Suicide Attempt. Apparently not allowed in America

This poem means so much to me.  It was a poem I wrote over 10 years ago after hearing a disturbing news item about a young Black man found burning in the streets, it troubled me.  A year later just after I had started my performance poetry the family were appealing for witnesses and then it happened.  I found myself rushing for a pen an paper desperate to get my thoughts down.  That night at Armeghetto the Fridge in Brixton I performed this poem Suicide Attempt.  I was even on stage the same time the family would have been out on the streets canvassing for witnesses, Solidarity. After I performed it a woman from the audience came over to me, like she was part of some sort of conspiratory and said 'The goose flies west' ok she didn't say that what she actually said 'If you were in a America you would never be able to perform that'  That comment puzzled me, I thought America was the the land of the 'Free and the Brave'

posted on feb 2013
here is my poem

#5 Suicide Attempt

If you were going to commit suicide

Would you set your self alight

Then go wandering the streets late at night

Now me personally I have never felt this low

To think there was no way out

Like a torch I wanted to glow

This is what we have been told

Michael Mensor found

Was his only way out

Communicate his cry

The establishment have finally started to listen

To what the family have been saying

About what these bizarre turn of events meant

Tonight they stand at the scene of the crime

Two years on hoping to jog peoples minds

Two years on, stopping people as they go by

Now me personally I didn’t hold out much hope

I felt this was the only way that they could cope

With their realisation of their deepest fear

That no one really seems to care

Now what was I doing two years ago?

Maybe it was me?  

This kind of activity I could not be involved in

Nor less concede

What makes people do this like this

Finally finally Michael is free!

Rest In Peace