Tuesday 25 October 2011

White Night

'Ello

On Saturday 29th October, I will be performing in Brighton as part of the WHITE NIGHT festival. Looking at the schedule, it looks like there is something happening all over town so could be worth checking out. I will be performing at the offices of New Writing South between 7pm and 4 am. The night is curated by all round spoken word dona and fellow RUBIX member Dean Atta, as well as well as SEAN MAHONEY and FEMI MARTIN












Monday 24 October 2011

My Town

Hey


This is a piece I've performing regularly for the last 18 months now, and I've finally got a video put up for it,. Filmed by a good friend of mine, Steve J Todd, it was in aid of How It Ended Productions's trip to Edinburgh for there show Waterproof of June 6th 2011





Sunday 9 October 2011

Cheeky Haiku's

Hello!

This week, as part of of another arm in the expanding empire of Rubix  Deanna Rodger Sean Mahoney and I performed at a conference on sustainable transport, held at The Barbican. It was a lot of fun, and as part of it we wrote a load of haiku's which were printed on the back of cards made to look like traiin tickets, which were pretty sick.

I'd never had a go at haiku's before and really enjoyed it. here's a few that I wrote plus some extra!

I can't stand the smell
Cars emitting at junctions
Trains don't smell like that

One can't see London
In all it's magnificence
Whilst dark, underground

Blood flows at high tide
I have never felt so good
Pounding the pavements

My blood circulates
Endorphins make me feel good
The more I pedal

Wind brushes my face
Rain paints a picture of grey
Either way I see

The Air that I breathe
Is tainted with exhaust fumes
Why add fuel to fire

Drive autopilot
Bypassing the scenery
Never see God's art

Apart from getting splashed
By drivers with no conscience
cycling is alright

Petrol will run out
The inner tube on a bike
can be inflated

Train conversations
whether you like them or not
inform opinions

Travelling by train
You can drink a cup of tea
what more do you want?

She gets on my train
at the same stop every day
always looking nice

EXTRA'S

Secondary School
I learnt to break into cars
With a coat-hanger

Secondary School
I learnt that central locking
made that redundant

Secondary School
I learnt that I was a wimp
Who had a conscience 













Bright Lights In The Shaddow

 Bright Lights In The Shadow

The immortal orange glow swallows stars.
Nearby farms sit underneath the flight path surrounded by motorway.
Paradox's of tranquillity tucked behind B roads,
where rows of 3 and 4 bed detached house's fetch value,
like the trained through bred well fed dogs seen on the alleyways and bridleways
fetching castaway branches,
to the arms of masters who make money in the city
and home in the shadow,
where the orange glow of the airport provides employment,
for those unwilling to brave the cattle of the packed commuter trains,
to the trades of the city.
Baggage handlers boss the pubs
and commandeer the pool tables.
Stewards hold court on the dance floors of bars
who try hard to attain the status of it's bigger city cousins.
Kids compete with eager fists to be the biggest fish in the garden pond
unaware there is a whole world out there beyond the orange glow,
and the shadow that hangs from the city.
Distinguishing province from capitol.

Thursday 6 October 2011

Fellow Rubix Members Take Over 10 Downing Street

When I saw this, I almost cried!!!

Deanna Rodger, Sean mahoney, Ayesha Badat and Bridget Minamore are all fellow Rubix members and did a wicked job on this!!!




Warning: This Millwall piece has nothing to do with hooliganism

A while ago I was asked to write a piece about Millwall by fellow poet and football writer Gary From Leeds for the brilliant blog he runs called the The 127 Formation and this is what I came up with...



Ok, that was a bit of lie, it does…
I was once asked a question with which I answered “Millwall” to then be asked a second question “Are you racist?”
Of course, the first question was, “what football team do you support?” These days, even in the supposedly open-minded arty circles I sometimes rotate in, like a child on a waltzer, looking as if he’s about to regurgitate his excitability consumed large McDonalds milkshake all over his Chelsea t-shirt (now that’s an image!), this strikes as an all too predictable response from many people.
Understandably, Millwall have a terrible reputation and are by no means angels. But then nor are Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, West Ham, Stoke, Liverpool, Leeds, Cardiff, Portsmouth etc etc the list goes on, and the figures from the statistics for football-related arrests and banning orders prove this, year in, year out.
A lot of it, I believe, is too do with media coverage and the influence they wield over public opinion, which seems to lean on the Millwall reputation a bit too easily, all the while perpetuating an age old stereotype which can act as springboard for absurd, and sometimes offensive accusations which bypass the ring fences of political correctness, reserved for most other sections of society, without many people ever batting an eyelid, other than Millwall fans themselves. Phew, let me take a breath!
The recent reporting in the Evening Standard about Millwall supporters coming out to protect Eltham during the riots did not receive the same admiration as the Turkish and Kurdish shop owners in Dalston, just a patronising rhetoric, which only serves to further alienate an increasingly alienated section of society.
At a time when there is extremist vultures lurking overhead like the EDL and the BNP, ready to pluck at the corpses of pre-dominantly young white working class men, lazy nonsense like that doesn’t help.
When confronted with pre-loaded questions about morons, racists and hooligans, it can be very frustrating, even after pointing out facts about behaviour and incidences involving supporters from bigger clubs, such as those mentioned above, many people would rather hold on to the force fed images of Man United being the jewel in the English crown, untouchable, family and huge corporate sponsor friendly whilst Millwall is the dangle-berry clinging on to footballs rectum, rather than accepting that hooliganism is not exclusive to SE16.
I would have thought that any look around a town centre on a Friday or Saturday night from Bristol to Newcastle would prove this, but for some reason it’s rare that the similarities in behaviour of those misbehaving on a night out is ever compared to that of a football fan looking for a punch up.
In retrospect, I should have punched that person in the face, or at least told to them where to go, upon being asked if I was racist, based on the findings of what football team I support. I’m sure no one would ever approach a father pushing a child on a swing in the park and ask him if he’s a paedophile, I’m quite sure that man would be highly insulted, as I was, such is the regard for paedophiles and of course racists, and rightly so.
But of course, punching someone in the face or cursing at them only further enforce a terrible stereotype, and I would most likely come out it the villain. I just like football and Millwall, that’s all.

Improvised Poetry Battle Event

Evening!

So I'm going to be doing this event called On The Spot which is effectively a rap battle for poets. Anyone that knows me well should know that I'm a big fan of the  Don't Flop rap battle's and have spent many an hour watching the old Jump Off battles of Professor Green and Stig Of The Dump. There's some weighty names gone in the hat like Curious who I hear killed it first time. So it's my turn, I'm not sure if my brain works quick enough to generate the sort of quick witted cusses of the above but like my Dad said, 'you gotta put your neck on the line'

17th October at Tristan Bates Theatre http://www.tristanbatestheatre.co.uk/Production_Details_On%20The%20Spot.asp
£6/£5 doors open 7:30

See you there?

I'll be bricking it!!

Paul