Priest
Have you chosen a name for him, my child?

Christine
He’s going to die, Father, isn’t he?

Priest
We don’t know that my child, he might yet be stubborn enough to live. All we can do is pray.

Christine
Matron says he’s got my nose. Vincent. Because I like it. And in case he doesn’t, Alan and John.

Vincent
The Small Frayed Knot by Vince Laws.

Priest
Heavenly Father, by the power of your Holy Spirit you give to your faithful people new life in the water of baptism. Guide and strengthen us by the same Spirit…

Vincent
My name is Vincent and I like it and I am a poem.
I was born on Saturday 14th January 1961, missing Friday 13th by 5 minutes. I was baptised at 2 days old because I had pneumonia and wasn’t expected to live. My mother called me Vincent because she liked it, then gave me up for adoption. The walls of the children’s home were pale blue and the skirting board came up to my head.

If the small frayed knot…
If the small frayed knot in my guts comes undone…
If the small frayed knot in my guts comes undone, I will empty into the universe until the atoms of who I am…

Gladys and David visited me in the children’s home. Gladys had two crippled hips and couldn’t have children of her own. Gladys adored me and David adored Gladys and so they adopted me. I spent weekends with them in a neat blue caravan where a black cat lead me deep into roses and abandoned me to thorns.
The adoption finally came through in the November, and that was that, I was legally theirs, there was no sending me back. A month later, on Christmas Eve, the three of us drove up the A1 to visit Gladys’s family for Christmas. Crash.

No one can blame you Gladys, because you are dead.
You were driving up the A1 on Christmas Eve 1962 to see your mother. You were killed instantly. He was crippled for life. I was wrecked.

Me? A miraculously unscathed baby boy,
saved by swaddling car rugs,
haloed by splintered glass,
laid in a mangle,
and found on a Christmas morning.

No one can blame you Gladys, because you are dead.
Perhaps you would have been a traumatic mother too:
Forcing French verbs into me until I vomited them up on the garage floor, waiting for the cripple to come home and beat me.
Or telling me the reason we never go anywhere or do anything with our dull hungry un-heated lives, is because I am so naughty.
Or threatening to smash a milk bottle into the kitchen cupboard corner and drive the shattered wreckage into my face as a warning.
No one can blame you Gladys, because you are dead.
I adopted a new mother at eight - I’ll blame her instead.

Radio Presenter
Wow. Is that… true?

Vincent
Yes. Yes, it’s true. The ambulance came and took away Gladys and David, but they didn’t find me until the next morning, Christmas morning, when they came to tow away the wreckage. They found me wrapped up in blankets, down behind the front seats.

Radio Presenter
You’re listening to Future Radio, I’m Stash Kirkbride and this is poet Vince Laws. So… I mean… If you don’t mind me asking Vince, what happened next?

Vincent
Well, David was left with a crippled hip and a son he couldn’t raise on his own. That’s when I went to live with Gladys’s mother, my Grandma Tait - a woman with her heart so flung-wide-open you could skip stones across it. There are nine goldfinches at the window at the mention of her name. And now a pheasant in gold and green with a white collar.

The dog and I leave the door unlocked and walk out where plums litter the pastry lane, where tractors edge the verges into an endless homemade pie. The dog looks up as thunder boils like custard in a pot, “Onward beast!” I cry. “If David Hockney can stand outside and paint at seventy – pah! So can I!”
The dog wants to turn right, up the track where daydream rabbits lie, instead we head straight over, and sight a constellation of pink campions flung across a universe of green – ah, breathe that in… the scent of treetops, descends as raindrops, hits my brain stops – trickles down my throat, dot, dot, dot…
This is what I wanted you to see, a picture-postcard cottage with a postbox in the wall. Come on in, the door’s unlocked, this is where I live, this is where I call home. There’s a plum pie in the oven, and instant custard won’t take long.

Then, when I was eight, David re-married.

We must have had fun at first. She took me to church and we sang a misprinted hymn together, Cod is beautiful, Cod is wonderful, until we shook like tambourines. But by the time I got comfortable calling her Mummy, Mummy had one of her own, a brother I was forbidden to touch.
She became a mousetrap baited. She waited ‘til my father got home, and then exaggerated my behaviour, or made it up. He was sent to the garage to beat me with a bamboo cane. His mother used to beat him with a chair leg - he tells me this to show how lenient he’s being.
Sometimes he beats the workbench and I scream loud enough to satisfy Mummy in the kitchen. And on one occasion I snap every bamboo cane into bits this long then throw them to the floor and wait for him to get home. He looks at these sticks and he looks at me and he shakes his head and he laughs and he leaves and he never beats me again.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, her hand’s flapping about my head. I put my hand up to cushion a blow and catch her wrist and don’t let go and suddenly it’s an epiphany, an orgasm, a Ready-Brek glow - I’m stronger than she is - she can’t hit me any more.

