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Poems and images taken from the “Poetry 4 Grenfell: Voices From Da Grove & Latimer” book (c) Kamitan Arts ltd. All rights reserved. No images or poems to be duplicated or published commercially or for profit by any means without prior written permission from Kamitan Arts.

Contact: ka.1@hotmail.co.uk

We are more than happy for you to share and use material always outlining and tagging @KamitanArts and @Poetry4Grenfell  

My Will

By Hesham Rahman

My Will,
For who will remember me one day.
Remember my presence before my departure.
To see a smile on your face when I'm gone.
A prayer from your heart, no tears or sadness near my grave.
If we shared a memory that's in your heart,
Always remember it with a smile,
For who will remember me one day,
Remember my presence before my departure.



Egyptian Grenfell Resident, RIP - Written February 2016

Ability

Kinetic Kizitta
(Kizitta Anning)

Ability is Opportunity
Grab it in its Entirety
Express it in Simplicity
Ability gives Chances
For Destiny
Ability isn’t Vanity
When Explored for Growth
Ability Defines your Identity
Let the Opportunity
Bring you Unveiling Possibilities
Adorned with Grace
You will understand
That Ability is an Immense Opportunity

Poet, Singer, Inspirational Speaker, Performance Artist, Fashion Statement


Beside The Fallen Ashes

By Monera Takla

Wash it away with rain
Wash it away with heavy rain
Thundering on my window panes
Throw the flowers away the cards
that go on for yards
Hide it in blue builder's plastic
Ashes falling like fallen soldiers from the second world war
On to my neighbour's gardens
The lost and fallen from the tower
Flowering into the gardens below
Blowing away with the wind
Walking past, not so fast
Old pictures of local families
No longer here to sit and drink their tea up there
Here we watch on listening to local MPS singing their song
Who’s to blame they say?
Yet help is delayed yet, another day
Blame, blame, blame every which way
Years of neglect government has to pay
Hide ‘em in hotels
Maybe try move ‘em to the end of the country if you let 'em
They won't let you forget them
This is not the end my friend
Our community will heal one day
But we ain't never walking away
Beside the fallen ashes.

39, origin is English mother and Egyptian father. Born and raised in London.
Lost my younger brother 21 last year, which inspired my poetry.

Black Block

By Toby Laurent Belson

Black block
Silhouette of pain in the sky

Black block
Soaking up the rain as we cry

Black block
Reminding us of things we have lost

Black block
Showing us the struggle's real cost

Black block
Ash and debris blowing in the wind

Black block
Worry ‘bout what we are breathing in

Black block
Children's dreams are filled with the shadow

Black block
Parents dreams are crippled by the sorrow

Black block
The beauty of our people never dies

Black block
You'll see it when you look into our eyes

Black block
Just take a moment breathe and look beyond

Black block
In front of you is what you thought was gone

Black block
Cos even when its gone it will remain

Black block
Things round here can never be the same

Local resident, artist, poet, activist (Green for Grenfell).

HOW CAN I TELL YOU TO WIPE YOUR TEARS? 

Harriet Gore

How?
How?
How can I tell you?
How can I tell you to wipe your tears?
When I haven’t wiped mine

It is not the failings that draw tears from my eyes, for fallibility is a human condition and characteristics
It is not the failure to listen that keeps the tears flowing, for obstinacy is a human condition and the characteristics of diversity
It is not anger that I feel, for my well of deep is flowing out reflections
The depth of deaths, no shallow can reveal

Everything was so perfectly aligned and allied, for the most devastating catastrophe
The weather, the time, midnight and other factors
Like a natural disaster that was unnatural
Like a forest fire that was in a city
Like a shipwreck happening in a block

When it is death
Sometimes questions appear
Why like this?
Died too young
Oh, why now?

