So below, we have one re-working of Bath, as well as a couple of other poems. The one, Shoelaces as Time Travel is basically some fun I was having with and image and in idea as well as just playing with rhyme schemes. It's just fun, don't take it too seriously. The other two are just there.

Bath 30.06.06

Twice in two days

I have drawn baths.

Immersing myself

in loud silence

My heartbeat is

playing its song

its evidence

that I'm living.

My heart

striking

hitting

beating

a flesh

and blood

cacophony.

My blood

stream mind's

once wild

current

in calmed

water

tranquility.

My advice if

you're overwhelmed:

draw a hot bath

immerse yourself

hear your heart beat

prove you're alive.

Why is the word balaclava? 03.07.06

Why is the word balaclava?

When it sounds so unassuming

when it's seeming is not about

violence or disguise or hurting

It pretends to be a Greek sweet

in my sweet-tooth ears listening

or, when I am French-ish maybe

a smart ball in the town Clava.

Then something in me says that its

about ballet, joyful dancing

the length of form, of touching,

of raised bodies, and sacrifice.

That returns me to its meaning

placed over a head in deception

hot, catching the motes of hot breath

full of intent, dark disclaimer:

I will enact violence on you

I will be fearful, you will too.

Both losing moments of living

to this vision - the dark exclaims.

the perfect crime 10.07.06

when a black bent

man and his floppy hat

droop doggedly over

the garden outside my

ample family home

when a woman wearing

a colourful cardigan

sings low to herself walks

with her one grocery bag

while i carry five

when queues of coloured

and black men decorate

the sides of our roads

in continued deference

to jobs that come their way

when a young ingemengde

owns a stainless steel

fridge, unelectrified

and warm, the centerpiece

of a nyanga shack

when these images aren't rare

and i can be arrogant

in my drawing of them

though it hurts me

each and every time i do

when i commit perfect

crimes in my innocent

depictions because

i'm blameless i'm angry

and, yes, i'm white too.

Shoelaces as Time Travel 07.07.06

Silently slipping my feet into shoes

when sitting on beds here or there

tying their laces, beginning to muse

something important's in the care

I take with my deliberate movements

intricate digital progress

in my fingers' fond love, their endearment

of laces, I find such regress

To a time when laces were new to me

(they were such a sweet novelty)

To my eyes and hands so infant clumsy

I recall it with purity.

My worm hole shoelaces such as they are

forwards in time and backwards too,

light speed, in solace from the speed of stars,

shooting past me as moments do.

Five years old and I'm tying up my laces

ready as my shoes for walking,

An infant knowledge I'm going places

smiling as I do, I'm talking

of everything I want from life, you'll see!

A fireman just like my granddad was

when I'm a grown up that's so what I'll be

Now, I fight fires of words because

when I was young, that's what I said I'd do

reminders of what brought me here

captured deep in the laces of my shoe

and, like granddad, I'm without fear

confronting all the scriptures of my past

the struggles of learning the bows

on my shoes, tying up all of the vast

matters of time in barefoot wriggling toes

confronting all the scriptures of my past

the struggles of learning the bows

on my shoes, knowing that I'm not the last

to see shoelaces as time's flows.