LANDSCAPE of LIES

"truth isn't true"

Paul Ade Silva

LANDSCAPE of LIES
"truth isn't true"

Copyright Paul Ade Silva 2018©

Published by
Net Kırtasiye 444 0 708 Tanıtım ve matbaa sa. Tic.ltd.
şti. İnonu cad. Beytülmalcı sk. No: 23 /
Gümüşsuyu/Taksim-İstanbul

First edition
August – 2018
Certificate: 13723

ISBN: 978 605 6398-1-1

All copyright of this work belongs to “Paul Ade Silva”.

Unauthorized cannot be printed, reproduced,
published.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements and thanks are due to the editors

of the following publications in which some of these
poems, or versions of them first appeared:
THE BOOK OF OPENNESS, Huddersfield University,
UK (ed. Professor David Morley, Warwick University)

VOICES FROM THE SOUL, the International Library of

Poetry, US

THE INTERNATIONAL WHO’S WHO IN POETRY, The

International Library of Poetry, US

LABOUURS OF LOVE, Noble House Publishers, Poetry

Division, London – Paris –New York

For Esra
...TOLD in SILENCE 1
LANDSCAPE of LIES 2
IN ITS RHETORIC 3
DEFORMED ORCHESTRA 4
IN THE GARDEN 5
AN ENGLISH MAN 6
NOTICE TO THE NEW ARRIVALS 7
LOVE LIVING WITH ME… 10
MAP OF EUROPE 12
PAUL ADE SILVA INTERVIEWS, AUTHOR, MILNER PLACE 13
THE FABLE 30
THE JEWEL 31
IN THE DARK 32
I AM TWILIGHT 33
DEAD MAN 34
EAGLE, MOUSE, WOLF & LAMB 35
DUST CLING 36
I SMELL PARADISE 37
I KNOW 38
DRUMMERS OF REVOLUTIONS 39
MOTHER RHYMES 40
MY MOTHER’S EARTH 42
EARTH-HOLD 43
WOMAN 44
THOUSAND STILL POSES 46
THIN, BLACK SMILE 47
MY LADY LOVES LIFE 48
LOVE’S ROUGH NAMES 49
DOUBTFUL SIXPENCE I 50
DOUBTFUL SIXPENCE II 51
DOUBTFUL SIXPENCE III 52
YOU COULD DRAW 54
SOUR BREASTS of KOSOVO 55
YES WE ARE… 56
WITH TERROR 57
SHADOWS of BREATH 58
THE MIDDLE CLASS 59 TODAY, I PRAISE BRITAIN 60
A ROSY FUTURE 62
AFRICAMATION 63
AN ENGLISH ROSE 64
BABY 65
IN THE GARDEN 66
LOVE IN THE WORLD 67
NOT REALLY HELD DOWN 68
OCCUPIERS 69 PROBING 70
SHAKING HANDS WITH HITCHHIKERS 71
THE WISDOM OF TREES 72
WINDOWS AT NIGHT 73
PASTURES OF BLADES 74
LISTEN TO THE WAVES 75
CHARIOT OF WATER 77
BY-GONE LIGHTS 78
COLUMBUS 79
VERILY I SAY THIS TO YOU… 80
ANGLES, THEIR ANGELS OF SQUARES 82
...TOLD in SILENCE

Faint conversation
charms the bell

A nun is being knocked

over a vow of silence

Things not understood

Whisper, but not heard

We‟re made a part of them

before we know what they are

A bell with weak balls

impresses no-one

The biggest lies

are told in silence

1
LANDSCAPE of LIES

Landscape of imprudence
Lampshade of lies, an independent lie
„Lampscape‟ bemoans freedom
Tyranny jokes about an old kingdom
Landscaping error as success
Success as in the Con must confess

The colluders and the colluded

Collide on Main Street
Wall Street connives with tweet
The book of face blindly obliges
A single tweet exposes
The leader as a scaffold for mobsters

2
IN ITS RHETORIC

In its rhetoric with the power of a drunk

In its drinking a well
From a well-versed invasion
In its inversion of its phasing
Down the global dam from a damned
Mis-spelt name: democracy – demonstrating
Against State or individual's craze,
There! I looked

In its democratization of its other babies

Proud and strong like usurpers, hoards,
Loan sharks, I looked for you, you were lost
Lost to the brilliance of an age with its
Banality, its barrenness, its joy of endless games
full of riddles. In its weeping for a 'quid' lost on sucks
Full of sulphur, armed to the teeth with corrosion
I, too, looked but I was lost, lost to myself.

3
DEFORMED ORCHESTRA

We are watching the honey war

Glimpsing the terrain of
Intellectual dishonesty
We are airs
We are imperial
We are metric!

Weighing personal matters

Locked to country trolleys
We are testing
The rear of
The liberal world
Thirsty for the words to keep up

We are swinging in our walk trying

To vibrate the ravine dust
We are a deformed orchestra, tiring
To the eyes, but watching, we are watching
The honest snow measured in imperial metric
By persons locked out of our age.

4
IN THE GARDEN I

In the garden, we shed our breath,

kisses and wine, till you felt desolate and
I, sickened. Frogs encroach on snakes
Watching the land hiss at magpies.
He-wolves feed by their feet, but she-wolves
Live by their wits.

Dawn falls flat from your lips as children take all

And give back little; birds plant the garden with
Thoughts. I am armed with love turning each
Moment by heart; books of African women coming
To orgasm in the garden; tell stories of deer hunting,
And flights from lions.

The man‟s sperm controls the sex of a child

Insects and vultures are so worried
With courtship; they drool on nappies.
Women and men, so concerned
Look out to the garden;
With hate-filled economic necessities

5
AN ENGLISH MAN

Under the surface

People are parchment
Dry an‟ ole
Scrabbling for bed sheet
You scrabble for bed sheet
Above the sea

There!
Below the economy of leather skin
The interest in bits of refuse
Compensates for restlessness
You take a scar to a knife
You arrest the inevitable

You a man, an English man

Tired of waiting
Waiting on the sidewalk
You‟re arrested
Arrested for impersonating
A human being

6
NOTICE TO THE NEW ARRIVALS

PERFECTLY ALRIGHT FOR WOMEN TO WALK THE

STREETS IN KNICKERS DO NOT WEE ON STREET
CORNERS EXCEPT WHEN DRUNK AT WEEKENDS
WE DO NOT RUN AROUND WITH ELEPHANTS OR LIONS
IN GAMES PARKS BUT YOU‟LL FIND LION‟S IMAGES ON
MANY BUILDINGS, ALL OVER ENGLAND. THEY BELONG
TO US, THEY‟RE NOT YOURS; DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

IMMIGRATION (IMMI): Well then, New Arrival (NA)

Do you have anything to declare?
NA: Yes. Good things… I‟ve mixed sense with cement
thinking of a white elephant project for back-
home, I think the villagers‟d love it. Eh,
what do you say?
Can you beat that?

