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Alana Hicks is a spoken word artist, hip-hop MC and conductor of poetic experiments in digital theatre. Featured at various festivals, libraries and parking lots over the past few years, Alana is also a slam host, panel presenter and poetry workshop facilitator. Published in spoken word anthologies Noise, Rattapalax and Going Down Swinging. She is currently writing and producing the web television series ‘Boxed’ about creative wannabes who work in non-creative roles within the Arts.
Alana’s Poem
Sleepwalking
Jowls small eyes thin lips lying smiles
Dead howls hidden sighs nun cries round ass nice thighs
square jaw set thrust red raw scent musk
Floral wooden fruity, Cinderella beauty with the big hair
Latino elevator music from where
Classical guitar strummed
next to free hugs from a bum
and I’m the only one taking notes?
Girls chase men sell charity, chase each other
Christmas ill wishes will issue disparity
No one notices in a classy establishment like this
An abscess like me has all the cards go fish
Watching guitar move man
Stepping from right foot to left
he fingers e’s d’s an f’s
Semitones semiconsciously strumming and plucking and slapping
Two rhythms crafted within one time frame and melody
Incorrect check mental check the remedy
All pieces missing are found in faces I have seen
But strangers in the street have something unredeemed
If you look real close they’ve been through wars
No features oh sure a spirit a soul but aesthetically nothing of note
The mannequins in the shop front reek of experience first timers to this carnival they pay money to the street performers cheating from the institution
And if there were two things I had to fight for
one would be love and the other freedom he said
I listened I wrote lolling those oceans around my throat
empties to my stomach can’t stomach the notion of huge huge boats
the kind that wash a bamboo raft away
the raft of freedom and decaying hope
on a wave it lifts and away it goes
And I know I’m looking through the wrong eyes at this scene
I know I’m looking through eyes I found somewhere and put on
lost eyes I know I’m looking through a dead chest empty of promises
of beauties reserved for someone else daughter
and these eyes defied the order
defied a direct command to be accurate
and while accurately black not blue with flecks of green
never intended for this scene it was never intended for me
I was never intended for this scene it was never intended for me
And I like the way the rain falls on those overcast days
Days that leap up and bite you in the underarm
Too short for the sun and too long for the moon
And if there were two things I had to fight for
one would be love and the other freedom he said
I listened I wrote lolling those oceans around my throat
empties to my stomach can’t stomach the notion of huge, huge boats
the kind that wash a bamboo raft away
the raft of freedom and decaying hope
on a wave it lifts and away it goes
