See a Blog of video clips of poets performing at Dodo at hhttp://dodovidpoets.blogspot.com/.
HELEN MORT/ JASMINE COORAY/ PATRIC CUNNANE/ P.R.MURRY/ OTHER THERESA/ ARDELLA JONES/ CARLA PECORELLI/ EISHA KAROL/ GRAHAM BUCHAN/ HEATHER TAYLOR/LISA HITCHEN/ ZOLAN QUOBBLE/ SUE JOHNS/ RHIAN EDWARDS/ STEVE TASANE/ LIZZIE SHIRLEY/ MATTHEW COOPER/ FRANCES WHITE /LIZ CRUSE/ KATRINA NAOMI/ ALISON WINCH/ JILL ABRAMS/ LISA KELLY/ ANDY V. FROST/ RICHARD SCOTT/ PAULINE SEWARD S/SUZANNE and KEITH DRAKE/ PENNY FAULKNER/ ISABEL BERMUDEZ/ EVE PEARCE/ ANGELA STONER/lLESLEY HALE/ LI YAN/ PAUL McGRANE/ AMY McALLISTER/ JAMES EASTON/ ANNE MACAULAY/ ANNA BEECHER/ STUART LARNER/ LARA KENNEDY/ CLARE MULLEY/ ALVIN CULZAC/ CHARLOTTE KNOWLES-CUTLER/ANN VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS/FRANCES WHITE/ALISON WINCH
JILL ABRAMS
photo: Naomi Woddis Copyright 2011
Jill Abram is a prize-winning poet who writes as well for the page and mind as she does for the ear and audience. She has been described as “poignant and funny” and having “mischief and poise”, her poems have been described as “satirical and quirky” and she has great appeal to those who think they don´t like poetry, as well as those who know they do. Jill is Director of the poetry collective Malika´s Kitchen.
The following poem won the inaugural Poetry Pulse competition in 2010:
Remnants of Beauty
On a lilac fur-topped stool, she sits
while a tinny transistor hurls out hits.
She opens her mouth to stretch her eyes,
brushes mascara on her lashes
to darken, lengthen, volumise.
A spray of scent from an atomiser,
the doorbell dingdongs and she´s gone.
Faded pinks of primula petals pressed
under the glass of the dressing table.
On top, a dusting of rouge, a sprinkle of blue,
a crumpled, lipstick-kissed tissue.
ANNA BEECHER
Anna Beecher is an award winning poet and performance maker. Recent projects include, Living Things, a solo spoken-word performance created with Battersea Arts Centre supported Arts Council England,Dog Rough, an audio work for parks and Hans My Hedgehog, a warm, lyrical retelling of the story by the Brothers Grimm. This summer Anna will be performing her poems and stories at Glastonbury Festival, Art in Action and Buxton Fringe. To find out more please see annabeecher.com .
Birdsong
I wet your cracked fallow tongue
(it is the end of the age of miracles)
gather up your near dead hand
and sing softly into the silence.
Jaundiced tumours, yellow as sunlight
yellow as the little bird.
Next door the little bird
is singing, calling, vibrating its tongue
a feather wrapped heartbeat, so light
-lightness itself a kind of miracle-
ready, when you die to break the silence
poised, feet curled around the chaplain´s hand.
We say ´ think he squeezed my hand´
in turn, holding it gently as a bird.
At any hint of waking, breaking silence
we rush to you with heavy tongues
longing now for smaller miracles,
jostling for the patch of light
that falls across your bed, wintery light
from the garden, that graces your hand
resting on the white sheet, where the miracle
of those familial fingers, nibbled by the bird
a certain curve of lip, ability to curl tongues
are comforting accidents to fill the silence.
We shared an accent before this silence.
I glance at you on the balcony lighting
a cigar, laughter dancing off your tongue,
the Christmas before sickness, with the same hands
that now rest on the bed sheet as lightly as birds
about to take flight. Flicking through miracles
-photographs of that lifetime before miracles
were needed (steady unnoticed growth of silence)
And the shot of you, conscious, stroking the bird
Just days before, cage catching the light
the bird gently catching your hand
weak, perfect smile over soft hydrated tongue.
Discarded miracles catch light
Cold spreads silent into slim hands
Violent beauty of bird song,
love, cracked tongue.
Hands
Embarrassed at his fingernails, trying to pick
the muck off hands that gathered eggs
to wrap instead around her small palms,
smile floating shyly above the handshake.
Later hands shaking and the kiss,
her wiping a crumb from his lips
fingers tracing thighs beneath
her starched skirt and smell of her hands
on him, like the sheets they folded, fresh.
Her index ran from his forehead to nose
gently removed a fly from his eyeball
and they slid rings
down the barrels of each other´s fingers,
him still with mud along the creases.
Lines deepening as palms are moulded
around the soft backs of babies´ heads.
Once as five fingers folded around his one
he glimpsed his own father´s hands
disappearing into gloves
The slap, when the children were in bed
which happened once and stopped time,
remembered in red, in the fingers bitten back
running through the hair no longer
tracing each other in wonder.
Wrinkled hands ceased to interlace,
wrapping themselves instead
around coffee cups for warmth
wool spooling around her thin fingers,
illuminated and old under the lamp
skin shrinking from the bones on the backs
of her hands.
When his fingers found hers again
there was a cannula at the elbow crease.
Her pulse was frantic
fragile as those first fumblings.
In the absence of her voice
her hand replied,
like the baby taking his finger
A scrap of life squeezing away doubt
And now when he reaches into the urn
to take her out in handfuls,
dust settles in the space between the skin
and the worn band of the ring.
ISABEL BERMUDEZ
Isabel Bermudez poet and short story writer, was born in Bogota in 1968 and grew up in London. Her short stories and poems have been published in a range of magazines and shortlisted in a number of competitions including the Aesthetica Creative Works Competition, the Live Canon Poetry Competition and the Yeovil, Fish and Bridport Prizes. Her documentary film “El Corazon de la Basura” was screened on Colombian state television and at the Cuban Film Festival in 2000.
Racer
She trembles when she sleeps, shudders
toward the track, chasing the lure; all haunch, ears back,
reliving the roar of an evening crowd;
smell of beer, glint of signet ring; shadows
of men who trained her. Six races won, second twice…
But in the orchards of her later years, she keeps to the path,
never long out of sight. A year or so ago, she might
have hared after rabbit, disappeared under apple-trees,
a streak of flank among the green.
Now is it death she sees, when she stares
into a field of baby rabbits and barely stirs?
