Hackney Empire 100 Stories Project

My story 'The King's New Throne' has been chosen by the Hackney Empire for their lOO Stories project. Exciting eh! You can read about the project HERE.

 Photograph taken many moons ago. Reference to the First World War Soldiers.

Janet find John

Janet finds John

The day I read my first

Janet and John book

The world opened a culinary

delight of words

Janet read in class

The bellows of an angel

All weathers she slipped on

avenues and walkways

for a first edition

The fundamental art of reading and writing

Try to impress yourself

They were born to write

They were born to read

Take it from the computer

It is cool to be clever. John

since the appointment

Since the appointment

If it is wet on Friday

It is possible the rain

will last for interminable sorrows

Since the appointment

A cluster of truths

Have unveiled themselves

to be combatant

My own stance is to

point in a new direction

For each interactive poem

Spying the dictator an

avalanche of words

With such concise meaning

I have difficulty peeling the carrots

Since the appointment

Since rainy times

The Local Hero

The Local Hero

The man visits the desk

But does not come out alive

The swing of the axe

As furtive as the old temptress

who plays the race card

I came across a man on parole

Well read, humane viable

Deaf to the riddiculous

Black in humour

Despite his rustic face

Who crys

Only the women and

children

Why cry when you are

a local hero

I am supposed to be Dual Heritage

I find myself digging my own garden

My love has made me a popular cause

She opposes the sentence I have

hung around my neck

I fend off the local hero

He is out there

Be they Muslim, Jew or Christian

Sometimes I am empty

I swig callobrated Gin

But God knows the best

part of me

I am the local hero's hero

I visit the desk

And politely grin

after coming out alive

What's Normal

What's Normal

To leap in the dark

A leap through it

Intimidated at the helm

of discovery

Who wants to be normal

As I pass each station

To alight nowhere

Just one place to go. Home

I am in the dead of night

dreaming

Are you normal

I hope not

Having a fag is that normal

Lots of people do it

Fire up their nose

Sometimes I am sad

quite happy in one moment

Are mood swings named

When I do not have

self-induced Schizophrenia

Love that's normal

Smitten with or without the pain

A leap into life

A leap into light

Yes it is normal to say

I told you so

I am just the same as you

Friend, lover father crowd pleaser

Just a bit different

Just a bit like the others

Psychiatrist

Psychiatrist

She may never be mine

My hefty love as for eternity

She describes the fantasy

As reaching for a helping hand

I have loved few women

She knows it grips my mind

Dark desire, I have made light of

She may never know my Schizophrenia

abates when she dishes out the drugs

My diagnosis is love

My prognosis is poor

A remit to my past

She may never find another

patient like me

She may never be mine

If I tell her she will transfer my case

to a colleague

I know I am not merely infatuated

We have had children together

They say it is a delusion

We will marry

I, a poet of little repose

She a Doctor with experience of such matters

If this goes on my recovery will be slow

Unfortunately, I am paranoid

She's been watching my every move

I love her without regret

The truth now does she love me?

She's had to see a psychiatrist

Karim Harvey

23.8.14

Two poems rest and drum

Rest

We rest

We play with truth and rest

Open to the wounds of certainty

We love

We play with the chocolate and rest

According to the God of Exact Science

We survive

We play with fortune and rest

Open to the death of the stars

Never again to follow life

We rest

Karim Harvey

Drum

I have a drum

A drum in my head

I heard a drum

A drum I was dead

Dead to the ancient world

I had a drum a life unfurled

I have an auntie who plays the drum

I was a nuisance to my poor mum

I have a drum with lines of a beat

I heard a drum

That my poem was complete

I have a drum

A drum in my head

I have a ritual

That it has been said

Karim Harvey