In The Poetry

Yobbos!

With an epigraph from a Pears’ Soap advert from 1899: The first step towards lightening THE WHITE MAN’s burden is through teaching the virtues of cleanliness.

A right savage I was – sozzled
to the nose with sprightly
Muldoon, squeezed into the communal

sweat of a Saturday tube home -
I’m up to p. 388 of his sharp [...]

8

If someone had said you passed away
this evening at 8, when my watch was still
an hour behind, on a few minutes to seven,
I’d be round for rituals with your loved ones.
We’d sip the last of your lemon tea, taking
turns to embrace you with private words.
Some would simply freeze you
with that wholly unsayable look of love.

In [...]

Digging

Squatted against the bedroom door with left leg
stretched, wiping sweat from my thigh,
I shave hairs to the shape of a passport photo.
Into the good skin, steeling along
the top end of the picture – a straight incision
until blob by seamless blob, over
the Stanley knife, a rivering of blood.

Once under the fold, down to the roots,
nerve-hand holds [...]

When I first started publishing and performing my poems, I used to use the name Khan Singh Kumar, which is an assimilation of three religions of India.

Booking Khan Singh Kumar

Must I wear only masks that don’t sit for a Brit
Would you blush if I stripped from my native skin

Should I beat on my chest I’m [...]