Monday 14 March 2016

New Memory Cafe Poems

Started working with Westminster Arts in a new Memory Cafe in Hammersmith. A new poem, inspired by the participants' chat over tea and cake as they painted pots and planted seeds.

The Painting of Pots

She paints her pot a vibrant purple and blue
freely, yet tempered
by design.
A Rothco from the fabric of Africa.

Today was a storm in a teapot.
The husband she cares for
at home,
once a tv and radio mechanic,
can no longer put the tv on.

It's a big patience
she says,
indicating Kahn's fancy china cup
from Peckham.

If he says teapot
and she says teacup
the problems start.
So now she says teapot.

She came by sea in the Seventies,
hot from Sierra Leone,
used an afro wig, platforms and flares
and met him through her brother,
who didn't like the idea,
them both coming from different backgrounds.
But who listens to their brother?

The days of autocratic men are quickly going,
says the man from Grenada,
knowingly.
Round the table the women laugh.

She calmly paints,
precise strokes that allow the pattern to emerge,
a blue eye leaps from the royal purple
like a spot on the surface of Jupiter.

It's a big patience.

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