Sic Kunt before the Apocalypse

 

Sic Kunt before the Apocalypse

 

I made an innocent/ignorant prayer back in 2007, when I was living in Lewisham, London, at the time, (before gentrification), the highest murder rate in the UK, but also home to an amazing rich multicultural community that was closer than a small town, pilloried & unresourced, where people had each other’s back. The killings were inevitably gang related, young people growing up too fast & getting sucked into crime, because the minimum wage of 5 pounds 50 an hour, people mired in wage slavery, frankly crime looked like a better option).

 

Anyway my ignorant prayer,

Burnt badly by a relationship break down

Seeking men who could teach how to be a man

A way Australian society doesn’t

Jamaicans, Algerians, Ghanaians & Nigerians,

Was “introduce me to the wisest man in town

Coz I’m drowning”

 

Unexpectedly to me at the time

A Goddess took pity & introduced me to the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met

I’ll omit her name

Though it’s on my lips

To spare her unwanted attention

 

Let’s call her Temi

As I did in a song

She took such good care of me

 

I met her in the best Algerian café in town

& it was love at first word

She dressed in African clothing

& engaged across the room with me

 

We both

Defeated initial prejudices

& we each realized that the other

Was a sic kunt

 

She was academically brilliant

Smartest person I’ve ever met

She looked nothing like my ideal type

She had a very ethnic look

Who to the white male gaze

Didn’t look anything

Like the assimilated ‘black woman’

That the media pumps out

But I’ll get to her beauty later

 

We intellectually bantered across the room

Over a kofta with tabooli

& a coffee

 

Without a word she left

 

I asked “do you mind if I walk with ya”

She said “go on”

 

I followed her

She took me to her public housing apartment

Well kept

A woman who had her shit together

Way more than me

 

We talked a while longer

About all sorts of things

She laughed

 

She said we should do a vox popoli

At the train station:

Look at this guy

What’s he like?

 

Coz I was pro community

Even though I look like a typical white male

 

She continued laughing

Putting me at ease

 

We had a herbal tea

 

Then

 

She bent suddenly

& took off her panties

& asked me to smell them

 

She said “see, no smell!”

They smelled good

 

Now I was a bit high on spliff

As I was in those days

It felt good

Felt natural

 

Then she said

“I like sex”

 

I said

Something like

“Cool”

 

It was a new angle sister

 

Then she took off her clothes

& I took off mine

 

We liked the way

Each other looked & smelled

 

In clothes

She looked a bit geeky

 

As I do

 

But naked in that dimming sunset light

She looked breathtaking

 

Instinctively

We had chemistry

 

I felt relaxed & hard

She drove with her pelvis

 

She made beautiful sounds

Like she was taking me to mother Africa

 

The song was deep & aromatic

 

I got lost in that song

 

Instantly we were connected

 

& a spell was cast

 

We talked a lot

& laughed a lot

She couldn’t believe that someone

Who looked so whitebred was so eccentric

& pro African

 

I loved the ideas she reasoned

So knowing

That she never lost her temper

She didn’t need to

 

Her knowledge spanned the sands of time

 

She told me

How she was a refugee from the Nigerian Biafran War

& how she’d been repeatedly gang raped as a child

Somehow I knew that

 

Her vagina was torn

But still responsive & seeking

Yearning, aching

 

I looked at her

 

& she said

“well what do think happens

When there are no men around to protect you”

 

I got schooled

I was a child

Compared with her

 

I hadn’t yet had my complete breakdown

Which left me mute

For the best part of 2 years

 

I was not yet a fully fledged sic kunt

 

Mate she was a super hero

 

I remember one day

Naively asking her

Whether was she on any psych medication

 

& she looked at me

& said “what do you think?”

 

Man I was ignorant

 

I thought I knew something

Until I met Temi

 

I was a total beginner!

 

Temi

Could walk into any place

Racist or not

 

& blow people away

 

She reminded me

Of how much I liked Devonshire Tea

 

& we’d walk to Blackheath

The middle class

White Supremacists’ hamlet

Bordering Lewisham

 

& eat French food

Or anything she wanted to teach me about

 

Man did we stand out!

But she didn’t care mate

She was way beyond that crap

 

We were an odd couple

Thick as thieves

Joined by a primal pull

 

One night

She came to mine

 

Again the sun was setting

Must have been summer

 

& some impulse

Encouraged me

To put on the stereo

Metallica’s Master of Puppets album

 

She said “turn it up

& come over here!”

 

What followed

May well be the highlight of my life

 

I’ve never had sex like that!

 

So transgressive

 

Music that tends to alpha white males

& a Nigerian woman

 

& man

She was digging it

 

& I was digging it

 

We must have tongued & massaged her clit & fucked an hour or so

Hard & strong

As she was willing me to

Primal

 

In time with the music

 

I’ve never been that person before

 

& she was calling out for more

 

We must have rung out in everyone’s room

In my 10 person house

 

& I have to confess

A transgressive act

 

Which I’ve been both thrilled by

& frightened of

 

At the crucial moment for her

I found on the floor

Next to my bed

 

My copy of the Bible

 

& with my heal

I stood on the Bible

 

For extra leverage

 

& Heaven & Hell were reconciled

In ecstasy

 

Man & woman united

 

In a darkening room

On the Lee High Road

 

The trucks whizzing

By

 

On their way to Dover-Calais

Or London

 

Temi had won her sanity like only very special people can

Against the backdrop of war, abuse & madness

 

I was just about to lose mine

Taking me the best part of 20 years

To recover 

 

In fact I never really have

Hence the nomenclature: 

See title

 

The question of course remains:

Why did we break up?

 

Basically

I still had a bourgeois vein 

Running through me

I was daunted at the things

That she would reveal

So matter of fact

 

The fact that a real commitment

To someone in the ghetto

Might be the final stroke

& I might never have been able to come back from

The scene was getting more intense by the day

 

Did I really believe in the mission

That profoundly?

As London does to people

I was being radicalised

But how deep did it go?

Was I really a warrior?

 

She really knew what life

Was composed of

She'd seen the worst of it

& I was frightened of what else I might learn

 

In reality

I was a tourist

Visiting with a god

 

Could I really envisage

Living in her world forever?

 

Man a big part of me

Just wants to live on Cloud 9

In fact post breakdown

I need it more than ever

My nerves are shot

My threshold for pain is lower

 

I’m out of my league in the ghetto

I could do it for a few years

But it was only a matter of time

Before I’d have to click my ruby heels

 

But Temi

She was serene

Capable of looking at any question 

Any situation 

With dispassion & brilliance

 

With a sweep of her hand

She brought revelation upon revelation

Upon me

 

But I'm not as strong as her

She'd grown up young

It was her world

 

When my psychosis struck

I well saw how vast

The breadth & depth of human suffering & cruelty & abuses of power go

 

& it was too much for me

It finally broke me

 

Since recovery began

I've sought creature comforts

I'm healing

As my brother Richard says

 

I, like most in the West

Seek distractions

As I say: comforts

 

On the global scene

I'm not playing for real

 

I'm a boy from Beaumaris

For goodness sake

I like the escapism

Of poetry

Tapestries of words

 

But Temi: what a woman

A giant in the world

 

 

Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.