We lose ourselves

We lose ourselves, Belinda.

We lose ourselves

On the streets, everyday a lesson.

Thanking God wake up safe next day.

To the Centres to find help, hot food and

A smile, knowing we're not alone out there

Hoping this is going to be the day life changes

Find a hostel, or a safe place

In the ocean of your love.

Belinda

Poem from The Homeless Library, the first history of British homelessness. Told through poems, interviews, artworks and handmade books. 

A documentary film about the project can be found here.

Lightness

Pointed in the right direction

Through the hills I see crimsoned colours

He is in lightness.

Joan Campbell

Poem from The Homeless Library, the first history of British homelessness. Told through poems, interviews, artworks and handmade books. 

A documentary film about the project can be found here.

Stuffed cabbage

a speciality
attractive taste hungry
Hungary/stuffed cabbage

(I remember something bad happened to me)

makes you hungry directly
take separate leaves
powerful smell
hot water filled with green and onion
close and cook
good for the taste
everytime you warm it up it's better
in the oven
a tomato sauerkraut
filled with rice and onion
pickled cabbage
special way of rolling
cook together
cook it with
important
tomato
happy recipes
for generations
satisfying
make lots of
a bit of you
big dish earthenware
a happy thing to do
pickle cabbage
very good Hungarians at cooking
stuffed
handy

(I was there in that camp)

a gourd
fill it
right away
food for a long time
smell it ahead
food that lasted
cabbage
this food is very good
a long term food
improved
sauerkraut that extra
paprika
also tomatoes
and baking
warm people's heart
with the taste in the mouth
and
the expectation




Agnita
January 2008

Lucky

father’s family
from Romania
had to escape
mother’s family
from Europe

had to escape her name
was Kaufman
ancestors to England
matter of luck
life: a matter of luck

father’s name was Silverman
had to escape a
matter of luck
I was one of the lucky
not in an area where Jews were

persecuted

had to escape
father’s family Silverman
from Romania
mother’s family Kaufman and

I was one
of the lucky

ones.



Gloria Ordman
25th January 2007

In between times

a small back yard
where there was a mangle
where my mother did the washing
that opened onto the entry
we were the first house in the avenue
must’ve been a secure door
a sort of room on the first landing
used when started school for homework
and if we wanted to read or be on our own
called it our study
lot of the books kept there
mother was a great reader
must’ve been very happy to be there
two sisters who were very conscious about doing their homework
I used to sit and draw
sit and draw
talk in between times and ask for help
they used to fight a lot I was known as mediator
liked being up there
could run down to the kitchen
weren’t stuck up there
could do what you liked
didn’t have to do all your homework there
a place you could read
read a lot of books my mother got from the library
read Lady Chatterley’s Lover before she did
window looked across the entry
could call across to our cousins
are you going for a walk?
the house looked across to our cousins’ home and we called across to them



Myra Ellis
26 Oct 07

History

I haven’t much of a history
And I don’t know much about the future either




Nita
January 2008

a Blue Star Line journey

all my family South America
I was left
my two daughters six and nine
I go by boat
by boat to my family
Buenos Aires three weeks
these Blue Star steamers
three weeks over
a nursery onboard
the hooter of the steamer
a terrible noise all rushed out
the children flew

a stormy sitting room
the grand piano roll
save your kids run over
by a grand piano rolling
dashing
save the children


Susie: a Blue Star Line journey
2007

Above clouds

so many arrivals
just after the war it snowed without stopping
I’d been in the WAAF
ill
the doctor Pity you can’t go to Switzerland
after the war
Switzerland
travelled by myself with1 suitcase
the view snowclad
the icicles dropping from the pine trees
my suitcase on a sledge
we walked behind the cable car scenery:
the Dome de Midi

up above clouds sky was blue

to this day I can draw the outline
dripping from the pinecones
when the war ended
above the clouds
the sky was if I remember blue
the air was clear
then snowed without stop
thick and white
everyone on skis even the doctors
everyone going
up above the clouds
saw the clouds below