Marie
Let go of my arm.

Vincent
I don’t let go.
I’ll let go but you’re not to hit me.

Marie
Let go of my arm.

Vincent
I don’t let go.
I’ll let go but you’re not to hit me.

Marie
If you don’t let go of my arm, I’ll put this bottle in your face.

Vincent
I let go. I spent the next two years in my room and then left home for the Army. Before I left, they sat me down and said, “Although you were adopted, you are a blood relative. Your mother is…” (fanfare)

Christine
Matron says he’s got my nose. Vincent. Because I like it. And in case he doesn’t, Alan and John.

Vincent
It all made sense. My Mother was my Auntie. My Auntie was my Mother. The one relative who never forgot my birthday – it all fell into place.
I’d been in the Army a few months when I was summoned to see the Commanding Officer. 24394589 Apprentice Laws Sir!

Commanding Officer
At ease, Laws. I’ve had a letter from your parents, Laws. They haven’t heard from you since you joined us. They want to know if everything’s all right, Laws? Is everything all right Laws? Is everything all right at home?

Vincent
I had a roof over my head, food, money. I played rugby, football, cricket, I went running and orienteering. My life wasn’t dull hungry or unheated any more.

Commanding Officer
Laws, I want you to telephone your parents now and let them know you’re all right. Is that all right, Laws? Here, use my telephone.

Vincent
Cut Asunder. My early morning meander is shared with Badger through tunnels of trees and lime leaves so sharply green I fear for our safety. Beneath boughs – or should it just be under? Beneath boughs and across a floral veranda we discuss relationships with the incisive candour even a lime leaf might fear. Why do some mothers play opponents? Each unintended cut another row’s component – or should it just be over. What withers decays and dies, Mother Nature never grieves. And me? I’ll take my vows and lie with you, on a bed of fresh lime leaves.

David
It’s your Father. We got your letter. It’s no problem with me, but you need to give your Mother more time.

Vincent
You can never tell who’s going to be all right with it.

David
You need to give your Mother more time. She’s got her religion to think about.

Vincent
I gave her three years then gave up on her. She likes her porridge with salt, I like mine with milk and sugar.

David
And don’t tell your Grandma Tait. It’ll only upset her.

Vincent
Same letter, different mother. Mother Aunty, Aunty Mother.

Christine
I love you. Come and stay. Don’t tell anyone I’m your mother.

Vincent
We have the same stubborn nose and the same creative streak. We had a purple patch but now we email speak.

Christine
I love you. Come and stay. Those are all your problems.

Vincent
My name is Vincent, and I like it, and I am a poem.
I am what I am and what I am needs no excuses.
I know why miracles come wrapped-up in blankets
Why black cats lead babies deep into roses
Why mothers get stitched-up inside each of us
Why the small frayed knot in my guts is so dangerous.

I know why coins get stolen from purses
Why shoplifted chocolate tastes better than bought
Why water pours out of a Wellington boot
How many fingers you need to salute.

I have been dirty underpants, burnt custard,
lipstick on piano keys, a held breath,
a rolling pin, a bamboo cane, a red-hot poker,
a clean handkerchief, a blossoming lotus.
I’ve been a closet, a wardrobe, an antique armoire,
a ticked box, a pink pound, a funding opportunity.
I’ve been a personal ad, a knock at the door,
a bottle of poppers, a piss in the sink.
I’ve been a Beano under the sofa, a spit-and-polished toe-cap, a mug of Earl Grey, a spare toothbrush, a single bed, a double – a super-king sized.

I’ve been a mouse trapped, a milk bottle tapped on a Formica top, a husk, a shell, a sponge, a bird set free,
I’m coming out, I want the world to know.
I’ve been a letter, a phone call, a conversation,
I’ve been a painting,
I’ve been fish and chips on the beach with champagne,
an unexpected bouquet, a bright red scooter,
a storm that swept in from the sea,
a black dog under a duvet,
a caged canary, a tweet.
I’ve been a chemical session, a slingback,
a big fat line of Charlie, a red neckerchief, an avalanche,
an intake of breath.
I’ve been a whisk in the kitchen, a rainbow sky, a chocolate cake, the proverbial bus, a return ticket, a front seat, a silent poem.

