2 poems by Marvin Thompson

A St David’s Day Poem for Kids

Nathaniel Wells was the first recorded Welshman

to inherit his own mother and the cane

her kin sweated over. Was she a cutter

or a wet nurse, midwife and cook?

What berry poison would she have used

to spice Mr William Wells’ soup

after her ‘No!’ was ignored again?

Or was she compliant, her breaking-in

usually reserved for the biggest men?

His half-sisters were older and White.

Boy bits meant Nat was bequeathed the soil,

the cat ’o nine tails and the books of hymns,

owning people like a Slave Coast king.

He bought three thousand acres in Chepstow

and freed his mother but into what world?

When his first child cried, was he the first

Monmouthshire magistrate to rejoice:

‘Lord, her nose looks less n*gro than mine!’

Was he the first Brown Brit to own a mansion,

a party destination in Chepstow?

The first High Sheriff to grow an Afro?

Lieutenant Yeoman with a cavalry:

was he the first Mixed Race Welsh man to shoot

a White man when he broke a miners’ strike?

The first Mixed Race Welsh man to demand loot

from the government, his compensation

for loss of property: emancipation?

Britain’s first Mixed Race imperialist?

No: Norman-Saxons passed down farmland

first stolen by African-Romans.

Brothers Riding Raleigh Bikes

I consider playing Tchaikovsky as I stir

the chilli, my childhood in the cumin:

cornmeal porridge was scheduled pleasure,

my dad grating nutmeg, still in his body.

He let me pour condensed milk for sweetness,

his weekend grin as natural as poppies.

I dismiss the clouds, reliving the hiss:

Dad filling our BMX tyres

at the Shell station – the newsagent fizz

of sherbet dips. Top-shelf oblivious,

I gobbled lemon drops with my brothers

and wondered about Dad’s guns in Aden:

no one told me our army twisted prisoners’

penises. Bruce Castle Park’s beeches

were a gateway to Martian mountain tops.

I’d be Evel Knievel or a summer gull,

my dad listening to The World Service

or waves of pirate radio soul.

In phalanxes, Spurs fans marched past cedars,

some chatting with their kids, some with skinned heads.

I’d cycle back to my dad as breathless

as the Black woman dressed in a tutu

sautéing on the zebra crossing,

drivers blearing horns, their windows down.

Dad waved-on the traffic, eyes wet with fear

like he saw something in her that could grow

in him. My brother says it didn’t seem weird:

‘Dad played us Swan Lake all the time.’

In my kitchen, I play ‘Luther’,

Kendrick crooning: my son sprinkles salt, stirs.

________________

Marvin Thompson was born in London to Jamaican parents and now lives in south Wales. In 2021, he made headlines by winning the Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition. He was the first Black poet to win since 1981. His debut collection, Road Trip, is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Road Trip was also shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Award, 2021.