At home, lies there, dreams; crosses and uncrosses
long faun legs, or rests her head in my lap
for no other reason than affection it seems;
till she hears the jangle of collar and catch
then she´s out again, under Kent apple trees
to mooch round windfall in evening sun
her lead swinging empty from my hand;
nose to the ground, riddling old scents; trailing
the trigger of the starter´s gate in the haze of the finish line
September´s first chill meets August´s ripe breath.
Isabel Bermudez
Uno mas
i.m. Luis de Zulueta
Like a Spanish prince in a voluminous silk shirt
above a sea of heads, you strolled down the Avenida 19,
a tall, bald man of eighty-five
going out with me for that forbidden drink.
Un personaje del centro people said.
Un personaje …over a glass of rum you marvelled
at how the women of Bogota had grown so tall and lovely.
It takes a particular kind of talent, a deftness
in the art of fictional endings, to visit me like this,
so long after your death, relayed on that long-distance line;
your heavy Spanish accent echoing our conversations
in downtown bars where you talked and I listened,
to tales of Spain and Hollywood and old Bogota.
You spoke of my grand-mother´s house,
as I leaned closer to listen better
the celluloid of those dimming eyes
replaying the film of the past
just as I lean forward now, in cinema dark, before
this small-town drama of the civil war
in the Colombia of over half a century ago,
where men wore ruanas and sombreros,
spoke in the slow, steady speech of campesinos.
Here you are, some forty years younger
on this London screen, a man in his prime;
before industrialization, before los narcos,
la guerrilla, tecnologia;
a time that´s like an abandoned house where only
the ancient gardener knows the whereabouts of the key
and now he too is gone, the fence broken,
the garden overgrown; just one more I hear you say,
uno mas and see it come alive again,
that other country, that distant past.
Isabel Bermudez
GRAHAM BUCHAN
Graham Buchan earned money from chemical engineering research, film editing, writing and directing, photography, travel writing, and facilitating a creative writing group for people with mental illness. He didn’t earn money from theatre directing, hospital radio presenting and poetry. He has two books and a pamphlet published by the Tall Lighthouse..
The Leader´s Wife
The Leader´s Wife tried a bit of singing
the Leader´s Wife tried a bit of television
the Leader´s Wife tried a bit of art
we took the Leader´s Wife and tied her to a post
we took the Leader and tied him to a post
opposite
we shot them
slowly
Aeroplane
I wondered if you´d open the hatch
and dance along the wing.
Eyes smiling, lips cheerful,
I wondered if I´d join you.
I wondered if the Captain
would call us ´Come back in!
I´ve got to land my plane now.´
But we´re dancing on the wing!
We´re dancing on the wing!
High above these sunny Alps
We´re dancing on the wing!
It´s time to start the long descent,
You should be strapped in safely.´
We´ll dance, we´ll fly
in cool clear air,
We’ll tumble in the breeze.
We’ll cascade down without a care
flying swiftly here and there
as other planes stop by to stare.
Don´t worry, we can fly with flair,
So leave us if you please.
And so we fell, the rushing air
was flat against our faces.
We parachuted with our love
towards the softest places.
Glanced off kindly conifers
and rolled in alpine flowers
just as our plane was lost to sight
in Adriatic showers.
MATTHEW COOPER
A young life
Trellick Tower skeleton
bish bash boshing the sky
gun-metal grey, late in the day
Young blades. Too young by half.
the blade sneering, appearing
from nowhere
never saw it until too late
He stoops. Slumps.
his lungs pump
their valediction
lips an ´o´
tiniest fleck of
spittle
spits at life
another young life
ends before it begins
Lost
Far from suffocating San Marco
or the Rialto’s grasping
rasp
we follow little canals
like children on an adventure
The light plays
hide and seek
on the softly lapping waters
Voices drift across the decay
as distant bells sound their
sad refrain
JASMINE COORAY
Jasmine Ann Cooray is a writer, poet, and creative innovator. Winner of the Farrago Summer Slam and runner up at the Roundhouse Slam, she writes with soul and precision, transforming intimate everyday relationships and painting the world into something you want to look at twice. Jasmine founded the Brighton monthly sell-out performance night Floetics and is now building a signature range of site-specific creative writing workshops called WRITE London, which generate rich material for their participants. Look out for her work in print later in the year.
Links: http://www.myspace.com/jasmineanncooray
Blue Movie Starlet
This messy room was not what you expected,
no silk-lined boudoir smelling of rose water,
incense beckoning a finger through muslin.
Instead: knickers. Pale smudged gussets
that grimace at you.
Indifferent as prison jailors to a fresh inmate,
they´ve seen it all before.
Though doe-flutter eyes and soft focus
limbs might poise prettier than this gin-doused maiden,
spontaneity is known for it’s sepia tint.
Illusion was ready to lick its lips until
you tripped on a wince at my kicked off trainers,
skirt yanked round the knees, no hip coiled striptease
to ease us in and buy time to remember the names
shouted over shredded electro.
The thump still punched along our veins as we clung
to the nightbus bars, swung splat
into a shag like a promise from a weekend dad.
Your absence at daybreak pricks the same tepid teardrop.
ALVIN CULZAC
Alvin Culzac is a member of a local choir and performs poetry and song in his local area of East Sussex and sometimes ventures to London to perform at The Poetry Society and Ronnie Scott.He is now ready to widen his horizons..
Farewell By Alvin CulZac
Farewell to one now silenced quite
Without thee we are no longer whole
For indubitably great sophistry did smite
And took away our brethren´s soul.
The pain in time did not retreat
And tales are told of one so right
Tho some did raise the cry and hue
And said the words did not ring true.
More so, they said that good was bad
And bad was good and deception sits
Atop the cornerstone of ideology
Thus making the now weary soul
Embrace the thoughts of: Eternity.
Blowing in the wind By Alvin Culzac
You will be blowing in the wind
and piddling in the sea
if you wait for salvation
from some faraway entity.
You will be whistling to the clouds
and supplicating yourselves
to vague suppositions
as you await your deliverance
from your enemies.
Your pain and suffering could be long
as your tormentors rejoice
in the enlightenment of their debauchery.
You try to find reasons for your living hell.
Then, not withstanding external delivery;
Do you not discover that secluded
in your meagre possessions are the seeds
of your own
Hope is indeed the rarest of beasts
It trudges the landscapes
and crevices of impossible causes,
eternally searching for the dispossessed..
Peace on Earth means nothing
If you are a victim
So pray tell, the the miracles?
