Roy McFarlane was born in Birmingham of
Jamaican parentage and has spent most of his years living in Wolverhampton. He
has held the roles of Birmingham’s Poet Laureate, Starbucks’ Poet in
Residence, and the Birmingham & Midland Institute’s Poet in Residence.
Roy’s writing has appeared in magazines and anthologies, including Out
of Bounds (Bloodaxe, 2012), Filigree (Peepal
Tree, 2018) and he is the editor of Celebrate Wha? Ten Black
British Poets from the Midlands (Smokestack, 2011). His first full
collection of poems, Beginning With Your Last Breath, was
published in 2016, followed by The Healing Next Time in
2018, both published by Nine Arches Press. He is the 2022 Canal Laureate.
Haibun
for The Fields
My
wonderland, my place of adventures, green domain hidden behind terraced houses
on one side and the local factory on the other side, steel stockholders warning
us not to enter with steel meshed fencing, barbed wire and the sound of
unearthly machines carrying heavy loads. There in that space, a land would
magic into existence in the evening, weekends and summer holidays. Teenagers
seeped in from alleys, broken fences, back gardens and side roads. A space
where all people of colour came to play, boys in the centre and girls at the
edge of our desires. There we bruised, tussled, kicked the ball, knocked the
ball in the height of summer – tall trees at the edge would rustle in the
lightest of breeze – only to be interrupted by catch it followed by a
chorus, he dropped it! There the smell of corned beef and fried dumpling
from home enticed you but you hold on to the evening wrestling the dusk on the
border. Young girls would join in, holding you just a little while longer, the
shared lick of an ice cream, chocolate flakes dipped in vanilla white. Mother’s
calling you from the backyard with dusk still held at arm’s length you’d risk
that last taste, the forbidden bite before your father’s voice boomed like
steel rods dropping on concrete floor, causing the domain to disappear, folding
before your very eyes; legs running, running…
We
longed for the dirt
our
friend; the soil our comfort,
we the
children of The Fields.
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