Richard Heley Performing at Dutchpot 2001

I AM, WAS, WILL BE, WON'T BE, MAYBE....

I am the sun's undertaker burying the dark
I am the softest concrete bunker waiting for my lover to lay down
I am the desperate, the needy, the hungry and dispossessed,
I’m the charming, the greedy, the enlightened excess
I am the soup kitchen handout, the starving millions, the compassion of charity.
I am the corporate bankers accumulating worries,
I am the wealth creators and job opportunities for small time criminals.
I am the oil barons pillaging and raping the planet,
I’m the fool with the tools creating toxic fumes that are inhaled by my family
I am Jesus at the hardware store buying nails
I am desire window shopping for a nice millstone
I am flowers and nerve gas, ripening fruit and worms gleaning the bones
I am the holocaust and gas chambers
I am the pain of labour and the miracle of a baby
I am a child stolen from innocence
I am the poet writing a line round his neck as he falls and hanging on by a thread
I am the wonder of technology, iron lungs and x-ray machines,
I am herbal medicine and a cure for polio,
I am smart bombs and ugly intentions.
I am passion with my lover, paid sex behind the garbage cans, unwrapped penises and unwanted children,
I am porn magazines, overpopulation and sexually transmitted radio waves,
I am subliminal advertising things go better with the birth of a new political movement.
I am the community working for each other, ripping off neighbours, begging to be forgiven,
I am crack houses and heroin chic,
I am thick thoughts and thin layers hanging around street corners trying to buy time
I am the choir in a bingo hall singing for redemption and praying the numbers come up,
I am the tax collector offering exemptions, stamp collections, instant lottery winnings
and warm blankets covering layers of self deceit,
I am the unfolding beauty of youth watching the face fold with age
I am lions, vultures, policemen, and birds of prey,
I am perfectly rounded silicone nipples sucked by solicitors.
I am the lover that slaughtered its death
I am illusion conceived of itself
I am my own jailer, who else can set me free?
I move all existence everytime that I breathe
I am uniqueness that has no alone
I am the seed in the breast of the bomb
I am what might have been seen to be done
I am the life and the life goes on.

Seema Gill Performing at PIPF West London 2002

Hot Hot Hot London London is hot,hot,hot.

It was 39 degrees Wednesday 6th August 2003 and hot...
Like the taste of green chillies growing in my window sill,
like a junkie who has fallen in a big black container on Kilburn High Road
like the orange trainers I wanna buy in a car boot sale
like the argument of a pensioner who wanna ride free to Charring Cross
like a thunderous slap on the soft bum of a child who spilt chocolate on her white top
like the turquuoise fumes on my skin from my lover’s breath
like a two pound coin hidden in the drawer for the next double rollover
like a dream hung on the washing line in my backyard
like the chapter 29 from my unpublished book
like my daughter playing ear splitting ‘Prodigy’ in my kitchen
like the scar from my blue bike fall along the Grand Union Canal
Like the delivery boy ‘trading’ on the mobile in his Patois smile
Like the giggle of a kid on his roller skate mid high air jump
like the hungry sea gull squeak on a fish mongers kiosk in Church Street market

Like my eyeball rolling down the coridor to pluck mail
And I am sitting here watching for that letter to arrive
so I can collect a brand new fifty pound note from the post office
And I havn’t got the guts to kill a snail who is feeding on my rosemary delicacy
And I am watching her creep freely on the grey patio floor
while my words slowly crawl on to the screen,
And my gaze is hung by the windows, searching for my lover
who's lips are enwrapped around mary janes smoky bliss
and she is begining to sting me like a nettle in the chest.

HAMPSTEAD HEATH

With my whispering fingers
I am feeding the geese by the pond
I am hugging trees,
I am nurturing my soul with energy
Time is a forceful ox,
raging through the universe with its mighty horns,
its broad back side slipping away through the mist,
leaving behind its cow pats, strong odour
and the ruthless footprints of all that it has trampled on
I’m here in my ever changing essence
with all the gold in the earth,
decaying, reshaping, remoulding itself
to be turned into new energy
A sparrow hawk rests in the Oak tree
majestically feeding himself with his prey
My hands clasp in awe
as nature sings its symphony of
eternal peace

I WANT TO KNOW

I don’t care what the colour of your skin is
I want to know if you can see the reflection of your soul
I don’t care where you come from
I want to know if you can travel to the centre of our pain
I don’t care what language you speak
I want to know if you dare to expose injustice
I don’t care what you do for a living
I want to know if you can earn my respect
I don’t care how you form your words
I want to know if you can shape the course of history
I don’t care how you deal with your routines
I want to know if you can act with your clean conscience
I don’t care what means you own
I want to know if you can produce riches of honesty
I don’t care how much knowledge you’ve consumed in life
I want to know if you can avoid ignorance
I don’t care how much material wealth you’ve collected in life
I want to know if you’ve gathered the courage to face life
I want to know