I’ve tried to outstep the shame of this. Even now the guilt piles
high like records racked on an old Dansette. I was a youth lost
in a bedroom mirror, my James Brown moves flickering light
bulbs, fuelling hate in the building site politics of my father.
For this, I became his family secret, the boy who surrendered
to the funk and the darkness of ‘Blues and Soul’ magazine –
the cut outs of Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King sellotaped to a wall.

At after school discos I’d be staring at Floyd. His body
poured burnt treacle in a woollen hat, the greatest dancer
I have ever seen. He would beckon me over to join him,
to share our gyrations. I was good but never authentic.
How could I be? Lectured in the rudiments of old Enoch,
I walked away into the Basildon contradictions of 1977.
Punk Rock or the National Front? A question of belonging.

Confusion carried me to libraries, from Colin Maclnnes
to MLK. Reciting ‘The Revolution will not be Televised’,
I operated inside the black and white. I routinely invaded
the southern suburbs protesting reasons for those wounded
by a lack of love, justice and connection. Some mornings,
returning home, meeting their eyes, I faced down the family
I loved through blood, but never tolerating their traditions.

And tonight, I am older in a once industrial northern town,
swooning to the music that took me, that partially unlocked
a life. I stand still from my window gazing soft at these streets
wanting to dance with every Floyd – to share our spins, our moments
lost in mirror balls, backflips and tepid lemonade. I can’t do it!
The heavy feet of our histories still sink me beneath the floor.
How do I shed a shame of nurture? Am I late?

 

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From Magma 89, Performance

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