believed in me and what I did, was willing to take a chance on me, and I’ll always be indebted to him because it changed a lot of things for me. Not just career wise; personally it let me know that I was able to climb outside of the box and take it there. You know what I mean? He really encouraged me to do that even when I didn’t want to. He really believed in me. It was hard to imagine because I don’t think he had even heard my poetry before. He’d just heard that I’d started reading but he hadn’t heard me himself, so I said; “how could you ask me to do this on your first really signed album? Are you insane?” he probably is a little bit, but it’s been more than a nice ride. Man, I hate to think of what would have happened if I hadn’t done that.

Even more remarkable is the fact that he kept on asking me to do a track on their albums. He’s a real innovator. Choosing to have a poet end a hip-hop album, plus a woman at the end of an all-male hip hop group’s album…” ...32

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31 (Ursula Rucker Interview)...

x interview

“I mean I want money too, but not at the expense of my soul or the souls of black folks.”

My mind immediately jumps to hip-hop as she mentions the Roots.

I place my bottle of mineral water on the table and go straight to the point. Does she think hip-hop artists are doing enough to change people’s perceptions of hip-hop and the Black community?

“I think there are a lot of hip hop artists that are doing a lot but they just can’t come to the forefront. Nobody will give them any support. Nobody will give them that little lift you know… because all ...33

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x interview 32 (Ursula Rucker Interview)...

people want to hear is this rap shit which is not hip hop. You understand? There are a lot of people who are in the midst of the movement of hip-hop, but nobody knows about them. Nobody hears about it… yet they still keep trying and that’s important.

They keep on breaking ground. I find out about them somehow so I guess others can too. You know, I really want to sit down and write some ideas down about how I really feel about this whole thing because I’m starting to get repetitive and I really want to explore it more; how I feel. I don’t think I’ve done that yet. I just know it upsets me. Sometimes it upsets me so much that I can’t vocalise it… you know. I just think it’s really, really fucked up; what has happened to our movement, to our people, our music, and the effect it has on other people’s perception of us. And these people that are doing it don’t care. They just say if they want to listen to it and they want to think that, fine. I don’t care… just doing my thing… just cashing my cheque. I mean I want money too, but not at the expense of my soul or the souls of black folks.”

“The souls of Black Folk.” The use of the phrase tells me that this is a well read woman. Nobody quotes a W.E.B. Du Bois title this casually without having spent a few hours lost between the pages of history. And Ursula’s work speaks of her bibliophilia; it is richly layered with politics, rhythm, innuendo and insight; drawing from the work of earlier writers and artists yet maintaining an authority of its own. She lists amongst her many influences what she calls “the usual suspects” – Sonia Sanchez, Georgia O’Keefe, the painter Frida Kahlo, Assata Shakur – as well as musicians like Marvin Gaye and… wait for this… Heatwave. Now that is moving to me, because I love Heatwave. I’m just about ready to get myself a flat next door to her. I probe to discover who she would like to work with out of our current crop of artists.

“The artist of the day is Nas, and let’s see if I can think of anyone ...36

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x poetry

The Sisters

Heather Taylor Her pigtails hang-bobbins hypnotise As a watch on a string.

The fringe of hair that once Caressed the top of her eyebrows Now shelters her eyes from sight.

They stand in the dim corridor Her, and her sister standing one year behind her Their dirty pastel pinks and blues Of charity shop donations Clash with the red patterned carpet that their feet scuffed By the door of 21B Their mother is home. That morning Kicked them out To wander, navigate the well Explored hallways and stairwells Of their only playground In winter, they stay near the dryers Hopscotch between them The air linty and warm The smells of fabric softener Curling around their senses like a mothers soft touch.

In summer, they sit near the mailboxes Play Old Maid and Crazy Eights To catch that inward swing of the double-glass front doors To feel the breeze that catches And holds the scent of flowers and warm prairie grasses.

