Slam Poet Christmas Message: Nadia Khomami

'All Hallow's' By Nadia Khomami
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In a special series for Huffington Post UK Culture, some of the country's finest performance poets have recorded exclusive end of year messages. You can read a copy of Nadia's poem below.

Nadia Khomami, 22

How long have you been performing poety?

I got into poetry performances and readings about two years ago.

What is your poem about?

All those in society brushed under the carpet. Most of the time, they're exactly the same as us, just in different circumstances. Yet they're branded as monsters, broken, mindless, depressed, addicted. It's about something we all feel at times: not being listened to, not being able to express yourself, and generally feeling down and out in a city that can get the best of you at the worst of times.

Who is your favourite poet, and poem?

It's hard to pick a favourite poet, or poem for that matter. I'm influenced by such a variety of different poets. I guess if I had to choose, the dime would fall somewhere in between TS Eliot, Rimbaud, Blake, Oscar Wilde, Bukowski and Frank O'Hara.

Where can we see you perform?

I perform in many places around the city. Usually in pubs and bars on acoustic nights. Sometimes theatres. I'm a member of the Barbican Young Poets, we have a showcase each year the Barbican sometime around March.

What will you be doing this Christmas?

Attempting to express all my mal du siecles in under 144 characters.

All Hallow's

Drunk, lulled and restless I had drifted

Beneath a silent, idle sky, I sat and

Watched the night glide by with all its droll and

Dark delights.

But who would have thought that one night

I might have bumped into my end,

Into the barren fleets that hide

Within the crooked streets

Of lonely London's eastern end?

Who would have thought, that with leaking,

Worn out slack-jaws, their pale and creaking joints

And aches and the buds of my

Wine-stained mistakes would come

To suitably join laws. They said,

We are the moans that arise at dusk from that

Whore, that bitch, that London that screams,

That holy city that not once did pity the songs

We let loose into its streams, we are those that lie

Within its furies, deep, lost from excess of lust or lack

Of love and sleep,

Who here cares for our dead souls?

And I saw the tears that

Channel down the faces of all

These mad men of the street, and I felt the

Panic, the dread alarm of what happened

When their eyes and mine did meet.

My eyes that tore the mute sky apart, and all

My world that was sucked up into its heart, in

That splendid languor I finally did see

The brightest of all eternity, it put to bed battles

Between the drink in me, and all the dreams that

Did once sink in me.

I shouted all you of love,

And all you of warmness, you that screen

And point behind your harness,

Board up your windows, your children need not

See all this trembling cold, and colder fear

Set free. Save the children, just

Save them all. And

In the undertow, were we then caught,

The grim and grotty dwellers of your fright, went

Rolling on down saint Arthur's street and

Plunging into a bottomless night,

Swept up off your pavements and off your

dawnings, off your bright and clear

Cut winter mornings.

We the scabs, the stabs, the sex and silent specks

Of distant stars, we the perverts,

Prostitutes and punch, the louder, loudest

And hardest bunch of fiends you'll

Ever meet,

We that forage, we the national debt, we

The hate and grubby brushed off dirt, the

Unruly cowards, the barbarians, the banished

And accursed,

Who here cares for our dead souls?

Drunk, lulled and restless I had drifted

Beneath a silent, idle sky, I sat and

Watched the night glide by with all its droll and

Dark delights.

But who would have thought that one night

I might have bumped into my end,

Into the barren fleets that hide

Within the crooked streets

Of lonely London's eastern end?

Now I am that moan that arises at dusk, from

That whore, that bitch, that London that screams, the

Holy city that not once does pity the songs

I let loose into its streams.

Who here cares for my dead soul?