LI YAN
Li Yan is a reader, songwriter and performer of poems.
Love Apples
Lyrics by Li Yan Music from Tea Collecting Song of Min folk tune and Scarborough Fair, Celtic folk tune
We are sitting in a lorry.
We are going to catch the Dover ferry.
We are heading for a life without misery.
The English sky is so blue.
The English sea is even more blue.
The English summer, O, strawberries and cream!
The English sun shines so bright.
The English moon charms her light.
But it´s only darkness, darkness only we see.
The English cows and sheep are so free.
But it´s only darkness, darkness only we see.
Our lorry carries so many love apples.
Our lorry carries so many juicy dreams.
Flowers bloom! O, love apples fall!
When will we arrive in Dover?
The air, O, the air, is getting thinner.
O, the juice of love apples grows thicker.
Flowers bloom! O, love apples fall!
When will we arrive in Dover?
Here at last our lorry arrives in Dover.
It carries fifty-eight young bodies.
Lying on so many, many love apples,
We have dreamt a sweet and sour dream.
Note: In the summer of 2000, sixty young people from Fujian, China got on a tomato lorry from Rotterdam, Holland and headed for England via the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium. In the midnight of 18 June, they arrived in the English Port of Dover. However, fifty-eight of them were choked to death due to closure of the air vent.
I Love You with No Regret
Music by Bruce Goatly Lyrics by Li Yan
I love you with no regret,
No matter if it´s a sweet dream,
No matter how I have broken my heart,
No matter now we have to part.
I love you with no regret,
No matter how I tear,
No matter how in pieces my heart,
No matter how brief we love.
I love you with no regret,
No matter how heaven turns dark,
No matter if the sun no longer shines,
No matter if the moon no longer lights.
I love you with no regret,
Because I see you in my dreams,
Because I love you day by day,
Because I miss you all the time.
Chorus:
Loving you, so sweet and sad,
Loving you, how so much I love you.
O, how I miss the joy I´ve shared with you.
I know you love me. You know I love you.
I love you with no regret.
You have given me so much love.
My tears turn into honey dews.
Who can I love, but love you?
I love you with no regret.
O, birds! O, joy! How we sing!
O, flowers grow out of my heart!
So sweet, sweet, we love!
Let me go back to earth
1. Where everything grows
Let me go back to earth.
That´s where my beans grow.
That´s where my corns grow.
That´s where my tomatoes grow.
That´s where my potatoes grow.
That´s where my carrots grow.
That´s where my cucumbers grow.
That´s where my aubergines grow.
That´s where my pumpkins grow.
That´s where my marrows grow.
That´s where my melons grow.
That´s where my rice grow.
That´s where my wheat grow.
That´s where my apple trees grow.
That´s where my peach trees grow.
That´s where everything grows.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Like a leaf or a seed, buried deep into earth.
It´s warm down there.
Let me take a rest from this tiring life.
Let me take a rest from this cold winter.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
That’s where my old wife is.
She’s been waiting for me, you know.
Night or day, she’s told me many, many times.
She´s made me a new coat.
She´s made me a new hat.
She´s made me a new shirt.
She´s made me a warm bed.
She´s made me a warm duvet.
She´s made me a warm pillow.
She´s made me love.
She´s cooked me my favourite meal.
And I love her cooking.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
That´s where Mum and Dad are.
Not so keen to see Dad, though.
I´m still scared of his walking stick.
But I miss my mum.
I miss her calling.
I miss her hug.
I miss her milk.
And I miss her cooking, too.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
That´s where my grand-parents are.
That´s where my grand-grand-parents are.
That´s where my ancestors are.
I hardly know them.
I’ve never seen them.
Though I´ve heard so much about them.
Dad said they protected me.
So I should show some respect.
I´d better listen to the old man.
Alright, I´ll go to see my granddad and grandmum.
I´ll go to see my grand-grand-parents.
I´ll go to see my ancestors.
I´ll go to show them my respect.
I´ll go to serve them food and wine.
I´ll go to give them their favourite toys.
I´ll go to give them some of my pocket-money.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Bury me.
Bury me.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Don´t let them take me.
Let me go back to earth.
My dog is there.
My cat is there.
My hens are there.
My cows are there.
My goats are there.
My buffalos are there.
My friends are there.
All my neighbours are there.
And that’s where I´ve left my spade and hoe.
Let me go back to earth.
That´s where I’d like to be.
That´s where I should be.
That´s where I want to be.
That´s where I need to be.
No place for me?
Why not?
Why can’t there be a tiny, tiny place for me?
Don´t set fire on me.
I beg you.
Please.
Bury me. Bury me. Bury me.
Please don´t set fire on me.
No, not them again.
In the past, they came from time to time.
Nowadays, they come all the time.
They say my time has come.
They talk to me.
They talk to my children.
They say they’ll burn me.
But I didn´t harm anyone.
Did my dad harm anyone?
Not really except me.
A stick on my head or a kick on my ass.
It doesn´t hurt anymore.
Sometimes, he had a fight.
But nothing serious.
Did my grand-dad harm anyone?
Not that I know.
Any of my ancestors to blame?
Really, I didn´t hurt anyone, did I?
Except those chickens, or ducks, or rabbits, or pigs I ate
But everyone did it.
Why pick on me?
Let me go back to earth.
No, I´m not scared of worms.
They are fine.
I know them, especially the earthworms.
They are gentle and kind.
They promised they’ll look after me
Jut as I had looked after them.
No. No. No. No. No.
I don´t want to go to the air.
It´s not the same.
It´s not the same.
It´s not the same.
They say it´s just the same.
But it´s not the same.
How can I make them understand it´s not the same?
Bury me. Bury me. Bury me.
Please don´t set fire on me.
Why do I have to live so long?
I wish I was dead.
But I´m afraid to be dead.
Not that I´m afraid to be dead.
I´m only afraid to be dead.
I wish I´m dead so I don’t have to see them again.
I wish I´m dead so I don’t have to hear them talk
about fire again.
Why didn´t I die earlier?
Why didn´t I die long time ago.
Why didn´t I die when my old wife was dead?
Why didn´t I die when my old friends were dead?
Why didn´t I die when the old men or women of the
village were all dead?
Oh, my god! Why didn´t you let me die?
Oh, my god! Why do I have to live this long?
Oh, my old god! Why do you let me grow so old?
I´m scared.
I´m scared.
I´m really scared.
I´m scared of fire.
