Rebel Without Applause

Lemn Sissay

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781841950013
• eBook ISBN: 9781847677181
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

Lemn Sissay's poems are laid into the streets of downtown Manchester, feature on the side of a public house in the same city and have been emblazoned on a central London bus route. He has been published in press as diverse as the the Times Literary Supplement and the Independent to The Face and Dazed & Confused.

He has been commissioned to write poetry, documentaries and plays for Radio 1 and Radio 4. He has been involved in television in the roles of writing, performing and presenting. He is published in over sixty books and featured on the Leftfield album Leftism, which has sold over five million copies worldwide.

Rebel Without Applause is the collection that started everything for Lemn Sissay.

MIND-WALKING 

 

1

A stray sunshot caught

his heart.

As a child

he spent time

melting

    dripping

like a fallen lolly on a kerb

in summer.

As a child

he teased questions from his

black-topped brain,

like he’d

lick the bowl when his mother left

the kitchen.

There was always one ultimate question

that arose

while building

mud pies

or staring at cobwebs in hedges.

Only as the full line itched his tongue,

as it had unravelled from his thoughts like a red carpet,

only when the gravity of his question became its heaviest,

unbearable almost

would he race home and

stand with the urgency

of a young boy desperate for a pee.

“Mum mum”,

who was doing the same thing as he

but in the kitchen,

“If the earth is

                spinning why doesn’t it move

        if I jump up and

why aren’t I dizzy …?”

A stray sun shot caught

her heart

she would call it

brain-strolling or mind-walking

said he’d walk into church

one day and say

“why is God not here”.

On receiving a stiff reply

he’d look at the cross and say

“well he doesn’t have to hang about like that

he can have my seat”.

 

2

A stray sun-shot bled into

his heart

    welled in his chest

    crept up the inside of his eyelids,

curdled through his whip-like lashes

down the bright brown bony cheeks.

    He had run till his breath

    was almost too far ahead of him.

He had run till his heartbeat

had overtaken his pounding feet,

    till the rustle of the trees

    had taken his breath,

till the squawk of a magpie

had overtaken the rustle of the trees,

    till the rattle of the keys

    had overtaken the squawk of a magpie.

He had run till his breath

was almost too far ahead of him,

It filled the kitchen and his mother

listened to it counting

400 years

of panting.

She heard her

grandfather in him,

her grandmother’s wheeze

her father’s defiance

her husband’s private sobbing

at being broken,

She listened until

the room was filled with spirits

ricocheting from wall to wall,

cradled in the sink

dripping from the ceiling.

Clinging to their necks like weak motherless children …

Here was a question he would ask them

and it would twist their bodies each time.

FOR MY HEADSTONE

Here is the death of the son you never had

the hand you never touched

the face you never stroked

   

here is the morning after

his bruises you never tended

the laughter you never shared

   

and here are the tears he’ll never feel

your eyes he’ll never see

whispers he’ll never hear

the apologies

will squirm in his coffin

with the letters you never wrote.

LOVE POEM

You remind me

defi...

Table of contents

• Rebel Without Applause
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Epigraph
• BEARING WITNESS
• REMEMBER HOW WE FORGOT
• WAKE UP NIGGERS II
• FINGERPRINTS
• GOLD FROM THE STONE
• OCCUPATIONS
• BOILING UP
• IMAGES OF AFRICA
• INSTANT CONSCIOUSNESS
• AIRMAIL TO A DICTIONARY
• THE CUSTOMS MEN
• MIND-WALKING
• FOR MY HEADSTONE
• LOVE POEM
• FLOWERS IN THE KITCHEN
• SUITCASES AND MUDDY PARKS
• THE NEST
• AUTUMN
• PASS IT ON
• ISLAND MENTALITY
• GOING PLACES
• GIL SCOTT-HERON
• GODSELL
• EUROMAN
• FLUSHED
• I HATE YOU
• A BLACK MAN ON THE ISLE OF WIGHT
• PROFESSIONAL BLACK
• PRETORIA PIT
• MILL TOWN AND AFRICA
• UNCLE TOM AND THE 1990s
• CLEAR AS DAY STORMS
• ANOTHER BROTHER'S SISTER
• INTRODUCTION IN TRANSIT
• MY BROTHER
• GUNSHOT
• CHILDREN AND COMPANY
• NEGOTIATIONS
• WRITER'S BLOCKOCKS
• EUROPE THE RESURGENCE
• THE BLACK MOON
• CAN YOU LOCATE PLANET ETHNIC?
• BRINKLEY PARK
• RAGE
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Copyright