The woman in number 12B complains the loudest The smell of little girl urine is strong in her apartment Wafting from the place under the back stairs She peers at them through the chained crack of door and frame Watches their hunger Amongst the face-less tenents locked in patterns and collecting welfare cheques. ...35

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x poetry 34 (The Sisters, Heather Taylor)...

They stand in the dim corridor Her, and her sister standing one year behind her Outside the door of 21B Wait for their half knocks and feeble scratching To be a reminder for the door to be answered And them to be let in

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x interview else… I’ve always wanted Rza (Wu Tang Producer) to do a track for me… I would like to do something with Terence Trent D’Arby because he’s on the list of people who’ve inspired me.”

By now Miss PR is signalling me. What seems like a ten-minute conversation has actually been an hour and a half. I have found a kindred spirit and I am reluctant to leave. But not without asking about dreams: What would her dream be for her sons?

If she could change one thing for the future what would it be? “(deep breath) You know what? I would slow down the advance of technology. I think that has to do with a lot of bad things. I mean let people know there are options out there; you can use this when you need to, but slow down a little bit… we have enough innovations now for a little while. Let the kids know it’s ok to go out there and play and invent games instead of playing video games that have already been invented by somebody else. You know… the old board games we used to play, the songs we used to sing… they (kids) don’t do that anymore and when they do, they’re nasty little songs. I mean although we did do those nasty little songs when we were little it’s different now. We had an innocence attached to it. These kids know exactly what they’re saying!”

And ain’t that the truth?

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x

x poetry

Firefly

Aoife Mannix In the garden in the heat of summer, the night as warm as a glove, we chase fireflies among the trees, shouting and calling as we run.

I open my hands a crack to see his electric orange tail, then throw him high as a shooting star.

You clap your hands with delight, slivers of moon flickering in the distance, the humming of crickets, louder and louder.

We move deeper into the shadow, time set free, the spiders dance their webs across our faces, and looking up, the sky is in flames.

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Lazarus Proposes Marriage Valeria Melchioretto I haven’t been dead long but I was dead long before I died. Never did I sleep with whores but for four nights I slept with death, the one that lays down with everyone. Marry me and puke in my face.

When alive I was poor and a cowardly man, I couldn’t confess My festering feelings. The way you move me holds me in place therefore hold me, set me free to feel the vortex in my blood.

This is my last attempt to reach life. All you can hope to inherit is my fast fragmenting family and my wedding gift shall be the touch of sores solitude has inflicted on my empty hands. With them I will make us a bed of autumn leaves on which we shall consummate our passion till snow will cover us. I have not returned for Christ’s sake but for yours. So be mine; in the name of the worms that have eaten my flesh and the crows that have sat on my grave, please be mine.

Also coming in 2002, Poetry collections by: Agnes Meadows - ISBN: 0-9542247-1-X James Bryne - ISBN: 0-9542247-2-8

x poetry

Beyond the Balcony Napoleon Dozier

Pen, paper‌ silence.

She talks through them but the pages do not talk back. Like the sky above her head: deep, dark and silent. Walking in the violent stillness of the world within her bedroom, death’s reincarnated aura dressed in youth leads her to the balcony. There she waits upon fate and time, armed with a grudge against all order of nature and reason, clutching hope stolen from the last fragments of love.

Somewhere between he passing dread of days that seemed like nights, she held on to her memory of him, which was light and heavy on a scale weighed by the shifting moods of her weary and restless heart.

Those ghostly recollections at the frontier of insanity, were the remnants that sustained her through the great floods she cried, fading away like fragments of happiness. Where was truth when the heart was so cruel as to convince her that he would return bearing gifts from another world with stories of magic, and that the light of his love would free her from the confines of loneliness buried deep in invisible wounds? How can faith support such fantasies of the mind refuted by the perpetual failure of promise? Is faith a failure of creation? And love the gold of fools; the ultimate betrayal of man who foolishly fell headfirst into the notion of its beauty? What is love if not truth? Or truth without love? If silence is your answer then silence is the truth.