I don’t want to be roasted like a chicken or a rabbit,
or a lamb, or a pig.
Where is my son?
Where is my daughter?
Where is my grandson?
Where is my grand daughter?
Where are you, my children?
Where is everyone?
Don´t let them do this to me.
Let me go back to earth.
I beg you.. I beg you. I beg you. I beg you. I beg you.
Bury me. Bury me. Bury me.
Please don´t set fire on me.
2. This is not a funeral
This is not a funeral.
I don´t have to listen to what the village-chief say.
Not any more.
No, not any more.
This is not a funeral.
He just talks on and on and on.
Why do I still hear him?
I am dead, aren´t I?
This is not a funeral.
No one cries.
No one cries any more.
Not like the old days.
Cry your head off.
Cry your heart out.
Cry like a river after a summer rain.
3. Help
Don’t just sit there.
Do something.
Please.
I beg you. I beg you. I beg you.
Or it´ll be too late.
Take me out.
Take me away.
Take me back to earth.
Help.
Help.
Help.
Help.
Help.
Help me.
Please help me.
Someone, anyone, help me.
Oh, my god! Where are you?
Please, please help me.
Let me go back to earth.
Stop this fire!
Stop this fire!
Stop this fire!
Stop this fire!
Will you stop this fire?
4. It´s too late
Have you ever seen a sheep die?
She just takes the knife with her throat and bleeds
without making a sound.
Have you ever seen a buffalo die?
He has so many tears in his eyes, like a well.
Have you ever seen a dog die?
She barks. She bites. She puts up a good fight.
Have you ever seen a pig die?
He screams to his last breath.
Have you ever seen a duck die?
After some one chops off her head,
She still stumbles to the river without a head on her neck.
Have you ever seen a rooster die?
After a knife slits his throat,
He just keeps flapping his wings as if he wants to fly.
It´s too late now.
I´m homeless.
I have nowhere to go.
A wild ghost, that’s what they call me.
What should I do?
Where should I go?
5. I don´t have a cry
I cry.
I don’t hear a thing.
I cry.
I don´t have a tear.
I cry.
I don´t have a cry.
Will some one take my soul, my wandering soul and
Put me back to earth?
That´s where I can have my peace.
Let me go back to earth.
I beg you, please.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Let me go back to earth.
Hunting in the City
By Li Yan Translated by Li Yan, Jenny Putin and Richard Liu
The weather forecast warns of storms.
The bright sun shines down from a blue sky.
Cars converge on the City from all sides.
Waving their swords, the horsemen are galloping
In a text book.
Riding on tanks, the modern army
Roared into the history museum.
When we motorists come to town,
An eternal smile hangs on the face all day long.
Monkey troupes come down from the forest,
Head for the City,
Grab a VISA,
Pay their way home
And sunbathe under the lost tree.
Trenches of rush are built on the forehead.
Time rolls on as faxes strafe in the air.
Military casualties litter the streets.
Chieftans on the throne drain banquet cups.
Words, laughter and voices ring up $ and £.
An on-call beautican comes to repair your fading face.
Hunting for food but not for the winter.
Cheque books are jammed with meat and vegetables
Sealed in a secret mountain cave.
The drunks in mind stare at
A wild ox trapped by the come and go hunters.
Be kind, please. But the monkeys must rush. So just forget it.
When the sun sets in blood,
Apes go home with steak on their shoulders.
Monkeys have to stay, fighting a war that´s ended
LIZ CRUSE
Psyche Come Home
(for my friends, wishing them happiness and the blessings of the gods)
Intent as tightrope walkers
They pass together through night´s nuptial garden.
All their paths are necklaced with lights, trees laden
With lucent fruit, mirrored in the sapphire
Of the pool between the columns.
Clangour of instruments wakes their wedding day:
Archaic horns out of a fantasy of Babylon
Blare epithalamic overtures;
A tachycardia of drumming
Speeds us to the threshold of union
Under marigold garlands and scarlet parasols.
Draped in white and gold,
Hung with aureate chains and filigree,
She is ushered to her marriage rites.
Flickers of incandescence attend her:
A flock of salamandrical goldfinches
In the hands of bright silked girls.
Uncertain conference with priests is edged with carboniferous smoke,
Harried by electronic bustle and flash of photographers,videographers,
And we plain Europeans, become exotic,
Skipping over sand that sears our soles,
Are photographed between coconut palms
By the Malayalam press.
Beyond the lagoon the monsoon breakers
Throw up depth charged foam.
From the awning of the mandap
I see it, as glorious and unreal as a painted backdrop
While rose petals, pink as fondant sweets,
Shower down around them.
He hangs a golden necklace around her neck,
Hard as the opposition of families,
Precious as the long anticipated life to come.
Garlanded in white and crimson they stand together
Parvati come to Shiva; Psyche´s tasks accomplished;
Eros, long since seen, now claimed.
So memories thread themselves like beads on a rosary
Along the flight paths that highwire their way in time out of time
From Trivandrum to Abu Dhabi and on to Heathrow
Until I am delivered from unpredictable poetry of India,
Into the familiar prosody of London streets.
2004
Prufrock´s Mermaid
Muscular as snake under coruscation of scales
My finned tail, mackerel iridescent, grips granite,
Reflects rainbows, sunshot water, stippled skies.
Over my breasts I comb my hair with fishbone,
Leaving it unsnarled
To float and flow, drift in the moon-dreamt tides.
Echoes in my song the sea light before dawn
And my sisters take up the aria of the stars,
Brothers reprise the clarion call of morning
And swimmers, baffled by the water, drown.
We have risen, breathing aqueous winds,
To weep with tears of air this unexperienced shore.
My seventh sister
Lives on land.
Tail crudely forked
She walks on knives,
Should leave behind
Gouts of blood clotted,
Sea anemones
Deserted by the tide.
Tongue sliced out
In the garden of death
Where polyps writhe
Now she swims silent,
Drowned
In the blind vision
Of a high-born boy.
She does not hear our song.
Under Venus shell sky of evening
I keep her vigil.
The deeps call me.
Should I plunge with the whales,
Humpback, blue, narwhal, finn, spermaceti?
Flirt with dolphins, shimmer through herring shoals?
Shall I chase penguins through Antarctic seas?
Explore the deep sea trench where rare light comes
Only from luminous eyes, from sulphurous vents
Where tectonic partings show volcanic fire?
Will I swim down to wrecks and giant squid,
Consort with skeletons of sailors,
Score my fish flesh on jagged reefs of rusting fleets,
Bruise my white arms
Against containered cargoes, split and barnacled?
