Tag Archive for: Poetry

2021 Reflections – Part 1

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2021 had its fair share of surprises.

Here in London, we came out of lockdown.

What would that mean for me?

I had no idea…there was a lot of uncertainty too.

As I close out 2021, I realise it’s been almost 5 years since I ended my marriage and stepped out of my comfort zone and decided to get to know myself better. Away from the scripts imposed on me by family, culture, religion AND myself…Yes. I have to won what happened to me prior to 2017 too…Anyways, let me reign in my ADHD and stay on topic…

2021…I started the year in a really anxious place.

I’d just had Covid and was already experiencing symptoms of long covid back then. And I started off 2021 reflecting hard on 2020 too, sadly I never really documented my thoughts on here…not explicitly at least. 2020 had been an instructive time.

I won’t go into the loss and grief I experienced in 2020…but I got to spend time away from the poetry scene that I’d been a part of 2017-2019. I had no choice. We were “locked down”.

I attended writing workshops, wrote and shared my work. It was cool.

Come 2021, I had no idea how to react as the world re-opened.

I kept to myself for the first 6 months. Then I got a call from Abdullah, aka SoftSpoken who runs a poetry night called BYOB (Bring Your Own Bars).

“Haroon, we’re firing our DJ. We need someone new and your name came up.”

I actually kind of said no initially. I had imposter syndrome.

I was convinced by my friend Dan to say yes! Dan even invited me around to his home to teach me to DJ to reduce my anxiety around saying yes to Abdullah at BYOB and to get ready for my first gig!

June 2021, I DJ’d and it was incredible!

DJing…It’s been beautiful…It’s made my heart sing, I’ve met some beautiful people…I’m very socially awkward..But I can connect with people over music. I get to make people with my ability to curate music. The whole thing is just infused with so much love.

And after 6 months of being BYOB’s DJ I have been asked to join the team at Pen-Ting.

Pen-Ting is a poetry night I first started going to several years ago. It’s always felt like home. To be asked to join their team as their DJ is an honour.

I’ve been a fan of Repeat Beat Poet and Omari aka SKY GOD. To become collaborators and colleagues with people you’re a fan of…it’s a beautiful thing…

It’s insanely late and I can’t hold my pen much longer. This is just some musings and reflections from 2021…part 1. I’ll put the rest of my thoughts into a part 2 and share that in a couple of days.

Golden Brown

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Last year I remember clearly the moment that my artistic journey hit a new stage. 

I wrote the poem 7 Bar Loop. I wrote this while attending a multi week workshop with Rachel Long. 

Rachel Long is an incredible poet and arguably the best poetry teacher I’ve ever had the privilege of studying under. She simply got me to think about poetry, creativity and my own writing differently. 

She single handedly got me to expand my creative, artistic and expressive vocabulary.

During the class she repeatedly came back to Terrence Hayes, an American poet who wrote a new book packed with Sonnets. His Sonnets do not adhere to the same structure as Shakespeares. There are NO rhymes.

But they adhere to one simple rule.

They’re 14 lines.

The other week I attended a poetry workshop run by Hannah Gordon of Word Down. I was asked to write a Terrence Hayes style sonnet. 14 lines, no rhyming. 

Here’s a link to the Terrence Hayes sonnet that inspired my poem….it’s from his collection “American Sonnet for My Past”.

Seven of the Ten Things

I’ll be doing more sonnets……however, this is my first:

Sonnet #一 (Golden Brown)

Golden brown. The Stranglers.
Omar. Married to tomato and
onion stew. Leisurely chopping
of onions releases a baptism
of grief. Wash my eyes and
wash my face. Baptism followed by
baptism. Apt. I forgot to bathe.
Dopamine dips do that daily.
The key is to accept, but not
succumb. Keep working quietly.
Onions learn to share space
with softening tomatoes. Alchemy
creates aromas. I create 
joy disguised as food.

Zaynub

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So, I’m currently summoning up the energy to go through heaps of notes and drafts and ideas for drafts for the blog. There’s a lot I want to say, communicate and share. But this year’s events have thrown me massively off balance.

While I do that, to keep the flame burning, I’ve been performing and reading poetry on Zoom calls.

As I’ve run out of newer material that I wrote this year, I’ve gone through and found work from last year that I’m really proud of. Work that I hope to publish in my debut collection of poetry.

Until then I put things out on the blog as I’m a big believer in sharing creative work instead of hoarding it.