Who has the answers?
No one knows the answers
No answers know
Except that tears keep flowing

At first I cried for the dead
Their dreams and hopes and aspirations
Then I cried for the living, for the tears shed for the dead
In every tragedy, it is ourselves we cry for
Even when we cry for the dead and for the living
The dead do not need our tears
It is us who need healing
It is us who need our tears
The healing water which empties into the ocean of grief
To resurrect and to water, to moisten and to make fertile the heaving soil
To germinate seeds of hopes, dreams and aspirations which the dead have become
The manure which sprout spring when the first rain falls

The dead do not know they are dead, this is a consolation
Like that deep sleep when consciousness is lost
And all become nothing until consciousness returns
It is the living who know they are dead and cry for own selves and feel for the dead what the dead does not feel
The dead are sleeping seeds, they are spreading scents, they are evaporating into you and I and the space around
The dead have become the air we breathe, the words we disperse, they have expanded into the expanse nothingness, they have become the seeds which will germinate when the first rain falls
Is this a consolation?
A consolation for the dead or for the living?

You see beloved one
Death is part of the story
The story on earth
The story earth tells
Tells about life
Life about death
Life is about death
Death is the destination of life
Once born, the destination is death
Death happens, just like life
Life is born just like death
Life is about living until death happens
Life is about occupying, engaging, serving, entertaining and feeding all our senses as best as we can until death happens

Each death happens in its own way
Death is death
There is no uniform way of dying
Just as there is no uniform way of being born
Some are born by caesarean section and some are born legs first
Some are born short and others born long
Some appear with hair and others appear bald
Some weigh 3kg and some 5kg at birth

When it is birth, joy appears on some faces
There is no one perfect time to be born just as there is no one perfect time to die
No uniformity in birth and none in death
Each appears uniquely and disappears uniquely
Each enters this space in own way
And exists and exits as circumstances create

The present (here) is a story
The earth is a place of story telling
There is a life story and a death story
Some beginnings are exciting and some end in intrigue
Some leave quietly, some leave with a bang
Some lives are brief, some lives are long
What do we know, except, to question?

Who knows the answers?
Who knows why the flowers appear when they do and drop dead when they do
Life is a story, telling itself, in its own way
Birth is part of the story and so is death
Some deaths are dramatic, some peaceful and some are earthquakes appearing on the landscape
Volcanoes too and storms and sea wrecks
That is life, the life of a story, the life that is a story

I am listening to the sound when there is no sound
Except the sound of this
The thought that when entries are made into this space, many do not ask questions about the appropriateness of the entries
But when exits are made, many questions become born and appear to be asked

I write not to give hope for I have no hope to give
I write not to give comfort for I have no comfort to give
I only write to exhibit the me unseen
And reveal the conversation I have been having with myself
And the stream of tears which have become tributaries
The rivers of trails warming their way through
So how can I tell you to wipe your own tears, when I have not yet wiped mine?
How can I tell you that all will be well, when what was can never be is?
The many lives lost, a community in pain
Property can be replaced, but can new take the place of old?
Those who have gone, can they return?

How can I tell you to wipe your tears, when I have not wiped mine?
An invitation to write?
The question appears to be written?
What is the purpose of this writing?
Why write at all?
To give hope?
To console and to comfort?
To be on record as being a part of the many?
To tell people what they already know?
To make the difference only words make?
To express thoughts and add a voice?
To answer the call and support a beloved one?
To tell you to wipe your tears, when I have not yet wiped mine?
To tell you that those who have gone, have become the formless writing the form you see?

In life, life is contained, in the form of forms
Outside that container, the form is formless spanning endless
Look at that form expanding into formless
What is it that is written in that distance?

“Some lives are long, some lives are brief?
The lives appeared, in form, the containers of life?
Outside the form, the formless expands?
Made in different forms, many become one book?
And the book of forms has become the formless unseen?”

You see beloved one
The formless has begun to write
In you and in me
Not just through words
But through thoughts and all expressions
In what is said
And what is unsaid
In the formless words
In the ink of the tears

So how can I tell you to wipe your tears, when the tears themselves are the writings they wrote and the first raindrops to give life and make fertile, bringing forth spring, the diverse rainbow
How can I tell you to wipe your tears, when even at this moment I have not wiped mine?
Why wipe your tears when tears are still determined to flow?
Why stop your questions, when questions are still determined to be heard?
Why did it happen?
How?
Remember beloved one, it is not anger that I feel, for my well of deep is flowing out reflections
Everything was so perfectly aligned and allied, for the most devastating catastrophe
The weather, the time, midnight and other factors
Like a natural disaster that was unnatural
Like a forest fire that was in a city
Like a shipwreck happening in a block
Leaving tears flowing in its wake
So how can I tell you to wipe your tears, when I have not yet wiped mine?
I will wipe my face when there are no more tears flowing through

LOVE TO YOU ALWAYS
LOVE TO ALL ALWAYS

– Version 7 August 2017 by Harriet Gore, Founder Touch LOVE Worldwide
Written specially for inclusion in the ‘Poetry4Grenfell compilation book’.
Special thanks to beloved Emmanuelle Marcel whose invitation inspired the creation of this work.