I may at hazard, seize untarnished coins;
Dig in the sedimenting ooze to claim
Cups of porcelain, daggers of black silver;
Play among corroding shadows of mines,
Missiles, uranium enriched, unspent;
Weave between the metal rain of mortal war
Whose ships flotilla on the surface of our oceans.
A dive perilous, fraught with tooth of shark,
Toxin of man-at-war, shock of eel and ray,
For all its siren chance of treasure.
Shall I after all
Sit on this rock
Scrying my mirror,
Singing to my sister?
On the brink of the boundless sea.
SUZANNE and KEITH DRAKE
DISCOVERY (female voice)
The bottom dropped out
I had to scream and shout
I went round the bend
On hearing of your little friend
Almost a teenager
So they say.
Pretty in an anaemic way.
The Esso station´s
Female assistant
The one who looks
A bit vague and distant.
You´d had my life.
Gift wrapped, you weasel
I hope her knickers
Smell of diesel!
KEITH DRAKE May 2009
Oh go and jump in the Bospherous, darling
That´s exactly what you said
Then you flew back to England
And wished me a long time dead.
The first minutes of the rest of my life
Had only just begun
But the astringency of that remark
in the officers mess, the boom..boom of my heart.
Blocked out the Turkish sun.
And I remember the message on the Kleenex box
When I was just a boy
The stark blue lettering read:
PULL TEAR USE DESTROY!
KEITH DRAKE
JAMES EASTON
James Easton is a 24 year old rapper / poet from Kent and has recently moved to East London. He started rapping at age 18 after being a big fan of UK Hip Hop for many years previous. He had various shows and even a few rap battles for the UK´s largest battle league ´Don´t Flop´. At age 23 he went travelling to Australia, and unable to record, but the creative intuitiveness still nagging him, he began to write Spoken word, a cross between rap and poetry. After returning home he continued to peruse this and is now performing at shows and has released his first video which hit 3,000 views in just 3 weeks. He writes from the heart and never forces his words to ensure it´s coming from a pure place. A strong performance and stage presence combined with his words will have you paying attention to the very end.
Beautiful Basics
Take me back to the days with no video games,
And stick me in a cave by an open flame,
Back to the roots before we became,
what we´ve grown into as time slipped away,
As a race we´ve been accustomed to waste our physical traits,
That helped us to gain, food through hunting,
Building shelter for warmth,
Escape through running and using our legs to actually walk,
Now we sit in front of computers,
Microwave meals, get food delivered,
Small kids with iPhones, young spirits are hindered
Getting quickly conditioned becoming cogs in the system,
I speak with conviction for these blindly led victims,
A stream of generations slowly erasing,
The nature of evolution through embracing sedation,
Let´s take it back, rise with the sun
And fall, when it fades,
Meditate and refrain from making mistakes,
That you may have made the previous day,
In the face of a world that sees change and hates,
Don´t be afraid, follow your instinct,
Make conscious decisions and let your gut do the thinking
You
As the rain falls, so do my thoughts, Tears from the sky, one giant eye over seeing what we call life
Some search for a meaning, or put faith in a higher power, Failing to acknowledge that we’re all here now, And this time is ours,
It´s up to no one but you to chose how it´s used,
Infuse your inner truth, with whatever you do,
Feel a passion burning, the outcome, will be worth it
Relaxed, but hurtling towards it
The end result is undetermined
And to think about the end, is to miss the greatness of the present
A sheer excellence is evident when remembering our relevance,
We´ve all got a part to play, it´s more than a game,
Time is an amenity I can´t afford to waste,
So there´s a power of chase,
-To keep giving the gift I´ve been given, by hearing my thoughts,
And letting them transform into scriptures,
Find your lane, your talent,
The artist within, love what you do
To deny yourself of it,
There´s, a real sin
RHIAN EDWARDS
Marital Visit
It´s her visiting time
which presses the pause,
makes you follow me downstairs
and shepherd me out of the door.
I sigh the train South,
unearth my unwanted habits,
remind all my rooms
to smell of me again.
Like the man who threw a party
but didn´t dare touch a drop,
you busy yourself in the tidying,
the rounding up of my scraps.
The ritual begins with the clearing
away of my face; foundation, lipstick,
powder, concealer, the wooden brush
cobwebbed with my unyielding knots.
Everything strewn like toys on the surface
of her kidney-shaped dressing table,
is gathered and bagged
as on the day they had the nerve to arrive.
You empty the shelves of my skin
the eczema ointments, the bottled fake tan,
the perfume you bought on a whim
that patched me in rashes.
Flicked over the edge,
my pieces topple into the dark of the bag,
where they chink together
as if to toast their reunion.
Your wife lets herself in,
carries herself across the threshold,
she smiles at her hallway,
sniffing me everywhere.
Sick Bed
It went as far as the eyes,
stirred something up, stitching them shut.
The morning I woke to the immediate black,
eyelids padlocked, I howled for myself.
The tears had nowhere to go, they stayed put,
dammed up against thin walls of skin.
In the blacked out room, you let
me lie on you again.
You dabbed and circled pink ointment
into the mohair itch of my body,
while I wriggled, sickened
most at being put back in nappies.
You touched my cheek and palms
with the cool plastic of toys,
I heard you in the doorway, watching
with your hand on your hip?
You did the crying for me,
smoking cigarettes in prayer.
PENNY FAULKNER
Penny Faulkner grew up in the West Country and lived in Edinburgh for ten years before moving to London in 2011, where she works as a hospital teacher and home tutor for the London Borough of Sutton. She began writing poetry as a student, and has had work published in The Eildon Tree and V:New Writing from Edinburgh
Birdsong
Tonight is a hammock strung between
coffee and conversations; a knotted mesh that strains
beneath the weight of sleeplessness.
The sharpened blade of a blackbird´s song
……….planes the darkness. Corkscrews
………..of dawn soften the asphalt
…………sky, rings around fingers
………..small enough to prise
……….the concrete open
………and make a nest
……..of rough-skinned
…….hope, an overflow
……………of fluted
……………questions.
A sheet of ruckled cloud conceals
the polished grain of early morning; birdsong quavers
within a hedgerow of unbudded thoughts.
Penny Faulkner
Departure
A gate scrapes across a grey roofed dusk
until the yard becomes nothing
but a pulse of sounds; a broom swept across cobbles,
the clang of a bucket on stone
and the quiet, sparse words of the dairymen
who talk of their families, and the weather, and of Christmas.