IMMI: Well then, NA, learn this quick... you look

smart to me... I don‟t love riddles especially not
in bank notes or beautiful women
Ay, but you already knew that, didn‟t ya?
NA: Yes. I thought so. But, IMMI, are you aware of
Babangida‟s Decree to incarcerate the enemies
from the West?

7
IMMI: Baba whom? ...
NA: Yes, of course. General Mamman Vatsa was
executed for mixing Poetry
with the army. I suppose, he thought he‟d better
be creative rather than sitting idly-by with those
decorative stars that were not blinking
back at him even when he smiled at them...

IMMI: Hold on Sir. What gibberish, are you talking

about, NA?
NA: Well then, you might say of Colonel Paul Oche,
army intelligent officer, that he was too clever for
too many bullets, so he gulped just one. But,
those were bad times; he was trained here, at
Sandhurst, you know;

IMMI: Times have changed, you know; well, let‟s hear

your riddles then
NA: Yes, alright. But I always begin with the holy
sacrament
IMMI: Well, well, well. Which is?
NA: Erm… mm… erm, IMMIGRATION,
Can you tell if sex can castrate the brain?

8
IMMI: Well then, NA,
Answer one of ours
Before I answer you, I pray.
How can you tell a wealthy man in Britain?
NA: Yes. Please give us a clue.
IMMI: Well, well, well. O.K. “tooth,” but no more.
NA: Yes, let me see. Draconian tooth?

Oh, no. Coconut grins?

No, not that.
Yes. You mean tooth-picking
With pubic hair?
Well, then again. Aha, ha, ha, ha.
IMMI: New Arrival,
Be serious with your riddle:

IMMI: What is the proof of a balanced diet?

NA: Yes, gotcha. Menstruation.
IMMI: Well… ah, ah, ah, oh ho, well… ah, ho
You‟re very cunning NA, come through and build
your elephant castles and lion dens for our
children. Aha, ha, aha, aha, ha, ha, aha
Welcome to Great Britain

9
LOVE LIVING WITH ME…

Distrust and
Apprehension
Remission of guilt
Unrepentant disloyalty
Insecurity of an ugly child
Pain in the head

Arteries‟ malfunctioning
Backside tremor, mainstream culture
Friendship once held dearly
Now sold for suspicion, integration and
Unreliability, the misgivings of it all
Is as much your fault as it‟s mine

Why describe a spade

As „a vertical wooden stick
Attached to a perpendicular shaped
Metal‟ or, invoke in rhetoric that
A spade is a spade
Leaving me stunned.

A wry face set in

An open jaw
However sincere the
Attempt to smile
Leaves a strong indication
of teething violence.
10
I rest my case
No tears WILL!
To my face
No groaning shall abide
In my heart
I simply love... living with me…

11
MAP OF EUROPE

Every time I read my sister a letter

From Europe, she spits at the floor

The other day, it was the latest from Brussels

She sobbed, America don‟t leave me to Europe‟s...

I saw my sister‟s cries, way back in the blitz

She was only fifteen, it was in the forties

Pointing to the map of Europe, he asks

My sister what she wants

She frowns, takes closer looks,

Then rips it in tatters.

12
PAUL ADE SILVA INTERVIEWS, AUTHOR,
MILNER PLACE

INTRODUCTION: Your poetry is widely published in

the United Kingdom by small and medium sized
magazines such as The North, The London Magazine,
Poetry Wales, The Rialto, Scratch and The Wide Skirt
to name a few. Since your Spanish Collection first
appeared in 1 977, you‟ve produced another three
before your latest, IN A RARE TIME OF RAIN.

PAS: How would you describe the progress of your

work from small press patronage to a major publisher‟s
such as Chatto & Windus?

MP: My first reaction was that I was staggered to be

asked by a major publisher for the publication of my
work. On the other hand, I will consider being
published by a small press like the Wide Skirt Press to
be just as important and exciting.

Progressing is just a question of change and if you

don‟t change, you‟re dead! I hope my work has got
better in many ways, although I think I probably still
write as much rubbish as I ever did; only now, I don‟t
present a lot of them to other people. When I first
started to write I had pretensions to being a novelist.

13
I remember when I was sailing boats particularly
around the Mediterranean, when we laid up in the
winter and each winter I started on the same dreadful
book then restarted it next winter and never got
anywhere with it - eventually I did complete
the novel but it was while I was writing it that I started
to write some poetry in Spanish as a kind of relief -
something you can finish and polish, rather than the
long book.

My poetry got taken up and my first collection in

Spanish was published almost twenty years ago. So it
seemed I was better with poetry than novels, but I
didn‟t take up writing poetry again until eight years
ago when I came to Huddersfield and went to a poetry
workshop. I think I‟ve been lucky since then in that I
generally get one poem out of, say, sixteen to hit.
Again, in the earlier days I was sending out a
tremendous amount of work that shouldn‟t have gone
out in the first place and I‟ve been asked
sometimes to change the odd word or two and very
often rightly so. I had one or two bigger alterations
suggested but there were times when I stood my
ground.

PAS: Since you‟ve spent most of your life as a skipper

of trading vessels and yachts sailing across continents,
is the desire to share your diverse experience
the motivating factor for your poetry?

14
MP: I don‟t quite look at it that way. Obviously my
experience is hugely an influence on my work.
However, I suppose it‟s a question of extending that
experience. The process of writing in itself being an
adventure, a further adventure, but it‟s using the
experience and the settings and it‟s also to a
great extent taking off from there rather than
recording. Experience is more in the nature of
backdrops. Maybe working more like a novelist, using
scenes and more particularly using characters or
perceived caricatures, that‟s more the way I look at it.

PAS: How essential is the reading of other people‟s

work to you?

MP: Oh, that‟s quite vital. For instance, when I did

start writing seriously, it was important for me to try
and catch up with the latest poetry publications. This
is because I had quite a lot of poetry put into me when
I was young and because I really knew very little. At
school, I don‟t think we really studied anybody much
after early Eliot‟s and so there was a gap there but I
didn‟t really try and fill in that gap or previous gaps so
much as try to get in with what was happening today.
The reading of current magazines and the New World
Poets that I‟d heard of from there was the most
important thing to me and still is, in a way.

15
PAS: IN A RARE TIME OF RAIN is breath-taking in its
scope, colourful without carelessness to details and
adventurous to the point of becoming a myth of its
own; how long has this attempt taken to turn your
personal journey with all its ramifications into a trip
worth taking by others?

MP: Imaginative writing is a journey and I don‟t think

it will hold the attention of readers if it were not a
journey especially in a broad sense. I hope that people
do have the reaction of wanting to share my poetry
with others given that one of the difficulties for a writer
is that your head is sort of loaded up when you‟re
writing and you have no way of knowing how much of
your writing is getting to other people and how much of
it will be changed.

