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
