You can call me the prodigy.

The token black.

Lickel bounty nappy in the social service trap

Number on the system of the age of

In care like cattle until adoption was due

Mixed race nigger, unidentified light loud and black

Teenage years fed shifting that.

But stop.

Now that is where I was from

Let me make you see crystal clear!

Where I’m coming from You see the system messed up tried make pods

Who we are, what we are, where we come from

Mixed-up, messed up, caught up in society’s disgrace.

Stolen away from our cultural grace.

Just as Malcolm went to Mecca.

My mentors where handed me.

And taught me as white family.

That my skin was beautiful

Mandala was a saint.

To feel my anger and release the rage.

To honours in my Africanity.

Now imagine a fine artist

I’m sculpture as a redefine.

Come, come look and my canvas.

And feel my rhyme.

See the African tears!

Of a dark Irish sea

One love

One blood

In my genes.

© Michelle Scally Clarke

Forgiveness slips through, my hands like sand 

As I stand uneven by your shores 

Time and tide slips in, and out of reach 

Just enough for me to feel, try to heal 

Then you turn and slap my face 

The salt of our tears 

Lynching and traps 

Your British hypocrisy, versed in Eaton lord’s whips, white Masters, political traps, puppets, liars, and clowns, who watch their own backs 

The institutionalized matrix is placed on our back 

slavery did not go away, it just changed its tack 

the English language is a lot like that 

The pain of my race 

Black British / born 

What does it take? 

For we to forgive ourselves 

From all their hate 

To acknowledge our brilliance 

To change our fate 

Been taken to the greatest heights 

Have felt what unity could really be like 

In between the walls of self 

I try really hard to forgive myself 

for letting you knock, my people down 

To stand up tall, the first will always be first 

we will not fall 

without Africa and her stars, you would be nil and void 

So, I forgive you racist too 

when the top is corrupt, ignorance shines through 

For you are their nothing, and you feel that 

So, this is what you do 

© Michelle Scally Clarke

She keeps getting lost in the past.

She will be doing the dishes.

Or brushing her hair

Putting her makeup on

First thing in the morning

And she will find herself thinking what she has lost.

Who’s she’s forgot.

Who’s harmed her.

Taken her Power\beat her up.

With words that cut

A mole going down a rabbit hole.

She is trying, she spends her whole life trying.

She has learnt it’s not the destination it’s the journey.

She is a better grandmother, the motherless child healed over.

It’s in the smile, and love of her grand babies, u can see

She has come a long way and knows she can go further.

Whilst there is breath in her body, the learning not over.

She has found the brown soil, from which she was seeded.

Her uniqueness not now so quite displeasing

She is older than she looks.

She has the right, to live in the now.

She has the power, to seek her the ingredients.

To overflow and fill her cup, with joy.

She has the right to stillness and thought.

She has the right to heal and give back.

She has the right to love and to hope.

She has the right, to her wisdom.

She has found her reason.

She know now.

© Michelle Scally Clarke