I think people should read poetry. It‟s excellent that

people should - but I‟m against any form of
compulsion. Poetry is a compression and it deals with
an area which is close to music in many ways. I think
making a distinction between prose and poetry
sometimes is a vague one. There are novelists who
write like poets. It‟s more of the equations of poetry
having a different balance in the head between the left
brain – the intellectual side and the right brain which
probably involves some other processes of logic
working with imagery and emotions.

16
I think everybody is going to read most poems
differently because after all, they‟re the sum total of
their experiences. It‟s not realistic to expect that
anybody is going to get the whole of what was in my
head when I wrote. But how much they get depends on
them. I‟m not always sure myself because sometimes I
have poems where there are lines that when I was
writing them I might have particular meanings in mind
and then saw other meanings which might encourage
me to read them differently. So, if I, the writer get such
reaction from time to time, not knowing how I want to
read a line or some particular lines, how much more of
somebody else‟s reaction.

I think continually finding new meanings in something,

particularly when you‟ve written it yourself, is quite
fascinating and revealing for we don‟t really know what
goes on in the head anyway, we are only aware of the
conscious side of it. One of the startling things about
writing is when you‟ve done it; you look at it and find
things that you haven‟t consciously put in there at all.

To this effect, I‟d like to propose my idea of a perfect

poem - this is a poem that grabs you when you first
read it and maybe you don‟t even understand it totally
but it‟s very strong and then you read it another time
and each time you read it again and again you make
new discoveries, so it has endless layers.

17
PAS: How extensive did you research this collection in
terms of other works and to what extent did you rely
on your imaginations?

MP: If you mean by researching it - looking at other

collections, then very little because I didn‟t approach
it that way. I suppose in a sense my approach was
similar to a novelist‟s.

I was thinking of the reader and to some extent on

some kind of form and continuity to create interest. It
was being more experimental - a bit like trial and error.
I work in various ways, sometimes it‟s just a clue or a
snatch of conversation. Take for instance, one of my
long poems, „Top Hold‟. I remember I was coming back
on the bus late one night and I suddenly got this
picture in my head of a man standing on a high pass
in the Andes, looking one way and looking back to the
four points of the compass and that was the start of
the poem. I had no idea where it was going but that
image was something concrete with which to start. At
some other times, it could be something I‟ve seen on
television, or it‟s just sitting down and saying I haven‟t
written a thing for two or three days and I‟ve got to
start on something. So I would write anything
that came into my head and see where it leads me.

PAS: What danger signs have you had to navigate in

order for the book to remain true to you?

18
MP: I changed the collection many times and ended in
its final form when it came to working with the editor. I
actually had a little more courage in myself than I‟d
thought when it came to improving it.

Immediately, of course, when you put together a

manuscript and then the editor comes and says we‟ve
got to get it down to a certain size or there‟s too much
of this or that type of poem and your whole edifice is
mucked around with - your first reaction is to become
uneasy or regretful that one or two of your favourites
haven‟t gone in. But then when I‟ve had a couple of
days to look at the result I found that it was extremely
true.

What I liked most was that the poem which has the
title of the collection in it, which I had a little bit of
diffidence about and which I didn‟t put at the
beginning of the manuscript because I‟d thought it
might be the one he might take out - although I‟d
hoped, again cunningly he‟d have difficulty because I‟d
taken the title of the collection from it - so I thought I
was creeping up on him there, but instead he wanted it
first in the book and this pleased me. I felt reassured
in the way that I work as I don‟t usually pre-plan a
poem and if I‟ve got a plan and I find in writing that the
poem goes somewhere else, I‟d take note because that‟s
very important but won‟t try to bring it back.

19
Certainly because of the way I work I no longer plan a
poem from the start as I consider doing that to be
wrong.

PAS: Did you feel with hindsight that your use of

extensive registers - Spanish, Mexican, Yorkshire etc.
might get in the way of new poetry lovers?

MP: I don‟t see why they should. Hopefully, I avoid

using all kinds of foreign words just for the sake of
them. I also don‟t find if I read novels that are about
other places that I get put off unless somebody is really
laying it on. I should be disappointed if it got in the
way. I think one of the things about travelling is the
different perspectives you get, the contrasts and also
the similarities because people are people, no matter
where you go.

PAS: The title of your book, In a Rare Time of Rain,

appears fabulous in the first instance, then other
notions spring to mind such as drought, starvation or
even an end to recession; how did you arrive at it and
what‟s its significance?

MP: The title comes from one of my poems -„The

Passer-By‟ and the two significant things about it are
firstly the flowers blooming in the desert - that rare
occurrence of coming and going quickly; the transient
nature of things. Secondly, there‟s a reference in the
poem to four horsemen which of course have

20
apocalyptic significance. However, the rather
depressive view of human kind and history, in my
opinion, is not the apocalypse to come or apocalypse
now, it‟s a continual apocalypse.

PAS: In one of the poems in this title „Lum Street‟ you

have characters some of whom are named Septimus
Arkwright and Fishface Wagstaff etc., what would you
say is the difficult aspect of using caricature in a poem
concerned with ordinary people in a place like the West
Riding?

MP: Sometimes it‟s a challenge if you can go straight

for the stereotypes and somehow flesh them.
Stereotypes are all around us, anyway. We stereotype
everybody, don‟t we, particularly if we don‟t know them
that well but I think the important thing in dealing
with stereotypes in writing is to flesh them. it‟s a great
challenge, particularly if you can do it and get away
with it in fairly short individual sketches which are
mainly involved in this poem. I also think it‟s trying to
get to the kind of ability that Lowry had as a painter -
in that you paint these very simple figures like
matchsticks but actually you get the impression that
all those are real people.

It was significant that you mentioned Fishface Wagstaff

which was the second poem because when I‟d written
the first bits about him, I really felt I‟d caricatured him
too much and rather than trying to change that I then

21
wrote the second one in which he becomes the
character - to fill him out a little bit. He‟s the only one
I‟d felt I had to do that with because I had this gut
feeling that he was too close to the caricature without
the flesh in the first one.

PAS: Since your techniques combine portraits, myth,

deliberation, reflections, compound metaphors with
reportage; what are the keys to understanding the
complexity of your work, say, for inexperienced
readers?

MP: I would think not to look for too much complexity.

We are all very complex, the way we think, the way our
minds work - certainly mine does, and I don‟t
think I‟m a total freak. We are many people, we are
complex people and our heads are full of
contradictions and complexities all the time, so what‟s
so different?

Well, let‟s go back to „Lum Street‟ and I will tell you

more about how I developed it - the character
Septimus Arkwright sort of came into my head as
people do and I wrote the first one and then his friend,
Fishface Wagstaff appeared and then I began to think
all of a sudden, where are they? A street came into my
head and people began to pop out here and there and
populated the street and the pub was on one corner
and the various shops and the street built itself.

22
You mentioned earlier about my picking on names and
I find that a very useful process because for instance
for the next people to come on, all I had to do was to
let weird names come in my head and immediately
they were fleshed out and were in the street and that‟s
all that really happened. It became quite difficult to
stop.