Myra Ellis : an arrival, Switzerland
2007

stormy sea

to Germany where I had relatives cautionary words not to talk to anyone mustn’t
speak to anyone on that journey stormy sea arrived to a wreckage in the harbour
arrived too late for the Rheingold Express
early hours three or four small trains
in the black forest


Fortheim artificial jewellery there I saw my uncle for the first time with a nightcap on
my uncle sitting up in bed with a nightcap 1933 how pleased I was

Journey from England to Germany March 1933
by eighteen-year-old Mary Zefferett
(there are a lot of us about but very few with double t)


Mary
2007
Morris Feinmann Home

Mary arrival

the kibbutz the homes people had made
more profoundly than anywhere else
this was still the time of displaced persons
I remember the kibbutz
the homes people had made
I remember so

it was the orange blossom
wonderful smell of orange blossom
the homes people had made
more profoundly I had tears
it was this orange blossom
dominating I remember
smell of orange blossom

Welcome to Israel

Mary Goldberg: an arrival, Israel
2007
Morris Feinmann Home,

pictures speak louder

this is the story of my life
to cut a long story short
Hitler was organising Mein Kampf
Communism collapse
my grand people bombed
Hitler financed by the wealthy
the Russian revolution
Hitler used my parents from Poland
my father
my father
a marvellous caring wonderful woodworker
an artist born in wood
I was born in Hull
what happened was
after the war organised a return
Lodz a death camp people
simply thrown in
pictures speak louder


nothing left
all my grandparents
burnt nothing left
my father very skilled marvellous hands
wood must come to life
demanded in cathedrals
that he had a pony + trap
travelled all over
to this day when I still see old shafts pointing in the air
it brings my father
an old stone cottage a stable
intelligent pony he’d stamp until we fed him
my childhood memory
his hooves struck sparks
flying



Louis Marx
from Poland with a pony: a journey
2008

photo: Lois Blackburn 2008

marching to the song

my father came from the courts
said the law no longer exists
I spent the afternoon I remember
him putting a little ornament ashtray
I remember
three times in my suitcase
along the platform groups of families
on the journey a playful time
Nazi’s were
marching to the song

if the Jewish blood …
much more waiting to say
I remember my parents waving and the sandwiches
my mother had so carefully prepared
waved in her hand
April acrid spring in the air
the tune Maotzur
the hatred in the air

HM Goldberg: a journey Berlin/England
2007
Morris Feinmann Home,

HM Goldberg: an arrival

Beauty: we were greeted on the balcony
I couldn’t sleep for Beauty
outside the moonlit hills
the Mediterranean sea
I see it again in the plasticity of the earth
exaggerated moonshine
I drank it in after

after that I could not sleep
I didn’t expect
Amalfi ache
I didn’t expect: Beauty
try to respond and
take it in of that moment
outside
the plasticity of the earth

could not respond
it made you ache
to respond and couldn’t quite
I couldn’t sleep
I couldn’t leave
sheer Beauty you
in the morning

moonshine’s gone
I see it again
the plasticity of the earth
I didn’t expect
moonlit landscape
I drank it


HM Goldberg
2007

a journey

if you want a journey it began in Vienna a suitcase it was a train a journey we
had to take we had to get out Germany what was Germany then we were dragged
to get out my father had been in jail a normal train I should imagine twelve or
thirteen at the time it was quite normal I was quite well behaved being dragged to
be out we had to get out because we were Jews
we had to be out because
we were Jews I understood as a child I had been for journeys before for holidays
this was one we had to take to survive scared possibly probably
it didn’t matter as long as we got out my father had been in jail because
we were Jews Harwich I remember nothing
we got off in Harwich



Bruno Langsam: a journey
2007
Morris Feinmann Home

a train journey Buchenwald /1938

where the train stopped
I don’t know if it was a counter or it was train station or what

anyway

everybody had to get out quickly
yknow raus raus and er and er and then had to pass this row of