Marie pondered over such questions but retreated as the scope of their complexity belittled her valiant efforts. Abstracting reality to escape its terror, she sank into a horror more frightening than the uncertain reality she was afraid to embrace. When life can kill you why run from death? What hope is there for the pawn in a power struggle between the gods? Yet being alive and being dead to life can open up new possibilities. ...40

39

39 (Beyond..., Napoleon Dozier)...

In her favourite dress she prepared herself in the ritualistic manner of bridal tradition for a ceremony that only she knew of. The old window by her bed creaked as the wind grew stronger, and the rain fell softly like a string quartet quietly moving through the early stages of a new morning symphony.

The world outside her window was framed like an oil painting of the landscape’s mournful contemplation. Her hand stretched out beyond the balcony and her head followed in alignment to look down at me as I wrote these words: Marie you must accept the truth we live, and the love we share in different worlds.

She lives in a room behind the balcony of my mind from which she cannot leave, for I cannot bring her into this world of flesh.

Pen, paper, silent but alive.

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x x bios

Bridgette Alyce was born in 1956, in Birmingham, Alabama, and began writing music with lyrics and poetic style verses at the age of 13. She is still involved with writing, directing and performing music with a singing group she co-founded in 1999, known as Revived! A contributing columnist for NuNewspaper, her first book of poetry, Come, Joy! will be published in May, 2004. She lives in Southern California, with her husband and 3 children.

Website: www.peopleofcolorshowcase.com/bridgette Ainsley Burrows: A former member of the world famous NuYorican

Café poetry slam team, Ainsley is a highly respected international poet and undoubtedly one of the finest surrealist poets of his generation. He is the author of two collections of poetry Black Angels with Sky Blue Feathers and The Woman Who Isn’t Was, and has just completed his first novel.

Website: www.ainsleyburrows.net Amita Chatterji, is a London-based Arts enthusiast who writes poetry

and occasionally reads at the Farrago events at the Poetry Cafe, London.

Napoleon Dozier: A phantom with immeasurable talent, Napoleon met the UK editor of x magazine at a public reading in Borders store, handed over some work and hasn’t been heard of since. If you find him...

Ebele is a 29-year-old Nigerian. Her body is in London. Her heart is in

New York. Her mind is somewhere in-between…

Website: www.ebele.co.uk

Jessica Mkakyera Horn: African-American father, East African mother,

unquestionable talent.

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x x bios

Quraysh Ali Lansana has worked extensively in the Chicago Public

schools as a teacher and a performing artist. His first children’s book The Big Outside World (Addison-Wesley) was released in 1999 and his second collection of poetry “southside rain”, is published by Third World Press who also published Roll Call a generational anthology of AfricanAmerican poetry, which he co-edited. Lansana is a board member and artistic director for The Guild Complex, and was a faculty member at Columbia College (Chicago) until his move to New York City in 2000 to accept a fellowship in African studies at NYU. Aoife Mannix: Born in Sweden, raised in Ireland, Canada and the United

States, Aoife is loaded with poetry that moves. She is the author of one collection of poetry, The Trick of Foreign Words published by the tall lighthouse.

Susan Richardson is a writer, performer and tutor of writing based in

Wales. Her work has appeared in a wide range of journals, both print and online, in the UK, Canada and Australia, including Envoi, Iota, Flashquake, Fail Better and x magazine.

Website: www.susanrichardsonwriter.co.uk Valeria Melchioretto: Born in Switzerland to Italian parents, Valeria

hides her talent under a bushel of smiles until dawn. She has been published in Poetry Wales, Poetry London, Foolscap and Wolf.

Nii Ayikwei Parkes: Ghanaian writer resident in the UK, Nii is author of

eyes of a boy, lips of man, and poetry editor of this magazine. He is former Poet-In-Residence at the Poetry Cafe, London and resident Poet at Borders bookstore. Nii recently received an Arts Council Award for his first novel, which he has just completed.

Website: www.niiparkes.com Heather Taylor is a young Canadian writer resident in London. She has

wowed audiences all over the UK since her first reading in London and her first collection She Never Talks of Strangers was released by the tall lighthouse press in 2003.

Website: www.heathertaylor.co.uk 42