PAS: The multiple voices in your poem „Dark Wings‟

provide insights into the emotional details of the piece
but given this is a short poem, what made you decide
on alternating the voices?

MP: I don‟t suppose I was really conscious of doing it

at all. However, it‟s part of the magic of writing that the
writer becomes a little god - a very friendly god because
you invent the characters and then you‟ll stand on
their side but then you‟ll also enter into their head.

PAS: Do you think the voices work?

MP: I hope they work because the reason for the

different voices is that at the same time of trying to
describe her from the outside I‟m trying to get inside of
her to express the awfulness of her experience both
from outside and inside.

PAS: How do you then explain the last stanza where

she appears immune to pain?

23
MP: Well I think she‟s gone past pain. I was talking
earlier in the interview about ambiguity – the first
thing that came into my head when I first wrote and
read the last stanza was of somebody in utter
bewilderment but then I later reinterpreted the same
stanza in another way - „the black widow bird‟ and the
notion of freedom in the face of what she‟d done that‟s
brought her before the Judge which isn‟t mentioned in
the poem at all. Of course, the reason why she‟s in
court is not what the poem is about.

In the same way I could reinterpret the last lines to

mean that she‟d felt all the pain and seeing the widow
birds dancing had actually changed her from
submission into action.

PAS: How detached were you when writing this verse?

MP: Not very detached, no. I don‟t think this is a kind

of poem that one could or should possibly be detached
from. You‟ve got to keep the balance.

PAS: So you‟re saying the other voice is the voice of the

narrator - you, as opposed to the „she‟ who we meet in
the first line?

MP: Well in a strange way, we‟ve become one in the

process of writing „Dark Wings‟ and the empathy of the
creator- writer has blended with the sympathy of the
created.

24
PAS: Would I be too far-fetched if I put it to you that
your real concern in this collection is exploring the
arguments between survival and living and between
make-beliefs and perceptions of reality and above all
the process of individuals evaluating their own
experiences?

MP: Too far-fetched maybe in the idea of it being

conscious. I would like to think that one of the things
about writing poetry is about exploring all of these
concepts particularly „reality‟ - what is reality and
perceived realities?

The exploration of these concepts is true about my

collection but I don‟t think it was consciously done.

PAS: Dr Lesley Jeffries, an eminent commentator on

modern poetry in her survey of Ten Twentieth Century
Poets 1957; The Penguin Book of Contemporary British
Poetry1982, English Poetry 1918 – 60, 1962; The Faber
Book of 20th Century Women‟s Poetry 1987; and
Dunn‟s Selected Poems 1964 – 83, 1986; claims that
“who we write to in the twentieth century at least
partly defines who we are.” To what extent are you,
yourself, defined by In A Rare Time Of Rain?

MP: I write very strongly from mood in the sense that if

I‟m feeling a certain way that a poem will come out that
way and if I‟m feeling another way, there‟ll be a

25
different poem. So these different moods define,
naturally, different aspects of my personality and me. I
hope I‟ve got plenty of variety in my collection of these
various views and moods. In that way I hope my work
defines me quite broadly.

PAS: Following on from Dr Jeffries‟ comments, how

would you want us to view the relationship between
the child in you, and you as an adult and a writer with
reference to your poem, „On The Beach‟?

MP: You often get more of yourself in one poem than

another and that poem is an autobiographical in tone
and again it‟s very much me in a tongue in cheek
mood.

PAS: Let‟s look at your elaborate use of natural images;

the sea, the moon, the sun, mountains and in this
particular poem - „On The Beach‟, mermaids, is that
Freudian?

MP: You‟d have to ask Freud if you could. I should

think it‟s more likely just purely related to the way my
life‟s been lived, that these images have been
prominent, you might say. in my life and they are
things that are noticeable. I agree that they can be very
much overused. You should see a lot of the stuff I
haven‟t published!

26
PAS: I‟m curious about „And writing more sophisticated
conception of the universe from his studies‟ in stanza
5; is that true of you in at least the sense that as
you‟re growing old you‟re having a more sophisticated
concept of life?

MP: Well, as we accumulate more experience

presumably we should also accumulate a more
sophisticated opinion at least about life and its
complexities.

PAS: If I may ask you, why are you now writing about
your childhood?

MP: Every statement I make is a question. That‟s my

philosophical approach to life and the whole business
of trying to comprehend anything to a degree like the
scientific approach of making a statement and saying,
is this more or less true and that‟s a continuing
process for me, until I‟m overtaken entirely by senility!

PAS: The advent of Women‟s poetry, children‟s poetry,

technological innovations and multicultural interplay
has made mainstream modern British Poetry a
different spiritual experience according to Professor
Lesley Jeffries, and I share this view too; where do you
think this development will lead?

MP: Trying to forecast how it will develop further, I

presume it will get more and more diverse. I don‟t

27
believe mass communication in any case does not
come into uniformity. However, the marvellous
profusion of women poets will continue as the culture
in any particular country is more diverse so the arts
should be. Internationalism is the word for arts.
Technology and global networking is good for writing
and I for one hoped to be seen as an international poet
rather than an English poet with a very big capital „E‟,
because of my life and work.

I also think that as the world shrinks, world literature

will be more and more the norm, hopefully.

PAS: What about the notion of 20th Century

spiritualism in writing?

MP: I‟m not really into spirituality; I‟m not even a

believer in the soul. The nearest thing is a possible
excess of romanticism which I have to tame, that‟s my
nearest thing to spirituality.

PAS: Why write poetry, why not a travelogue from

which you can make much more money?

MP: Making money from poetry was never my motive.

I‟m not condemning making money. I took to it
seriously when I was out of work and had no prospect
of getting any work and being fifty by then I wasn‟t
thinking of poetry as a career. I began to change a little
when my poems began to be published here and there.

28
Poets moan that it‟s hard to make any kind of living
from poetry. However, there is the plus side, it gives
freedom in writing. I would probably find it too difficult
to recite travelogues because I consider doing it
honestly would give too much of myself away. In
poetry, you can let yourself go but only little bits of
yourself come through. Maybe I choose to reveal myself
that way because it‟s an easier way of doing it.

PAS: If you pick any generation, which poet or poets

have influenced you a great deal?

MP: Pablo Neruda, a 20th Century Chilean poet

probably more directly than anybody else with less
emphasis on two other earlier poets - Shakespeare and
Blake. I‟m quite convinced of the poetic genius of
Shakespeare and Blake. These were almost built into
me from my youth. Neruda came to me late in life
and has certainly been my strongest influence. He
really taught me how to look at things from very
different perspectives.