This poem is about and dedicated to my daughter Zaynub, someone who has and will continue to feature in my writing, my work, and my blog.

Here’s the poem:

Zaynub

Catalysed by opposable thumbs
Hips move
Hope is a groove
The future makes movement manifest in the present
This present was almost miscarried on the day of my birth
I can think of no greater tragedy.

Haroon (proud dad)

Written in Morden, South London

Love Is a Balm

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I’ve been part of a poetry reading group set up by a friend of mine I used to work for last year. It’s been great fun sharing a lot of my newest writing with them, and being exposed to poetry in Hindi and Urdu too.

We get to choose between reading our own work and reading poems by other writers. I ran out of poems I’ve written this year and was going to dig out work by other poets…but glimpsing through an old folder I’ve found forgotten poems.

Like so much of my work it documents the changes I’ve been going through in the past year.

I’m working on my first collection of poetry that I want to self publish. I hope to include this poem.

Love Is a Balm

Love is a balm
Apply gently
to surfaces corroded by a lifetime of neglect
then to those who see you and accept you
Nuclear winter is imminent
We are each other’s garments
Ready to endure
A better world awaits us




A New Perspective

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I really need to start writing more again. Well….I want to write more. “I need to…” is such a strong and absolute statement.

I know I’m starting to repeat myself, but I’m still grieving, it’s thrown my physical health off of balance. I’m also trying to figure out ways to bring money in as copywriting is taking time to yield results. I’m dealing with a lot and it’s getting in the way of my writing.

But when I write, when I bother to turn up and do the work, magic happens.

My friend and brother Alain “Fusion” Chapman runs an event called BMT (Black Man’s Time) which now runs weekly on Instagram as an Instagram Live show at 7 pm UK time every Friday evening. They run a free-write session and I decided to take part in one recently. This is what I came up with.

Affirmations

I’ve let go of resentment
I’m grateful for new beginnings
I’m grateful for the love I receive daily

I choose to craft a positive narrative about my future

I am ready to Create:
art
hope
happiness
love

I deserve:
acceptance
compassion

I deserve to be seen

I am learning to be generous and kind to
myself and others

Access to the muse, to the God within is
my divine right and I am open to receiving it now

Haroon – 29th May 2020

I didn’t know I had this poem in me. I was lucky enough to read it on the BMT livestream and Fusion made a point about how this represented a turning point in the years he’s known me. The optimism and hope is palpable.

I’m done being angry. The things that happened to me, abuse, trauma. None of it is my fault. None of it. But how I proceed from here on in, it is MY responsibility. These past 3 years I’ve been putting in the reps, I’ve got broader shoulders. I can carry this responsibility. I’m sure of it.

Anger and resentment are behind me. Fusion, someone I’ve been a fan of for almost 20 years loved my poem, it made him smile. This is what success looks like.

What Weapon Will YOU Choose?

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I never turn up to battle empty handed…………

My Lover Is…

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I’m trying to push myself out of my comfort zone with writing and was challenged in a workshop by this wicked poet, Desree to use an “extended metaphor” in a poem. My understanding of an “extended metaphor’ is taking one metaphor, and running with it for the rest of the poem.

You’ll see the metaphor I used in the first line, and I decided to use this metaphor as a metaphor love, a lover to be precise. Love and lovers are a theme that I really enjoy exploring and will continue to write about.

I’m stepping into a period in my life where I’m looking to explore love and sex unapologetically and free from the shame my upbringing associated them with. The combination of repression, coloured by religion, and culture, coupled with repeated sexual abuse during my teenage years at the hands of an older man definitely created dysfunction. It led to compromised decisions around marriage and what was and wasn’t an acceptable level of intimacy.

Shit, I spent almost all of my decade long marriage NOT sharing a bed with my wife and thought that was normal.

Am now working on getting past that and looking to a future filled with love and intimacy and

My Lover Is…..

My lover is like a warm beanbag
Taking me in
Accepting me, with all my faults
Adapting to my contours
Never judging 
She is inviting
Beckoning me to let her wrap around me
Her embrace like that of my favourite beanbag
Comfortable
Comforting
Soft foam like flesh
A balm for the cruelties, hurt and misunderstanding of the outside world
Sometimes I wrap myself around her
We adapt to each other
Each day is closed out pressed against each other’s naked flesh

Cosmic Dust

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Recently my close friend, big brother, and creative mentor Ty passed away due to the Covid19.

