Gold from the Stone

New and Selected Poems

Lemn Sissay

• Publisher: Canongate Canons
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781782119456
• eBook ISBN: 9781782119104
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Lemn Sissay was seventeen when he wrote his first poetry book, which he hand-sold to the miners and millworkers of Wigan. Since then his poems have become landmarks, sculpted in granite and built from concrete, recorded on era-defining albums and declaimed in over thirty countries.

He has performed to thousands of football fans at the FA Cup Final, to hundreds of thousands as the poet of the London Olympics, and to millions across our TV screens and the airwaves of BBC Radio. He has become one of the nation's best-loved voices.

TENDER FINGERS IN A CLENCHED FIST

African Metaphor

You can’t sweep dust under the rug any more.

You can’t keep hiding bodies under the boards of the floor.

You can’t sanction the hearts of an African race.

You can’t hide a man from his very own face.

You can never be a king if you elect yourself the crown.

You cannot perceive the suffering if you’ve never been down.

You’re on the great white colonial ego trip,

But soon you will be penned into your own township.

Your tables of justice will be turned until they fall upon your knees.

Our cries of injustice will drown your pathetic pleas.

You can’t remember the Sharpeville massacre.

Do you remember the exploitation of Namibia?

You can’t remember Mangaliso Sobukwe.

Do you remember the name Azania?

You can’t sweep dust under the rug any more.

You can’t keep hiding bodies under the boards of the floor.

You can’t hear the trickle of blood that will stick your lips together.

You can close the curtains but you can’t hide the weather.

You cannot smell the smoke while it is twisting in the air.

You can’t feel the fire though it is singeing your hair.

You can’t arrest the soul of an African revolutionary.

You can’t meter the reaction of a reactionary.

You cannot hold an African metaphor.

You can’t sweep dust under the rug any more.

You can’t keep hiding bodies under the boards of the floor.

Your graves . . . your graves are already being dug by the gardeners of my country.

Your coffins are cut to measure by my sisters of carpentry.

If you cannot feel the illness then you’ll never find the cure,

And you’ll never be prepared for the African metaphor.

When mother delved the kitchen knife into the heart of the white beast

She closed her eyes tightly in the ecstasy of release.

You will feel the flames of vengeance in the deep heat of the night,

And the stench of scorching flesh will make you wish you’d seen the light.

You will hear the warrior cry, bang fiercely on your door.

You will see the horrifying death-defying anger of the African metaphor.

You can’t sweep dust under the rug any more.

You can’t keep hiding bodies under the boards of the floor.

Listening

Listening, and we’re listening

To the ones who scream,

Hidden by the pounding sounds of the traffic.

We’re listening

To the Blackness in the dream,

Hidden by the screams of this nightmare.

And it’s getting louder.

People, we’re getting louder.

People, we’re turning round,

Crumbling the buildings to the very ground.

And we’re feeling

The unsteady feel,

The breaking of the seal of unconsciousness.

Listening.

And we’re breaking the dawn,

For this morning there’s a different sound.

Keeping our ears to the well-trodden ground,

We’re angry with the pain we hear.

There’s an insecure feel in the air.

Because we’re listening,

Like wolves in the dark,

Eagles in the sky.

Driven like cattle,

Ears to the ground.

We can hear the water.

We need water.

We need to quench our thirst.

But we’re listening first.

Cautious as cats,

Punished as dogs,

We can hear the water.

The priest chants.

The congregation turn their heads.

The politician rants.

The people turn their heads.

Muffled screams and whispers,

Pointing fingers,

While the silence crawls from the inner city towns

And holds them in the fist of suspense,

And holds them

waiting

waiting

waiting

For the gutters to run with blood

And the sweet taste of victory in the mouths of the downtrodden.

And if you don’t keep listening

You’ll be caught unawares.

We’re listening.

We’re listening.

We’re listening.

Nursery Rhyme

Humpty Dum...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Also by Lemn Sissay
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph of Gold from the Stone
• Contents
• Introduction
• From Perceptions of the Pen (1985)
• From Tender Fingers in a Clenched Fist (1988)
• From Rebel without Applause (1992)
• From Morning Breaks in the Elevator (1999)
• From Listener (2008)
• New Poems
• Endnotes
• Index of Titles
• Index of First Lines
• Promo page for other Canongate titles