29
THE FABLE

I asked them...
How come?
Blacks don‟t act in Shakespeare
I was told, Othello is a black man
An Arab, black as Adam.
Adam? Yes, in the Garden of Eden…

Raison d‟être he should need an excuse in Eve

What excuse, didn‟t she first eat the fruit naked?
Yes, that‟s the point with the runes of English
Waves that ride backward, prisoner of its own
Success. Why sing in patois when you can
speak English in creole

I asked them, how come we blacks don‟t play

The goodly parts, I was told,
Because we built pyramids
Remember? Before the saviour was born
To the cross – Blacks‟ industrial revolution
Had sickened the white world – side-in, side-out

But… Isn‟t your fable

Misconceived?
No, the end was justified
Goodly whites lie all day,
The blacks make-do with everything
Alright? Yes. Is that why tombs are white?
30
THE JEWEL

In the midst of the traffic

of the individual‟s frustration
Rises the crescendo of purposeful
Love. As the waves embrace her
and the sun discharges
incorruptible passion
from having kissed her
The birds flutter their wings
in appreciation of her generosity

In this wild time of lies trumping

fallen trees and acrid air when
toxic water, semtex buildings and fake
news are the cultivation of disobedient
generations. The rhythm of life
remains undistorted. Only humanity
is short-changed
eating foreign currency
instead of home-baked bread

31
IN THE DARK

Outside, in the dark

African heads gather to consider
Their lost tongues,
Lumping against their
Meaningful intentions;
They settle for yawns.

For thousands of years

They have remained
Buried in closets
What their self-subversion lacks
Fills the Sahara with trade,
Full of wheats; wits of African stiff-necks

Raising ignorance
Leaves corruption in place
Prized persecution is displayed where
Posterity reflects paying to see
Its own dis-selection
Collectively in an unmarked grave

Afraid to wake up to the rain-washed day;

Clinging to the beauty of
The Afrikan night sky,
Sunshine is left to
Dead leaves with
Resolute trees, sharing in the sun drab.

32
I AM TWILIGHT

Go
My Likeness
Go around the Earth
Go and see that I AM

My Likeness
I AM beyond the Earth
I AM the concealed
I scare error till it falls.

Beyond the earth

Beyond earthly fright and terror
I AM Twilight
Beyond death and decay

33
DEAD MAN

Dead man trumps clarity

Speaking generally
With optimism, pretty flaws, elaborate plans
Non-responsive with secure video teleconferences
A shuttle diplomacy, notorious for paralysis
Dead man has described slow ratchets
Whose offices are six feet away full of statues
Dead man is stubborn trying some better moulds

Internecine. A Rumsfeld or Powell,

Then again maybe not
The house is full of insistence
Yet, the secret is White with deadpan insecurity
And brightness, people are slaughtered
In disastrous flops, but at a variance.
Warfare clears dead man as an insurgent
Leaving dead man the error to die another day

34
EAGLE, MOUSE, WOLF & LAMB

The eagle soars aloft, his eyes left below,

Sees the mouse not sensing the blow

Hounds sprint hard to chase the doe,

Swift, fleet and foe

Hounds, foes, each is thinking of the dough

In all turns, each doesn‟t care about a Jane Doe

A wolf fells a lamb without fear, when the lamb preys

Upon the wolf, howls will hear the pains

Wolf and lamb, to the other

Each, thinking not and in all bites, won‟t care to bother

People can only get what they can perceive

Thinking the corners lead one way to receive

To the others – each thinking what they‟ve got

But, on all fronts, shouldn‟t shy from their gut

35
DUST CLING

I was part of the thoughts

Traded, in market places,
Bought by the Americans

They tried
To turn my earthenware
To gold

The deception
Was seconded
By the Brits

I was part of the thoughts

Stalked on the shelves
For a time, the dust clings.

36
I SMELL PARADISE

I smelt parasite when George in a solemn dance,

embraced the hiatus. The only Hercules dancing away
the throes. This lull and this jig epitomise the new love
for Herculean heroics on superior plutonium wings.

I smeared the paradise that was full of the people

newly liberated from the crutches of Saddam, those
who were once impoverished now celebrating with
tanks of water and bucketful of food

The crossed swords, emblem of Baghdad, now fitful

smiles of the freed Iraqis. I smell paradise when old
Europe prostrates to the New at the helm of
reconstruction insomnia.

Americans with pocketful of peace

dice NATO into the greatest insecurity with
rapid instability; blurring and blunting
the truths once held dearly.

37
I KNOW

Under the fall... I know

Floods confine… I know, I know
An island‟s ground for divorce… I know
Divorce from life… I know, I know
Try to rest before you start… I know… how to
Divorce separation… I know, I know
Why the mines in Yorkshire can‟t blink… I know, I
know. Oil companies know I know… I know… we‟re
waiting for antidepressant… I know… from the NHS… I
know, know, know, I know
It‟s wrong to work into the throat… I know
Know how to work the throat into the stomach… I
know… with a squeeze…
I know… know… know, I know… how to work the
wells… I know... how to well the
Caves; you know? How we know you know?
We don‟t.

38
DRUMMERS OF REVOLUTIONS

Drummers of revolutions
Dusty means and ends

Collaborator-glazers
Green brick and scenarios

Outlines of concepts
Tinges of colours

Sanity undermines imagination

Mystery of forgotten dreams

Spiked blood
Thinks red with rage

You, played along beside me,

You, a pale brown soil! Knowing I was game.

39
MOTHER RHYMES

Mother is the first rhyme of nature

Earthquakes in India,
Millions fall to a caste
Frozen out of time

Fleeing the fire,

Australia is withstanding
the flooding
of a crate-throwing rain

Sri Lanka, Colombia

and Arkansas, all have
their eggs from mother‟s tears
plate-able in their joy

Correcting
the misunderstanding
won‟t under-stand mother
hassling it all out with father

Yes, father‟s anger

is his long projection
his compromising
can be nurturing

40
Mother‟s strength is more than moonlight
More than our brains and hands
wickedness and deceitful eyes
cannot eclipse, why father came in her trail

41
MY MOTHER‟S EARTH

I‟ll stand up for the Earth

Any day, I‟ll come to her aid
With my hands and chest, I‟ll shield her
Against the blows of torrential rain, the threats of sleet
that starves of decency, the damnation of the iceberg
Whether drunk or sober

At dawn, I‟ll rise up

When she‟s lost
In her thoughts, and deal my hands
In punches to the welled-up seas
Making an allowance for the water to run,
To where it belongs

In the evening, the trees

Will spread their feet, rejoicing
To meet the needs of their children
By providence, earth terrain is vital
To the celebration, a recognition, which
Has long past!

42
EARTH-HOLD

Brandishing grief, a seabed

has been pub-crawling through an alley, blind

That it has priced the earth and has swept storms

to bathe full of turbulences

It has not been on a boat so sweet with such tripping

that in the dark, it has tried out gossiping

With those on board, stamping their feet; nuisance

Trying to hold on to a smudged world; as fragrance

The Earth, who owns us, has kept us alive

Our, Eternal Almighty Regenerator Triumphant Hold.