En los Ojos

Yago Soto-André (YogiBeAr.E)

*****

In your I's 
Eye see mine.
In your arms
We hold the 
Time
That gives birth to
Love that
Waters the flames
Into flowers.
I see in your eyes
The demise
But in between
The cries
I hear power,
Not death.
Love,
Not greed.
Life,
In play.
Yo juego pero
No.
No pude mas,
Y me quemaron
Los ojos por ello,
Mis queridos los
Arrancaron de su
BLOCK
Por sus cuentas de
Vajo costes
THEY FELL.
Pero volamos mas vajo
Mas alto llega el
Amor.
Me costo
Volver
Pero aqui me encuentro
En vuestras
Miradas
Me veo en vuestros ojos,
I see mySelf in your
Eyes
Beyond the lies,
Apareci en vivo
En los corazones de mis
Queridos y queridas.
And in our hearts 
Our loved ones 
Live on
Thriving on
Love
Not hate.
Not fear.
Let the hurt burn to
Ashes
And sprinkle the dust
Onto a canvas till
Our hearts
Bleed no more,
No more insulation
Around our pain,
More love outspoken
Plain,
In the arts of living,
Please
Rest in love and
Peace
Loved ones
And all in between.

*****
Local Resident, Poet, Activist

Launch of P4G book @ the Bush Theatre, July 2018.

Mehtageen Taghyeer   محتاجين تغيير
(We Need Change)

By  EmpresS *1 الامبراطورة الاولي 

Mehtageen Taghyeer fel wad3 el ehna fee
Mehtageen Taghyeer fel wad3 el ehna fee
محتاجين تغير في الوضع اللي احنا فيه
Daroori we mengher takheer lel wad3 el ehna feee
Mehtageen Taghyeer fel wad3 el ehna fee
ضروري ومن غير تأخير للوضع اللي أحنا فيه، محتاجين تغير في الوضع اللي احنا فيه
We Need Change to the situation that we’re in
We Need Change to the situation that we’re in
Urgently and without delay
To the situation that we’re in
We Need Change to the situation that we’re in!
Through…

El Hob
LOVE

El 3adl
JUSTICE

El Tafahom
UNDERSTANDING

El Salaam
PEACE

El Ehteraam
RESPECT

El Etihad
UNITY

El Musawah 
BALANCE

El Horeya El Horeya El Horeya!!!

FREEDOM FREEDOM FREEDOM!!!!!



Mehtageen Taghyeer fel wad3 el ehna fee
Mehtageen Taghyeer fel wad3 el ehna fee
محتاجين تغير في الوضع اللي احنا فيه
Daroori we mengher takheer lel wad3 el ehna feee
Mehtageen Taghyeer fel wad3 el ehna fee
ضروري ومن غير تأخير للوضع اللي أحنا فيه، محتاجين تغير في الوضع اللي احنا فيه

~*~

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

 
Excerpt of poem/song originally written, recorded and filmed during and after the Egyptian Revolution by @EmpresS1Egypt © 2011-2012.

We Need Change Music Video

Taken from the “Poetry 4 Grenfell: Voices From Da Grove & Latimer” book KamitanArts.com


Grenfell Memorial – Junior Tomlin

Poems and images taken from the “Poetry 4 Grenfell: Voices From Da Grove & Latimer” book (c) Kamitan Arts ltd. All rights reserved. No images or poems to be duplicated or published commercially or for profit by any means without prior written permission from Kamitan Arts.

Contact: ka.1@hotmail.co.uk

We are more than happy for you to share and use material always outlining and tagging @KamitanArts and @Poetry4Grenfell