SS

guards and they just hit out
blindly at anything that moved so er and then er we we arrived in the

camp

they made us sit
on the parade ground and uh they gave us a sort of fish soup to eat it was pretty horrible

but that uh that

was laced with a
strong purgative but we weren’t allowed to move from the parade ground so you can

imagine

what happened so
then er yknow eventually we were detained to our hut where we were supposed to live

after a fashion on

on wooden shelves
managed to get cleaned up a bit and er that was it they didn’t actually do
anything to us

I mean I remember the first night
the SS came in with dogs and the dogs went for anything that moved

and er yknow

if the dogs selected somebody
he was taken out and beaten up it wasn’t very pleasant

I mean

the first the first two or three nights
were really horrible then after that things settled down of course we

were all starving

but er they didn’t
do anything to us

after that some

some people
actually went onto the electric wire threw themselves on the electric wire



anon
2008

Stuffed aubergine

cooked in a cookery class
cooking all together
nearly cut my finger off
door closed against
nearly came off
stitched on

what have you cooked today?

mother used to cook Middle Eastern food
stuffed aubergine
stuffed marrows plenty of rice
bamiae, okra, ladies fingers
rice always had
rice
boiled rice
stuffed marrows
stuffed aubergine
stuffed with rice and mince meat
mother from Egypt
father from Syria
I was born in Jamaica
mother didn’t want to come to England
always raining

what have you cooked today?




Victoria Setton
8th February 2008


Photo © Lois Blackburn 2009

Strudel greedy

pudding dessert
strudel bloated
lokshen plum
potato plump
sweet Jewish sponge
Baklava spice
rice baked in oven bloated
egg indulgent
apple pie after a meal
strudel greedy
rhubarb seductive
sticky to eat gorgeous
final part of appetizing meal
thinness of pastry completion
coconut pyramid finishing off
Passover satisfying
yellow of egg mouth watering
fine sugar tantalizing
almond macaroon moorish
egg white taste buds
meringue refreshing
don’t think about chocolate cleaner taste
tempting mouthwater
got to be dark
happy strudel




Group poem
The Morris Feinmann Home
8th February 2008

Marshmallow

puddings
like puddings
never been a maker
never very good
fresh fruit
custard, ice cream
melon refreshing
grapefruit and orange
all fruit
nothing I don’t like
heavy meals
got through all our courses
no room for pudding
rice pudding only after milk/meat meal
fresh fruit platter
make it look beautiful
centre of grapes, surrounded with banana
big meals
only wanted fresh fruit
whatever fruit I had
attractive platter
pineapple
take all the inside out
dice it up, mix with cream
put back
only eat with milk/meat dish
flans easy
decorated with cream
so much younger, these things easy
with milk dishes
biscuits, finger biscuits, plain arrowroot biscuits
build up to pyramid
layer it that way
cream, melt chocolate
pour out
cut into slices
triangle
absolutely delicious
fruit flan
plain flan case
sponge mixture
fruit, jelly fruit and jelly
looked nice on table
good heavens when I think
saliva building up
indulgent
know I shouldn’t afterwards
improvise a lot
something different
not things learnt from mother
she made stogy things
make a lot out of nothing
didn’t have money to throw around
cherries
stick them in chocolate
stand them on plates
marshmallow
one plate whipped cream, thick cream
one with with coconut
one with grated chocolate
marshmallow socked in cream
melt in your mouth
could just eat them now
melt in your mouth



Nita Holdari
8th February 2008


Photo © Lois Blackburn 2008

Dips

and cheese and breads
cocktails fruity style with

vodka and sherry punch
arranged flowers nicely

everything ready to go
evening wear and beach wear.



Peggy/Pat Rowe
1st February 2008

Proms

Mother played the piano
not a marvellous voice but I loved to sing
Ivor Novello and a song called Trees
ivory notes and black made a pattern
upright piano, fancy things, candle holders at each side
two sisters and myself
stood around her and tried to sing

wish I could see it

the rehearsal in Covent Garden, the orchestra in short sleeves
can’t see anything
but I can listen
the sound is low
then bursts out with drums
I picture the conductor
I can always picture the conductor.


Myra Ellis
5 September 2008

Photo © Lois Blackburn 2008