43
WOMAN

Womb, the origin

Of life, woman brought forth
Man in herself demonstrating her complex self-
Awareness of life
Neutralising physical power of death, as of man

And the dullness in man condemned

Have you not seen or heard the cravings of excitement

by men in brawls or the display of aggression by
manners unmeasured confirming how lonely a man is.
Dissatisfied with himself, needing
to find the meaning of self

And the dullness in man condemned

Women always defend men

in gentler ways than one
Men‟s defence of women
adds up to one and only one
the grinding, abrasive muscularity,

44
Then, the collapse.
Yes, a man drops in many ways,
firstly the trickles and last, oh at last the self-inflicted
exhaustion; the near-loss of consciousness, needing a
woman‟s respite to come back to life not to combat life

Yes, women die too, a poetic death

A disguise for the continuation
of life in different forms and shapes
tracking the life in man is real
And will grow

Women are the substance

of life on earth, they‟re in bits
The great Mother
and the lesser mother
Mother of all, nonetheless

And the dullness in man condemned

45
THOUSAND STILL POSES

My love professes daylight;

valleys, groves, hills and fields
grown deprived of appearances

Wood mountains cover their eyes to extend love

to the public. Militarisation snuggles up to the sun
resplendently with hindsight

As shepherds feed flocks, in shallow rivers with rocks

promising roses with thousand still poses is my lover‟s
take on the thoughtfulness of a date

46
THIN, BLACK SMILE

When he hemmed her curls against racism,

she imitated the fall. He; crucified
the act smiled thin writhing between
her legs scattered with information.

He was bent on the truth, but his weight

obscured her bruises held still by city developers.
His exaggeration was spacious
and exclusive

He'd kissed her by accident

Thinking she was a property
Full of possibility
She; smiled thin and black

47
MY LADY LOVES LIFE

I sit on her with my ideas

Push selfishness
Overconfidence in her face
She smiles the light of day

“I understand”, she says

Sitting on those ideas is dangerous
I pull her hair in my sleep, she giggles
In real life wanting me to live

She‟s the enemy I‟ve made, my fake friend

Who‟s given me the will to live
I breathe in and out with our majesty
Together in sync, we are full of life

48
LOVE‟S ROUGH NAMES

She calls love rough names saying scalies and crawlies

are in and out of love exhaust

She says, love like his strong leg is a prejudice striding

her smooth landscape, like a pole on a sea

Her eyes sees love as dark as a sow

rooting in the mud and as a mule, tied to a turntable.

49
DOUBTFUL SIXPENCE I

Food and earth-man are inseparable

Man and woman are seen welded
to a manic language, „Sister-man and brother-man‟
Watch the fermentation and the brew
Not the herb destined to return
Memory from the empty rain

Watch the culpable jobs and your maneuverings

Watch the doubtful six pence, goods for goods
Watch your man like the Ministerial,
Another body left to Brixton in grandeur
pending its prime in pram, eating mud cakes
behind the academy, watch the empty rain

Sister-man and brother-man, watch it ferment;

Not the herb, the sixpence in its doubt, watch the
minister-man sitting in the rain making wishes
The barber man is also the cab man and the cab man
Has allegiance to the corner shop on Coldhabour
Lane. Watch the doubtful six pence.

50
DOUBTFUL SIXPENCE II

Dark Continent,
a different ball
game.
Diptych for
a tamed spider
mixed media
on a canvas.
Crypt of the
black Madonna
Mooreland benediction
the doubtful sixpence.
The wood cutter and 'Father Jose Maria'
married the artist's wife at
potato harvest
had chips in a bed-sit
with inmates.

51
DOUBTFUL SIXPENCE III

Another ministerial body was left to Brixton in

grandiose. One or two high officials have spent their
primes in pram eating mud cakes behind the academy;
vision of lush willows came to pass but was nothing to
sitting in the rain making wishes.

Invention is never late even when it‟s deposed of

original ideas. In Brix, the barber man has idea of
owning his own cab; but a cabman‟s allegiance is to
the corner shop on Market Square. Earth, food and
Moses‟ staff are inseparable to Black or Brown

The London Met. bobbies weld women to a sinister

language. Browns sound pale and Pales derive roots
culture from Brownies. Their schisms, poses and looks
are so offensive, they require manhandling and
manipulation to keep the British peace.

The British in pieces are suspect to the Caribbean and

Afrikans, the working classes newly arrived from the
Liverpool of „way back‟ history. But, it was for re-
election that the major Minister was detrimental in his
speech, a Caucasian mimicking patois:

52
 Sister-man, sister-man ya watch ya
desolation – ya refrain from ya grand visage
of rain, of empty stomach – ya watch it
brother-man, ya culpable jobs, ya malignity,
ya maneuvering man.

Market women and Cabmen, hair stylists –

pillars of the *Afrikan/Caribbean society,
pugilists and would be champions stepped
in to stop the official in his tracks:
“Watch your doubtful sixpence, Mr Minister-man!”

53
YOU COULD DRAW

You could draw

Her bottom to the edge of the bed, but
The maiden head would be in the way
And she could push forward boldly
So you would have to learn to govern yourself
And pass slowly through a violent route, spouting

You have returned in her tracks to your quarters

She would have waited to put a syringe in your beard
And a cold cream everyone had finished wanting
You could think to steady the bed and wait to arrange
the towels when she put her face in the door.
A corset and another towel could produce love milk.

54
SOUR BREASTS of KOSOVO

Sour breasts in Kosovo drip of honeycomb. Albanian

youths float candles needling through canons in
Pristina, trees witness he massacres infants
for games. The anxieties of babies born
under-cover to rifle butts and shots.
In marshland of explosives,
human machine guns and
mines price out
the beasts in
Belgrade.

55
YES WE ARE…

Bombing your wives and children, out of bed, at night

Spying on your every move in a spree, wall from wall
Naming you a terrorist. Yes, we are…
Charging you without a charge,
Jury or judge like a heist.
Yes we are…

Democratic… Trans-humans
We police your living rooms and kitchens
Patrol your weddings and love-making with drones
Micro-laser-target your water closet with missiles
You‟re petulantly alike, more or less…
Yes, you are

56
WITH TERROR

When the moon was still our guide

The Romans refused our lampshade

Latin posts of our civilisation

Tumbled into its past, into its past

I remember...
It was with terror

The Empire was torched

To a barren land

57
SHADOWS of BREATH

The shadows are breaths

The laughs, reproduction of daft
Shadowing
Addressing
Who we think we cannot be
Who we cannot think we are

Laughs reproduce redemption

Between our flesh, between our bones
The lungs muscle in on our health with shadows
Shadows that have become our drives
Orientating who we can be
Addressing who we think we are

These shadows in our breaths

Are steel in the winds
The shadows have become a map of our orientation
Yet, the shadows are breaths
The winds are steel, the shadow maps who we think
We will not be, affirms who we think we are

58
THE MIDDLE CLASS

A kingpin has shuffled the middle class of Britain

into the lower regions. Three times, they were dealt
the wrong decks

The pack needed

constant reshuffling
to make the fudge last

Super co-ordinates, entente royals; Charlie shows

The economy to make dark wealth and braggarts,
Leaning into the reminiscence of jester years

59
TODAY, I PRAISE BRITAIN

Today, I praise Britain,

the water heals
the ungovernable.
A cedar tree
leans backward.