I do not know how to do justice to his memory or even begin to convey the level of heartache I am feeling at his passing. I will be trying to process my grief through writing and some of that may or may not end up on this blog.

Until then I wanted to share this poem. I wrote it back in 2017. Ty had been criminally slept on during his career. I refuse to shy away from this fact especially right now where all of a sudden I’m seeing glowing tributes in mainstream media outlets that ignored him during his lifetime.

He had decided to take matters into his own hands and had pulled out all the stops to do a gig marking the 19th anniversary of the release of his debut album “Awkward” that was released on Big Dada. He had decided to perform the entire album, start to finish with a live band.

Anyone who’s followed Ty’s career over the years knows that he excelled at live performance, particularly when he brought live musicians into the proceedings.

I and so many of Ty’s die-hard fans could not wait for this gig. The gig was on May 31st 2017 and I wrote this poem in anticipation of the gig as I had been reflecting on his music and his friendship.

The first two lines of my poem were inspired by the following lines from Ty’s song “Closer” from his 3rd album “Closer“, the music video for which I’ve embedded below.

“Nobody ever said it was easy
and if they did they’re trying to tease me
I struggle with my demons discreetly
standing on my granddaddy’s shoulder
Trying to see more than I’m supposed ta
Can I get closer?”


The first two lines in my poem are a reference to the 3rd line of the excerpt from his song “Closer” above.

That 3rd line always pained me as it was Ty alluding to something that many of us experience and feel, but only he was brave enough to voice it on wax.

Here is the poem in its entirety

Cosmic Dust

My brother struggles with his demons discreetly
While I struggle with that
The flip side to wearing your heart on your shirt sleeve is you can’t be discreet while you wait for the wheel to turn
It’s jammed right now
And no matter how discreet I try to be
Unpacked emotions spill over in every interaction

I’m embarrassed
36 years on
I still can’t walk without crutches

My mother wanted me to be my father’s strength
I failed miserably at that

It’s all inverse
This prolonged adolescence
I need to snap out of it

Peter Pan syndrome

I was told I wanted to be a man in my 20s
And now a boy in my 30s

I’m a child in fact
I wish I’d inked Corinthians
Don’t care how many mocking & scornful glances it draws
It’s the one wish that has remained constant
It’s my totem now
Reminding me if I’m in that dream-like state the world strong arms us into 
Or if I’m truly awake

When I’m wake
I take long walks 
Powered by the voice of a mortal who was fashioned from the most magical clay & cosmic dust
I’ve shed tears while in the presence of people sharing their light
This person
He made me weep
Uncontrollably 
You’d think my vision was obscured through all the tears washing over my corneas
You’re wrong. 
Now I see clearly 

5th May – 2017

Trafalgar Square, London, UK

Ty – 1972 – 2020

RIP = Return if Possible

failing that

RIEP = Rest in Eternal Power

Loudspeaker

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More poetry.

I wrote this one with my loudspeakers in mind. I’ve had them for 25 years, they’ve traveled with me across 2 continents and over 12 homes in that time.

Loudspeaker

I sit calmly
Ready to receive signals
Analogue
Digital
I don’t discriminate
Frame carved from wood
Interior carefully calibrated electronics
Great engineering never goes out of fashion
Good vibrations run through cables
Causing movement to my cones
Heart song bring lovers in the living room close together 
Cheek to cheek
I am the soundtrack to:
Birthdays
Bar mitzvahs 
Arguments
Make up sex
Break up sex
I’ve lived through it all:
Brit-pop
Hip hop
Trip-hop
Grime
Jazz 
Funk
Great engineering never goes out of fashion
I bend space and time
Connecting time zones, continents and bygone eras
I don’t discriminate

Haroon

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As promised, more poetry, this piece is called Haroon and is about my name.

Haroon

Origin story
No spider bites
Dropped in Luton, via Pakistan
East end matriarch named me
Right-hand man of a tongue-tied prophet
Religious narratives are the roots to the branch of this tree
Musa and Haroon
Myth or reality
Don’t know
Don’t care
I’ll turn myth into reality
Took damn near four decades to roll off of my side and learn my true role
Speak up 
Speak loud
Never bear false witness
Here I am
Stuck indoors
Crisis turned opportunity
Clarity points to purpose
What is in a name?
EVERTYHING