Tick

Tock

Tick

Tock

Let me tell you how history crossed

Swords and crowns embossed and glossed

Wind back the tick tick of this clock

My heritage

The journeys of my relatives

Planted in Africa, grown in then India

Blossoming in Britain.

We can be great where greatness goes amiss

From Birmingham’s balti triangle to Hull’s fish and chips

From Coventry’s cathedral to Ozzy Osbourne’s hits

Let’s play hide and seek, call me Richard , and find me underneath a car park in Leicester

then tell my entire story to my grandkids

Tell them that to witness nature is to witness a million miracles

Tell them to dress smart some days

And find solace in the beauty of gardens

Tell them not to tip toe around

Get stuck in

Tell them to buy a new suit The next day

Now they have a suit they can always put on when planting

So they know planting has value

Challenge perspectives always

Tell them To ask the museum manager where the stories of the slave trade are

If there aren’t there,

Create stories through their artistry

Then plaster them on bus shelters and retired homes with stone thrown windows

Tell them to make a city of their own

If time adds value

Then value your time

Pass by the crumbling walls of ancient homes

And let your fingers stroll through the scented aura of forgotten hope

Forgotten dreams

Forgotten people

Sneak past the barriers and through the cracks in stone

Find the similarities before you find the differences

Order Chinese food from an Italian joint

If you always buy the same thing then what’s life and what’s the point

Begin to know thyself

Learn to cook your own food and add the flavours Of Tipu Sultan

From baking your own bread to picking up food direct from the farm

The last of us have nurtured us for us to be the first of us

We need to shake it up so the next of us can easily learn from us

So come, let’s make history and set the foundations of tomorrow’s city streets

Let’s make the UK the kind of space where the west, north, east and south meet

Let’s connect Bristol to Digbeth

Bath to Blackpool

Bournemouth to Glasgow and Aberdeen to Dublin

Add some sparkle to the pot

And stir the magic to keep it bubblin

I want my grandkids to one day say

This world is the world that was made for me by my grandfather, he was known as  Raza the great

This clock will tick tock till the sundial chimes

May the history of tomorrow make the new age shine