Bountiful harvests.
Omens; crank, crack,
crash! Patches of blue sky
paint the windows, a rabbit
chases two squirrels.

I hear you today laughing

with ecstasy against
a raucous river praising
the Stock Exchange;
eulogising economic recovery.

The promiscuous river,

generous to a valley as
a castle to rabbits, or
a squirrel‟s love for
trees – bowing to open skies.

60
Today, I dance to my country,
drenched in condemnation.
Above the weepy ice, the public
beat a deaf-drum; why I
chant, praise even in tears.

61
A ROSY FUTURE

Love is deprived of an appearance a resplendent tree

in the sun, for a thousand fragrant poses

Promising rosy future to the people

is an indiscrimination not meant for keep

The people are cajoled

into going on a rendezvous with scumbags

Cajoled to decorate women with vices as a ruinous art

exploits the embarrassment of those living like royalty.

62
AFRICAMATION

In the year 2010 Africamation

Africa, comforting the Africans
Hoes the haft transferred to technology

Born-again African-Americans are

Challenging the tea mugs of slave masters
In Africa‟s Europe

By the year 2020, I had slept on a log of wood -

Showing how much I cared - I had come in the shower
With you fully dressed, as Africa.

They were not in trouble like women, men whose pride

encompassed them like a chain. Their suits were
violent. Their eyes stood out with fatness.

Their tongue walked the globe! Praising oppression

They wrung water from skirts! As if in a dream
Their image despised holding off our corrupt lot!

63
AN ENGLISH ROSE

Seas of snow stand alone, mighty towers

Like drops

Eyes of light shine the scenes

Moored by strangeness

Moved by you the shadow love

of Masks, kissed by an English rose

You made your men divine, in your wildness

Afforded like yesterday‟s.

64
BABY

The train climbs the hill,

the bursting coals melt the ice

The driver shovels in a handful of coals,

she resumes in flights

Her stomach rumbles, but the trauma,

her trauma won't give up

Not yet,
the baby's in the compartment

65
IN THE GARDEN II

In the garden, oak trees provide shade, in the shades;

Toads encroach on snakes
The land hisses at magpies feeding on scraps,
As snakes dance to milk bottles.
Wolves, like puppies submit to form family ties

He-wolves feed on regurgitated meat,

but she-wolves live by their wits.
United by myth, other families romances
armed my arm with love;
I learn a page of you, everyday, cell by cell

I fling open your red mouth, telling you it‟s the man‟s
sperm that controls the sex of a child and children
take all and give little. Your red, red mouth still asleep
as dawn falls flat from your lips. Even the vultures on
the trees nearby, are too busy, droning on nappies

We‟re coming to orgasm in the act, we‟re raiding into

our hinder parts as we excuse ourselves back into the
garden, the birds are „stoned‟ with thoughts of love;
black stripped kites become too concerned
with courtship; we, are locked into one with love.

66
LOVE IN THE WORLD

Love in the world is the light

Demeaning words are forgotten
As differences
The unthinking wants are erased
Love is the salve, all hurts are healed

Together, the rifts

That is us
Are healed
Our warm light sprints
Over the gulf that has ceased

Happiness steals
Our holy nights
Visions in our ancient rites
Strengthen
Exuberance from our knowledge of wicks

Our arms will lift without ache

We will thrust and hurl from our tried pathways
We will lie as gentle as soft rains
No leaves will fall or bend, but with quietness
As cure; smoothness will follow in our wake.

67
NOT REALLY HELD DOWN

You speak tabloids

In scales and slides
You‟re a déjà-vu in supermarkets
Showing you‟re really held down
Really held down

Broadsheets are broad as scopes

Detailed miniscule, you are
Down to earth, cobbling
A meandering soul
Really held down

You‟re not content to be a human being

You‟re wings and flights conferencing
With simpleton for wisdom
You‟re battling your own self-survival
Being really held down

I hear
the happenings
My eyes believe my ears
That cobblers only mend soles
Not really held down.

68
OCCUPIERS

Travelling faces
Pretty flirtations, the allure
Different, and unfamiliar. The dark skin tone
Luminous like a proverbial apple
Complicated!
Lacking opportunity
Stealing gazes.

Past lives
Said to have died, but
Met by travellers
Remind of protective ignorance
shining at night like stars,
Telling house domains to give
Occupiers delightful presents.

69
PROBING

Disadvantages of having two eyes

focusing in the same direction
why not wriggle one of the lights
in another connection
and know that nothing makes sense

Scientists, Religionists with many eyes

adducing, imposing - a reduction
that makes us a generation of weepy ice
drenched in condemnation
a wilful disability in a sense.

Eagles and sharp eyes

claws piercing without assumption
poking fish eyes, nibbling chicken thighs
bloody anarchistic insurrection
leaving us a well-battered sense!

70
SHAKING HANDS WITH HITCHHIKERS

The trucks crossed the sea, soaked with oil

The desert shared a night
Pricing what was too little to pay
The trucks crossed the sea, soaked with oil

Shoulder to shoulder, they stood gulf for gulf

Shaking hands with hitchhikers
Having a ride
Shoulder to shoulder, they stood gulf for gulf

Their proud necks, walked into each other

With condensed smile
Protecting big stomachs
Their proud necks, walked into each other

A deflective sight retracted from light

Blind alley rushed through
Broken promises
A deflective sight retracted from light.

71
THE WISDOM OF TREES
To Daniel, Chanto, Aura, Jah Ade and
Aysel

Mankind‟s self-appraisal
out of books forgets trees
are modern masters
Their wisdom is rooted
in the beginnings
before sands could shape
each sea has a voice
as each seed and each sky,
a loud tone as each skin.
Stars, blinking away
the skirmishes of the earth
are burying their own scars
their life in thousands of years
mirrors the forever and the Great
Books beckon mankind to be aware.
Beware trees are proof of the Great
Judgement in houses or shacks,
mankind beware of your “polluticking”
beware of your politics of heaven and hell!

72
WINDOWS AT NIGHT

Windows at night try to put to rest the rumblings of

crafty engines. Ankara‟s stupor of appeasement looks
plain to dignified apartments peeling colours out of
dusty roads the upstairs decreases as the hammer-
blow dispenses and the furniture is polluted.