The twilight creaks and drips. A white-tipped tail
twitches a semaphore of fear and need,
slips through a rotten fence, and disappears.
Cows tear the grass. A bell chimes, resonating
through pasture land and into terraced streets
of charred red bricks, and stripped, bedraggled trees.
Sodden fields cling to every homeward step
then let go suddenly, in a gasp of mud and air.
Warped by fog and smoke, the moon is a yellow bruise
above a future of straight lines; lean gardens sloping
to a slatted fence, and then a chaos of brambles
and the distant canter of a train.
Penny Faulkner
ANDY V. FROST
Andy V.Frost is a 50 years old Merton Biker who has been writing and performing poetry for the past twelve years. His likes are all good music, good cinema, live poetry, natural beauty, motorcycles and any excuse to ride them. He has often been found at the side of the road writing to the rhythm of his engine with a fly-peppered smile on his face.
2,000 Miles on a Motorcycle, Why?
I ride alone,
At my own pace,
My course,
No need to race,
With you,
Or any other brethren.
This is my way.
And the stillness in my mind,
Is the road beating time,
Mile after mile after mile,
A thrumming meditation,
Carrying me through,
To a new Nirvana.
´Till I reach where I´m bound for,
Switch off the machine,
Standing silent inside,
The following moments,
For I still hum to the tune of the engine,
The rhythm of the asphalt,
And the song of the curves in the mountains.
Andy V. (Frost) 28/08/07
8/08/11: A personal recollection of the Croydon Riots
Places I know are no longer whole,
I saw them in flames yesterday.
A mixture of sadness, anger and pain,
Worried and scared for my friend,
A wall of fire between her and her home,
A war-zone,
Me, wall-to-wall live coverage and a phone,
Trying to reach out,
Find her,
Guide her,
Wanting to hire a tank to go and get her
so I could hold her and keep her safe from the madness.
Hundreds were going through this,
Not just us,
But I don´t think I´ve ever felt so alone.
Places I know are no longer whole,
I saw their ashes today.
Andy V. Frost or. 9/08/11 v7. 14/07/12 MP/WW Anthology version
LESLEY HALE
Lesley Hale is a reader, writer and performer of poems, living in St Ives where she is now thoroughly retired. Her poems have been published in journals including Poetry Cornwall and South. This year she has contributed to anthologies for Loose Muse and Poems for Freedom.She last read at the Poetry Café in December 2012 and looks forward to being in such talented company again.
Gannet flute
A long-winged gannet flies above a rock of stammering birds
that lift themselves in sudden silence
to form lines across the cove.
Mackerel ride the currents
flow in shoals around the bay
wind into silver balls
bait the scanning birds.
Black-tipped
torpedoes
foam the sea
salvos of divers
drill the shoals.
Gannets feeding.
Crashed at 60 miles an hour
the bird is broken
floating
to the shore.
A flute is fashioned from the wing
the hollow bone carved with holes
finger tips engineer a rising sound
lips feather breath.
Lesley Hale
LISA HITCHEN
Missing
A fifth of me is gone, walked out.
Smell, the most powerful
yet subtle sense of all.
Whalloping stink or tiniest perfume
don´t word stir, stir anything.
Washing flung across the house
is sweat wet but absent.
Tomato leaves don´t tango my tastebuds.
Your body, your face, your mouth,
hold their warmth and texture
but don´t carry you,
with triple thrill, to my brain.
Eating is the bare preserve
of tongue with its restricting palate.
I provoke nasal work out.
Vacum up rose with my nose.
Slice onion, sniff catfood,
there´s no response.
Only a sense of what I knew.
The absence of a lifetime friend,
that gave me colour, warning
of bad foods, fumbled farts,
of who not to fuck.
The sharpest and keenest gift,
made me chocolate tender,
radared for rotten breath,
or the lust of orange cardamon.
Tea is for the scent addict.
Its easel of spices,
bound to a cup,
is nothing to me now.
Healing will take striking
nasal engines back to work.
I must wait.
23/9/07
ARDELLA JONES
Writes numbers but not words,He´s learnt to speak in cockney,To Bosnians and Kurds.Jamaicans, Nigerians,He greets with “What a gwan?”Iraqis, Algerians,”A Salaam Alaikum”He cuts beef corti cortiChicken chinga chingaLeaves the lamb deghi deghiChops ghost chops when you ready.He sports a diamond earring,Hair gel, a mobile phone.Says “It cool” and “Ting and ting””You want that on the bone?”Potato head, he calls his mate,That´s aloo head to you,”My English she not very great,”He shrugs “But what to do?”:While women wait inside the shopHe still comes over shyHis hands chop chop non-stopThrough bellies, breasts and thigh.Sometimes his green eyes lingerCan´t help but go astray,He´s nearly lost a finger
But still he chops away.
Tooting´s a confusing mix
Blood, money, lust and joy,
And Women with alluring tricks
To tempt an Afghan boy.
This poem is dedicated to our mendacious friends Tony and George. It´s called….
MINISTRY of TRUTH
Extraordinary rendition
Sounds like a musical accolade
Collateral damage
Something for which insurance can be paid.
Friendly fire
Should be cosy, warm and nice
Theatre of War
Is surely starring Vincent Price
Blue on Blue
May sound rude to you
But what is actually true
Is that these linguistic compromises
Are just shoddy shabby disguises
For when truth bleeds and dies
Buried under bloody lies.
EISHA KAROL
I always want to leave via the window
Cut-out buildings against the sky
Just like they were in Salvador
And the moon that pulls, pulls, pulls
I don´t know whether my face is smiling or sad
Only that I can’t hold it in the way you do
I want to belong but I can’t
Trying to leave the room before it happens
The umbrella ignites in my chest
My feet leave the ground
The sun bursts out of my face
Carrying me up away from the party
Over the stone church spire
LISA KELLY
Lisa Kellyis half English and half Danish and is learning Danish very slowly. She is a freelance journalist living in London, specialising in technology, but please don´t ask her to sort out your printer. Her pamphlet Bloodhound is published by Hearing Eye. She regularly hosts poetry evenings at the Torriano Meeting House in London. A&E was recently published in The Spectator in February this year and Ø is in the latest issue of The Interpreter´s House.
A&E
If this waiting is hellish, then the sick are limbo dancing;
only those who are bent double, or on the floor, puddles
of their former selves, have a hope of getting under the bar,
progressively lowered as more contorted squeeze through.
