MORE INFLUENTIAL BOOKS

A fun little continuation of Influential Books.

Please note that many books have 2 ISBNs, a 10-digit and a 13-digit, which may be and often are completely different. Be aware that I have taken the 13-digit version and taken off the first 3 digits (978). In a few cases when I couldn’t find the ISBN I’ve listed the ASIN, which contain letters as well as numbers.

Listed in no particular order: 

Poem: CHAINED TO A BUBBLE

They say London is a bubble

A cosmopolitan melting hub of cultures, colours, tongues

And prosperity.

But something feels wrong

An intangible crown of barbed wire wrapped round my head

An intangible coat of shackles round my torso

Cleverly leaving limbs free to move

To make me think I’m getting somewhere

To make me think I’m handling shit

But I can see the signs.

This empire is imploding,

Every new inch of virtual ground it gains it hoists itself toward its own end

A black hole whose epicentre is so strong good & evil are forced to

Conjugate

Procreate

Transcribe

Translate

Then replicate

Propagate

Monopolise

Indoctrinate

Into a whole new species of social values.

These chains of

Pessimism,

Fear of terrorism,

Commercialised capitalist Christendom,

Moaning about our schizo weather,

Resigned to the rise in loneliness, depression, suicide and DV,

Disgust of pigeons and uneasy tolerance of foreigners who’ve been here longer than them,

McDs, Nando’s, Starbucks and chicken & chips,

Mortgages, taxes, credit card debts and mis-sold PPIs,

NHS doing less and less to serve the nation’s health,

High-rise flats and homelessness increasing simultaneously,

Under-age geniuses educated on a curriculum

Where social skills are ancient history

As new technologies march in to talk for them,

The still-not-finished Brexit deals

And football.

But they’re rusting

Trying to gloss it over with another worst economic downturn since records began

It doesn’t fool me anymore

The blackness calls,

The chaos invisibly chameleonically shape-shifting the borders of space and time

What goes up must come down

This time it’s not just London Bridge

Fossilised winds of pseudo-monocultural Britishness

Are blowing change into parched lungs again

It can’t be stopped.

Regardless of whose beliefs, lifestyle or hegemonic socio-economic policies it hurts,

Regardless of how far the human race wishes to overtake the borders of its origin planet,

Regardless of how badly they – & we – need this system to continue

Because it’s our proof of man’s superiority over nature herself,

Progress breathes on.

Time to loose the chains,

Let the bubble implode,

Feel the level playing field on which we really stand,

Remember the lessons that global domination taught us,

Re-nourish our spiritual evolution in love

Of the world,

Other creatures,

And ourselves.

 

© One Tawny Stranger, January 2018

POEM: Where I want to be

(Note this was drafted before Christmas)

 

England may have a white Christmas again.

The air is sharper,

Grass looking greyer,

Sun advancing later,

Retreating earlier,

Shops looking red, white and greener,

Parents’ wallets emptier

As children’s hands get fuller,

Landscapes looking barer

As new life fears to grow anymore.

No frost,

No snow yet

But my bloodless fingers are divining in that direction.

Never mind the thermometer,

The extra bodies that would’ve cushioned us

All headed south for the Brexit

Abandoning us to the omnipresent lovelessness.

Millennia ago God warned Yima

In Zarathushtra’s texts

Of the onset of God’s dark side:

A winter, so deadly cold

Only the fittest of humans & plants & animals

Deserved to survive it

By living underground for a thousand years.

Might we be seeing its return?

Might Jesus’s death have not been enough

To quench God’s breath of death

Blowing upon this side of the world?

What to do?

What to do…?

What to do…

Brain retreating from consciousness.

Heart supplying less due to decreasing demand.

Lights out for the optics.

Sleep

And dream

And remember a place

Where love was inescapable,

Where people were interested in knowing you,

Speaking to you,

Hearing you,

Children greeting you with a hug

Without fear of being politically incorrect.

Beaches remember they’re meant to be sandy

Not stony.

Even crocodiles are so satiated

You can touch them without danger.

Chickens, goats, cows and donkeys

Grow up knowing what outdoors looks like.

Ask and you really shall receive;

The thousand helping hands that in the West

Would be stretching underhanded from a distance

Here are unashamed to lead you,

Write you into the pages of history,

The scene of your destiny.

In the birthplace of Jollof rice,

Yassa, domoda, sorrel and baobab juice

Fill the soul as well as the stomach

Then a Vimto to top it off.

Property is proper

Cheap enough to not need rent or mortgage,

To actually belong to me.

Citizens have evolved

Past the Qur’an’s rule to lower their gaze

Because women needn’t fear for their modesty.

Curious, fascinated and lusting

Eyes on me;

Melaninated huwriy existing before Judgement Day.

This is it.

I’ve made up my mind.

This is where I want to be.

This is where I’m meant to be.

This is where I feel at ease laying roots

Maybe inspiring a new Alex Haley.

This is home.

 

© One Tawny Stranger, November 2017

Hear me perform live on Concious Radio 102.0!

With hosts DJ Supreme and Lady Esi!

Guest speakers: Robin Travis, Emeka & Eche Egbuonu, and yours truly – One  Tawny Stranger!

(link coming soon. In the meantime check out other great shows from Concious Radio. Stay tuned!)

How do you live?

Knowing your life is decided without your say-so

How do you live?

Seeing yourself doing only sport or music

Wanting to be a fashion designer, president or CEO

Reminded you’re an alien in your birthplace

Committing crime by just moving your hand across a book’s pages

And being plural in public could spell a death sentence

Assumed to be a drug dealer

When you can’t tell weed from green chalk dust

Raised to burn the black out of your skin, your hair

And call the scars beautiful

Feared and fetishised for sexual prowess

You may be too young to even have

Encouraged yet forbidden to

Breed, marry, date, even glimpse

Anyone at the empty end of the melanin spectrum

Unaware that your womb, your tomb

And everything in between

Is a treasure

Accessible only to them and their progeny

How do you live?

Start with a decision

To heal your ears’ virginity from media penetration

To privately proclaim

Blackness equals greatness

Decide who you are, what you do

And how your destiny will go

Be the fashion designer, the president and the CEO

Let your example allow other greatnesses

To breathe their niches to life

And make them know they can and should surpass you

They can and should be

Emperors and empresses

– Regent not consort –

Cutting edge scientists

Creators of films, books, scripts, TV shows

And the execs with the bucks to make them happen

Architects, plumbers, electricians, farmers

Governors, lawmakers

Historians and

Above all else

Making history where our ancestors left off

Before they were so rudely interrupted

Excuse us

Greatness is coming through once again

How do you live?

© One Tawny Stranger, October 2016