Friends and foreigners came in rimmed glasses

Pegging square walls into something unique,
Like a lovely baby with rooms to play, growing
Into adult games to justify their arrival
As the clock tried to renew itself

The night had long yawned its crevices

Out of lounges and partings, old and
Not-so-new friends have long looked across
To nowhere as foreigners occupied the double rooms
Feeling calm with competition

73
PASTURES of BLADES

Trees rejoice to a man-made heat in winter

As rain produces leather-storms in a split
Dead sheep feed babies for lack of cereal
Cattles milk blood crumbling cooking pots
As shepherds turned marksmen aim at flock
Wandering too long under the man-made sun
Birds sway the land to die a quarter

Prayers are made for a half-life while digging for water

To claim a tepid victory,
But people need more than a leather-tight resolve
To flush out beasts rampaging Yugoslavia.
But the drifting minds have reduced the will of Aryan
children, Aryan children and their drizzling minds,
their drizzling minds

74
LISTEN TO THE WAVES

Listen to the waves

Appealing to the husband who‟d
Rejected his wife, a woman
Lured out of love into partnership

Listen to the wave dancers

and the musicians concocting
from myth how it was once
a wonderful time… Listen

Listen to other things -

a bird playing cocoon to
an insect - man and woman
Disintegrating before the wisdom of plants

Listen to insects, what job they make

of the dead - reaching the vaults locked
to vultures - turning into a showcase the
Remains of what was once a shimmering life

Children loved it not long ago, they

Thought, pooh-pooh was a play thing
Insects hardly bury their heads
In sand for shame, listen

75
Listen to husband and wife complaining:
It works well when no-one is watching,
But insects watch upside down repeating
Our collective noises like waves; listening

76
CHARIOT of WATER

Wordsworth sold for tuppence

Tourists in the Lake Districts rode imaginary chariots
From Grasmere, settled for a boat at Windermere;
chose the cottage. The cottage of words, where what
you see is not what you get. Sea birds searched for
food icons sold from the deep. Here, the great man
himself had once stood on conscience fetched from
fells. You can still see his head mark there, but his hat
lies deep in the lake by Ambleside.

77
BY-GONE LIGHTS

Leathered wilfully, desperate caricatures

are laughing still as folklores live longer
than people, and people are tripping in and
out of lights. Different shades of darkness
are pontificating at bare existence... But
the poor make round the goings on in the
world. Self-amusement is enchanting as an
honourable Philistine, praised for his
masonry outside womanhood only to go home
to 'mummies' rejected in the bright, but
loved in shades. Disparagement of a pint or
a glass of wine would not do damage to a
dream reeled on knocking the stars, beaming
silly! Neither a 'James Bond' nor a 'Nicole
Kidman' has monopoly on aesthetics. The
downtrodden are the infinite symbol; their
efforts are real icons rekindling the craved
boldness, the boldness of by-gone lights.

78
COLUMBUS

Explorers stole the Atlantic Ocean

With Columbus set against the Americas
The ancient Egyptians founded the Americas
The Nubian dream like Moses‟ serpent
Proved too strong for the king of Spain,
But the puppy dragon has sold the Pacific
By 2640 BCE

79
VERILY I SAY THIS TO YOU…

Verily I say this to you…

You are neither the G_d
Nor the Void

Because you can swim

Does not make
You a fish

That you live on a farm

Does not make
You an animal

You are a bystander – a truth.

Unlike birds,
You cannot be black

You are not white, yellow or rainbow

You are a human
Envied by animals

The vegetation wishes

To know
Who or what you are.

Trees are saddened that you are so divided

That each of you functions with doubt,
With weakness
80
There are birds who have mastered air, land and sea,
But none travel in congregation of a single space
Usually, each follows a group leader

But you, you humans are creators of the

Greatest metallic bird; not following a leader
You are exchanging resources.

Create this now: the truly one human race;

Bring your diversity to unity, the unity
insects know too well and you will be

God of Land and Sea.

You will reign peacefully on Earth
Togetherness in one congregation;

In one single space.

Birds; animals and the environment,
Will serve with you.

81
ANGLES, THEIR ANGELS OF SQUARES

They own the cities, stocks and squares,

defiance to failure. Defining themselves
tall, they attempt to compete with the sky.
The short ones are unsteady, large and bold
like a cold. They measure schisms, frescoes
and times with The Dark Ages. Saintliness
was manufactured for feud as the Victorians,
aided purity too literally to embezzle their
children's faith. Jacobean Renaissance baffled
nightmares with misogyny. Distant voices to
the 'Next Doors' in high-rise buildings blame
poetry to twist sophistry, confusing intonation
with cough-decors, seizing on shortages as
historical dent; leaving their angels to admire
the vault which was once the earth. Now their
earth is visiting their angels in the tallest,
fastest plastic cements. Mellowing out their
roughness with bold-sadness and angles, their
angelsof squares without correlation.

82
INDEX: LANDSCAPE of LIES: Truth isn’t True

A ROSY FUTURE, 62
AFRICAMATION, 63
AN ENGLISH MAN, 6
AN ENGLISH ROSE, 64
ANGLES, THEIR ANGELS OF SQUARES, 82
BABY, 65
BY-GONE LIGHTS, 78
CHARIOT OF WATER, 77
COLUMBUS, 79
DEAD MAN, 34
DEFORMED ORCHESTRA, 4
DOUBTFUL SIXPENCE I, 50
DOUBTFUL SIXPENCE II, 51
DOUBTFUL SIXPENCE III, 52, 53
DRUMMERS OF REVOLUTIONS, 39
DUST CLING, 36
EAGLE, MOUSE, WOLF & LAMB, 35
EARTH-HOLD, 43
I AM TWILIGHT, 33
I KNOW, 38
I SMELL PARADISE, 37
IN ITS RHETORIC, 3
IN THE DARK, 32
IN THE GARDEN I, 5
IN THE GARDEN II, 66
TOLD IN SILENCE, 1
LANDSCAPE of LIES, 2
LISTEN TO THE WAVES, 75,76
LOVE IN THE WORLD, 67
LOVE LIVING WITH ME, 10,11
LOVE’S ROUGH NAMES, 49
MAP OF EUROPE, 12
MOTHER RHYMES, 40,41
MY LADY LOVES LIFE, 48
MY MOTHER’S EARTH, 42
NOT REALLY HELD DOWN, 68
NOTICE TO THE NEW ARRIVALS, 7, 8,9
OCCUPIERS, 69
PASTURES OF BLADES, 74
PAUL ADE SILVA INTERVIEWS, AUTHOR, MILNER
PLACE, 13-29
PROBING, 70
SHADOWS of BREATH, 58
SHAKING HANDS WITH HITCHHIKERS, 71
SOUR BREASTS of KOSOVO, 55
THE FABLE 30
THE JEWEL, 31
THE MIDDLE CLASS, 59
THE WISDOM OF TREES, 72
THIN, BLACK SMILE, 47
THOUSAND STILL POSES, 46
TODAY, I PRAISE BRITAIN, 60
VERILY I SAY THIS TO YOU, 80
WINDOWS AT NIGHT, 73
WITH TERROR, 57
WOMAN, 44 45
YES WE ARE, 56
YOU COULD DRAW, 54