If the woman in a white coat is god, then the boy with bleeding hands
has stigmata, the man with closed eyes on the stretcher is Lazarus,
and the toddler pushing donkey-on-wheels up and down,
up and down, is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
If this is a place of worship, then the grey kidney-shaped receptacles
are donation plates passed around for contributions from the faithful,
hopeful they are worthy of saving. If this is where you think the wait
will end within four hours, then think again, the end is always waiting.
Ø
Danish for island
a new word
new world
to explore
My tongue
tastes the sound of Ø
touches its shores
its limits
My mouth has a Caliban look
monsterish in expressiveness
and more ridiculously
round than Ø
Surrounded by a sea of white
Ø is what it means
but I can´t possess
even this small word
The axis cutting
north east to south west
makes Ø
a No Entry sign
I dream of Ø, wishing
it in my blood
as the English sound
that comes so easily, it is thoughtless
Ø floats
like those white blood cells
that gave my mother
& her tongue life
I will navigate Ø
the line going through
is a river perhaps
and will lead to fresh water
LARA KENNEDY
Lara Kennedy Welsh word-lover whose writing is inspired by Ancient Greek and Roman poetry as much as by that squirrel in the park who just came over to say hello. I cannot remember a time when I didn´t write poetry, and now a firm believer in following your bliss, I have recently decided to take writing poetry “seriously”, whatever that means …
Kernels
The squirrel, a teacher
Most beloved.
Whose classroom has no door,
Whose lesson: The art
Of being humble.
For it stumbles on kernels
Again and again.
Given and given,
Each cone a token
Of generosity
The highest majesty
Bestows.
Seeds, though preferring
The shade beneath blades,
Are as the dew drops
Delighting in the light,
Both threads that trace back
To the selfsame night.
And in fairness, so too,
Does each gift receive its like.
Thirst
For each cup of coffee
Bitter, sweet life do I crave.
A patch on the tongue
Perpetually parched,
A body for a mouth,
And by this vessel is it drunk.
Each step a sip,
Each word a gulp,
Each embrace a long draw.
A thirst rivalled
Only by the mouths of rivers,
The body of water
Fearing dryness
So all-consuming
The drinking is
Neverending.
For a curse in disguise
Is each water droplet,
Wrapped in its aqua cloak
The seed of salt
Cultivates greater thirst
Than before, always more
Always more.
But Thirst, do not mistake
These words for complaints
Flames… from which you run,
For the heat that hits your ears
Is that of air.
Yet if you leave,
Eyes follow your lead
And pour forth
To douse the embers
Marking the spot
Where once you stood.
For longing changes not form,
Only direction towards
The object of affection,
And in your absence,
Water would lose its lustre
And desire would seek
That which desires it … Thirst,
By which all else is birthed.
And charged with my birth,
So too shall this thirst
Release my body
When the time is done.
The pursuit of life
Outrunning this skin,
And a cup filled to the brim
Is raised to my lips,
The last of its kind,
For now in water
Do I swim.
And Life, here is my
Outstretched hand,
Extending not to clasp the cup
But to grasp that which
Lifts it,
A handshake our signatures.
Bringing cups of perspiration
The footprints of hard work,
Glasses half empty with tears,
The loss of which
Attests the loss for which they weep,
And a fountain spouting
Vapour so fine
Every eye would deny it,
Every heart live by it.
To quench …our vow,
The dependence … mutual,
For I too, feed you.
CHARLOTTE KNOWLES-CUTLER
Charlotte Knowles–Cutler is a member of Caterham sixth form from Kent. Having recently turned 17, Charlotte has found her love of poetry has only increased and evolved with age as she finds her true style in spoken word and performance poetry. In her spare time, Charlotte cooks, daydreams and reads far too much Sylvia Plath.
Vacancy Sign
This anonymous highway
We hightail the aged tarmac in the solitude
Of our own minds
Humming darkness holds me silent
Pyramids playing
Road signs swaying
By vacancy after vacancy sign
Neon in our vacant state
Each roadside homestead
As empty as our conversations
For everything I long to say to you
I choke upon the cloying words
This is a love of the worst kind
Infatuated, blind
Nothing good will come of should, would, could
Nothing sweet from bitter hearts
Nothing sure from this roulette
Furthest thing from heaven sent
And like these beaten up motels
I wear a flickering vacancy sign upon my chest
By Charlotte Knowles–Cutler
Letter to Westboro
Do you believe in God?
Are you blind in your need to be saved?
And could you condemn a stranger
If they´re lesbian or gay?
Does His judgement work this way?
Does your conscience have no say?
Is mindless, muted puppet
The role you sought to play?
Do you believe in love?
Prevailing through darkest despair
Do you call it human instinct?
Or a cross that we must bear?
Dependence in comparison to air?
Intrinsic desire for acceptance we share?
If God is love, all love is good,
Your judgement can´t be fair
Do you believe in choice?
Can you shape what you do, who you are?
Or does God write out your story
As you simply play your part?
Attractions no decisions, I don´t need your God´s permission
I won´t let Church nor State dictate
The direction of my heart
So fuck your pointless legislate
And fuck religion as an excuse for hate
Sexuality´s not a choice; it´s innate
So if I meet Peter at Heaven´s gates
And he slams your God´s doors in my face
I won´t know up from down
On Hell I´ll smile, Heaven frown
STUART LARNER
Stuart Larner is a chartered psychologist. As Mental Health Expert, he ran an advice column for XL for Men Magazine. He has published international articles and poems in magazines and newspapers, as well as in scientific journals. He has been involved in scriptwriting and directing productions at the Edinburgh Fringe. Stuart published Scarborough Modern Sea Songs; an ebook in verse “Jack Daw and the Cat” and an enovel about cricket entitled ;Guile and Spin” http://stuartlarner.blogspot.com/
Map Reading
“This is where we started from,” you say.
A feeble line, on uncertain ground,
Wispy as your hair once on my coat.
“This is where we think we went,” you say.
A wavering contour took us round
And back, though no higher, yet so close.
“This is where we meet again,” you say.
Looking for pointers is how we found
Each other, when thinking we were lost.
first published Kansas City Voices (Volume 10),2012
The Cellotape Dispenser
Clung to its roll cellotape hides, clever,
Clearly eluding the keenest nail and eyes
That search its circumference for ever
Tensely hunting the slightest nick to prise.
Like cellotape we hide the tortured end
Of life´s crude tears and long twisting stresses
And when we are called upon again some part to mend
Our strengths tangle into weaknesses.