I’ve been the love that dare not speak its name
and the love that dare not shut up.
My name is Vincent, and I like it, and I am a poem.

Thank you.

So why is Pride important?
Let me tell you why.

The bird that lives life
In a cage lives no life at all.
The bird that never
Sees the sky
Never feels the sun
Is like the caged canary
That only knows one song.

Imagine! Setting that bird free
Letting it be the best canary it could ever be.

That’s why Pride’s important
And it belongs to everyone
Because we all deserve to be our best
To see the sky, the sun.

Norwich, once you were canaries,
But now that you have Pride
I can see your eagles soar
Across a rainbow sky.

Doctor
Vincent?
Come on through.
Have a seat.
Vincent, I’m sorry to have to tell you but your result has come back positive.

Vincent
The walls are mushroom, the carpet beige. Diagnosed.

Doctor
Had you considered your result might come back positive Vincent?

Vincent
I went to the doctor’s on my birthday.
He was so embarrassed he’d forgotten the date,
he gave me a terminal illness.

Ever since, Angels have followed me relentlessly,
opening doors and showing me skies
that the living never notice.

If the small frayed knot in my guts comes undone
I will empty into the universe
until the atoms of who I am become undetectable.

I consider stepping under the proverbial bus
but sense my soul already has a suitcase packed.
In defiance, I buy a return and sit upstairs.

There’s nothing brave about living with death
when you consider the options.
If I believe in fate, I can’t cheat it.

Doctor
Had you considered your result might come back positive Vincent?

Vincent
I had considered it.

Doctor
Is there anyone you’d like to call?

Vincent
Who do you call at a time like this?

Christine
Vincent, because I like it. And in case he doesn’t, Alan and John.

Vincent
Certainly not my Mother. Aunty. Mother.

Christine
He’s going to die, Father isn’t he?

Vincent
Stop it.

Priest
We don’t know that my child. All we can do now is pray.

Vincent
Stop it.

Marie
Let go of my arm.

Vincent
I don’t let go.
I’ll let go of your arm but you’re not to hit me.

Marie
If you don’t let go of my arm I’ll put this bottle in your face.

Vincent
Stop it. He looms behind me as I lie in the bath but I never see his face. The bread knife whispers rumours about my wrists to anyone who’ll listen, and everybody listens, everyone. Stop it.

This is what you did to my head.
You turned my whispers into lies.
This is what you did to my heart,
You turned my kisses into knives.
This is what you did to my hope,
You turned my wishes into sighs,
This is what you did to my art,
Goodbye.

I drew a line and refused to step back over it. I met a man in Oslo, Ole Skauge, and like two tiny spits of snow, we fell into an empty sky, like two tiny spits of snow, we dropped into the dark. Little could we know – wow – that was just the start of something big – Avalanche! You came without warning - Avalanche! I keep on falling - Avalanche! Over and over and further and further in love…

The first words I ever said to him were, “Will you marry me?” And he had the balls to say, “Yes!” And now, 3 years, 5 months and 13 days later, he’s my most familiar portrait, and yet my favourite face. My most familiar landscape, and yes - my favourite place. No one else comes half as close, well, not in the human race, He is where my heart lies, and where I rest my case.

I’ve learnt that happiness is a breeze you can stand in until you catch its breath like a habit. My name is Vincent, and I like it, and I am a poem. I know why miracles come wrapped up in blankets, why black cats lead babies deep into roses, why mothers get stitched up inside each of us, why the small frayed knot in my guts is so dangerous…

The Small Frayed Knot was written and performed by Vince Laws. Thanks for listening.

Well, I listened........
 It was beautiful and spikey and shocking and brave.
The theme of identity and how his has been challenged and rocked felt familiar......late knowledge of parent......sexuality and acceptance......
and the HIV diagnosis and how that can become your identity/status if you let it.......
I'm quite interested in that actually......the idea that illness/diagnosis can steal/replace your identity if you let it.
I liked the listing of every object that Vince claims to have been......the bed, the rolling pin etc......interesting way of describing experiences......often so deeply felt and learnt that one becomes the seemingly banal object involved in a memory....
Feel free to pass on my comments/appreciation to your friend if you think he would appreciate feed-back.....I'm sure he's had lots of positive responses.
PS She thought it reminded her of Derek Jarman. x