Poetry

  • I was born from mud.

    Muddied ways and muddied up days.

    I love mud.

    I was born from mud.

    I was born to know.

    Living and sitting within the sludge

    Of children’s homes

    I was born to be undone.

    So, understood.

    There are no safe harbours.

    Just an illusion a dance from the wind

    Who comes in and what do they bring?

    What do I lose, where do I choose?

    I was born in mud.

    An” mud can taste like cak

    Or play

    Takes you to bloody battlegrounds.

    Where inner child roams,

    Lost, not found.

    Roaring and screaming hurt at this life.

    Spin bottles and sprits, n, men,

    And you will find her.

    The hurting powerless mother

    again, and again

    History repeats when it’s kept in the dark

    Some mud is necessary to keep us a part.

    I was born from mud.

    Muddied ways and muddied up days.

    I love mud!

    For, it can cleanse and surge your soul.

    Enough to know,

    Those No bodies coming.

    You walk with your loss.

    Your heaven you’re your hell.

    No one gives a toss.

    Wisdom and kindness

    not deemed good enough

    But you are here.

    An’ you give all you got.

    Hidden love, beneficial wealth

    In between the mud I was loved

    African Irish catholic, another static

    I was told; to be grateful,

    Go to confession and you’ll feel like a virgin.

    Learn you’re a sinner.

    Talk to white Jesus!

    Cleanliness is next to God,

    The more Religion you learn.

    The less you believe in

    Mud rinsed off, left with the labels.

    In came peace, of the privileged and able.

    Do they still see me as equal?

    Or as something that they made though.

    Their picture and mine are now.

    entwined or side-by-side.

    From the outside, still visible ties

    For, I am mud.

    Modelling and capturing your sculpture your dance.

    Bridging, finding the hook or the chance.

    To be,

    I love mud.

    So, today, I try to love that little girl,

    Who so mistrusts

    This fucked up world.

    I wrap her in my arms in morning.

    And tell her that I’m grateful she’s breathing.

    To hold my daughter’s daughter

    the lotus of my mud

    cos everting’ did l turn out good.

    For, she, has no broken ragged streams

    She has Petals of hope and wonderful dreams.

    That build and grow and love an heal.

    As we dance in the mud.

    I love mud.

    © Michelle scally Clarke commissioned for Sheffield off the shelf festival.

  • Today is a day full of new dreams.

    Aspirations harvests, hopes, and crops for tomorrow.

    A birth full of experience

    A festival of light dark and shade

    Her weathered diaspora now a well-worn friend, this journey

    Is her cobbles her path, to the very end

    She will pick up the rice seeds to make a bead.

    A new an old the same recipe

    The upspoken crown sits upon her head.

    A breath in which woman breathes.

    But forgets she has spoken.

    The binding of her choices and skills in the motion of her children

    Today she is as naked as a child who refused to put her clothes on

    Today she is forgotten, today she is free.

    Today she will pick up the mildew stone.

    With eyes as precious as she

    Amongst the soil the leaves the rocks

    To find out what she flees

    She is the heart of a sea coral.

    Moss on a rock, Medea, cleopatra

    The single mother, raver sinner, red hot lover, pleasure giver, storyteller, her story she maketh.

    The abuser of self and the abused of others.

    Not confused, no right or wrong

    My friends this journey has no ends.

    Still beaten she will challenge.

    Still hungry she will feast.

    Today she will believe in her crops.

    Today she will face her rot.

    For the festival of tomorrow

    © Michelle Scally Clarke, taken from “She Is” published by Route

  • I want to change the world, with words.

    Words that don’t hurt

    Words that inspire, words to draw from

    Words to aim higher.

    I want my words to be suffused in love.

    I want my words to tell you you’re good enough.

    I want the world to hear my words.

    To dry their tears, allay their fears.

    Hold them dear!

    I want the world to unite together.

    I think I’m here to make things better.

    It’s never too late to try to be.

    It’s never too late for humanity.

    It’s never too late for peace.

    © Michelle Scally Clarke

  • There are rocks in the sea for a reason.

    Though they damage and break

    Cry and ache!

    When their souls in a quake

    They like time remain rooted.

    To the tapestry they can’t escape

    Until they dust to dust

    Fly away.

    Emitting secrets and forgotten pain

    Take me to the sea

    Help me on my rock.

    Hold me as the tide whips my balance.

    Cling to me like moss.

    Let’s thank the joy.

    That we are withstanding her nature and her wrath

    Feel the power of her glory.

    So small are we not?

    Down amongst the deepest waters

    We all have to go.

    We are the silk a in which we swim.

    In the rhythm of breaststroke

    Appreciate how the sun hits the soul!

    How it beautifies and glows.

    Thank that u are loved by some.

    If not all

    Find in you the rock.

    Place your feet on sanded neutral floor.

    Let the water baptise your thoughts.

    Feel the joy of being nothing.

    But small.

    © Michelle Scally Clarke. aged 18

  • Steamy milky Dettol water

    Climb in a bath.

    Pick up dove soap and wash my back.

    Pick up my lady shave.

    Take the prickles away!

    Cream up, my body!

    keep my dryness at Bay.

    laugher in my throat.

    And a smile on my hips

    I put on best underwear.

    And balm my lips

    The tightest the shortest the thing I possess.

    Squeeze over me body and into me chest

    Now me ready to go.

    my possie look fine.

    RAGGA RAVE, jumping feel the vibe.

    We Walk Inna, the club, with my girls my crew!

    Yes, yes, yes men we love ourselves too!

    , the music skanking heads on the beat.

    Sister, voices singing up on their feet.

    Faces alight with physical relief.

    Time passed away in a dark tribal heat.

    The girl possie bonded, rhymically tuned.

    Bodies betraying what their sex can do.

    Sexual provocation a hint a change

    Changing your audience to the next dance

    Hot thumping garage to the next wave

    Pick up Ryman and swing the sway.

    Lights gone up, sweat come down.

    Under my panties at the top of, crown

    And we ready to go and the posse look fine.

    Grin on our face, we stride out in line.

    Till disappear vanish till the next time

    Well, its single mummy party time.

    A single ladies vibe

    Call up my girls!

    We are going out tonight……

    © Michelle Scally Clarke, taken from “I Am” published by Route

  • 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