But the dispenser, a friend of measure,
Will keep an outstretched hand so clear and free.
The cutter zips. The bond grows with pressure
And clearly through it all we learn to see
How with simple help at various lengths
From weaknesses can come our greatest strengths.
first broadcast on:17/06/1995 The Northern Line,Huddersfield FM Community Radio
first published in:15/11/1995 Huddersfield Examiner,Huddersfield Newspapers Ltd
ANNE MACAULAY
Anne Macaulaywas brought up in rural, northern Scotland but, since meeting her husband in the 70s, has embraced urban life in East London. Proud mother of two grown up children, with 30 years immersed in Education, she now wants to focus more on her writing and loving the Arts!
Premiere
A stuttering cine projects her onto the sitting room wall,
first screen appearance … a once-blue bobbled
cotton t shirt sculpts her teenage breasts as closely
as a silver screen starlet´s little black dress; and,
though lipstick-lacking, her lips still pout a sultry smile
before the mock bite of the fish slippery in her hands,
shining its silver belly and fins while a child´s scrawls
of thick black felt tip zigzag across its back
over scales of pale greenish blue phosphorescence.
Mackerel, that morning´s catch, glistening lemmings to the lines,
lie twitching in the bucket in the bottom of the boat next to the baler
for the leak (only slight, not really dangerous her father said).
She takes the knife as she´d been shown, blade upwards,
to slit its silver belly in a straight line from the tail to the head,
and plunges in, pulling out the innards, and,
hands gutsmeared, she smiles, eyes open wide
lashes, unmascara´d, but ready and willing to flutter at the lens,
long fair hair billowing, blown by real wind not machine.
Saturday Night
And she runs all the way in the middle of the treelined road,
black and red baseball boots stick to the white lines, the only
thing visible in the black of nearly midnight, the final deadline.
Teeshirt and Levis cling to her damp skin, breaths rasp in her
taut throat, chest tom tomming at the hoot of that owl
gliding just past her ear in the choking, cloaking dark.
Behind, on the rounded stones by the edge of the Spey, others,
still lolling, laughing by the fire, glug bottles of Bulmers
and cans of Tennents, heads tipped back and slurring smiles.
She knew she shouldn´t have stayed out so long, she knew,
she knew … a futile cyclone in her mind of trying to remember
the what and where and who …her pretexts for this forbidden fun.
She called it fun but wasn´t sure she really had enjoyed herself,
not ready for a part in the giggling fumbling, not able to go home
with alcohol on her breath …and it was so, so late, nearly the Sabbath.
The final stretch into the village, heart pounding in time with her feet,
relief at streetlights and owls gone, but the biggest fear still present:
framed on the doorstep, furrowed brow and blazing blue eyes.
Anne Macaulay
AMY McALLISTER
Amy Mc Allisterhas featured at spoken word nights around the UK and Ireland including Tongue Fu, Stand Up and Slam, Jawdance, Sage and Time, The Bus Driver´s Prayer, Hammer and Tongue, and The Monday Echo, and she is the current London Antislam Champion. She read at the Royal Festival Hall as part of Sylvia Plath´s Ariel with Frieda Hughes and has also performed live on NTS Radio as a guest on the Re:Versed show. More recently, Amy was Angel Underground Station´s poet in residence as part of Transport for London´s ´Travel Better London´ campaign. She is published in Rhyming Thunder Young Poets´ Anthology and in several editions of South Bank Poetry Magazine and her own collection is coming out later this year. Amy is also an actress and recent credits include Philomena, Call the Midwife, Holby City, and Emmerdale. For more info, visit amymcallisterpoetry.wordpress.com .
Mistress
He said ´If I didn´t have this
Cold sore I´d kiss you´.
I said ´Is “cold sore” the
Nickname you give to your wife?´
We bought the furniture we were
Sitting on and I didn´t
Keep the receipt.
I knew there´d be no need.
PAUL McGRANE
Paul McGrane is co-founder of Forest Poets in Walthamstow, and Membership Manager at the Poetry Society. His poems have appeared in several publications and anthologies including South Bank Poetry, The Morning Star, the Templar Poetry Anthology, and the upcoming Penguin anthology The Poetry of Sex.
Charlton Heston
Although he isn´t I know exactly
who he is the God I don´t believe in
the God I don´t believe in is a man
he wears white hair white robes white all over
skin
from the Bible and not the Koran
the God I don´t believe in
this might sound racist
I find it hard to express
how I don´t believe in my God
but in your God less
it´s not my fault
daily School and Sunday School
taught me all I shouldn´t know
Heaven is above Hell is down below
cloud inhabiter finger pointer
can´t crack a joke
Charlton Heston
could have played that bloke
or his non existent son
Paul McGrane
The Wake
Saw, just now, a picture in the paper
someone has thrown on the floor in the Square.
They´ve given her a different name, a daughter,
and a mother who is only forty-four.
If asked to put an age on her,
I´d have stabbed at fifty-something-or-other.
First time, I thought, I´ve clocked her in colour.
Here´s to the offy, the boozer, and the bar.
She would show me the stars,
The Big Dipper, Cassiopeia.
Would go on about how constant they are,
etc.
Here´s to the moon and the sun and the cider.
She would cry a lot. Had a great big scar
on her shoulder, a blackeye bruise under
her breast. Let me run a finger,
slowly, over one and (once) the other.
And here´s to the rise and the fall of the shutters.
Last night, for what feels like thirty six hours,
they blocked me from walking to the river
and the underpass they built to keep us warm.
Another drink, I may remember more.
Paul McGrane
HELEN MORT
Helen Mort was born in Sheffield and lives in Cambridge. Her pamphlet, “The Shape of Every Box”, was published by Tall-Lighthouse in 2007, the same year she received an Eric Gregory award from The Society of Authors.
A winner of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award on five occasions between 1997 and 2004, Helen has published work in The Rialto, Dreamcatcher and the Times Educational Supplement. She has performed her work at the Ledbury Festival, The Oxford Literary Festival and, more recently, in Buckingham Palace.
From her home in Cambridge, she organises a Poetry Society ‘Stanza’ and a writing society for students. In her spare time she runs marathons and climbs in the Peak District. Over the years, Helen has scribbled poems furtively at work in pharmacies, pubs, nightclubs and now tries to jot them down in offices. A first collection is slowly materialising.
http://www.tall-lighthouse.co.uk * ww.cb1poetry.org.uk * www.christs.cam.ac.uk/milton400 *www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/membership/stanzas *http://international.poetryinternationalweb.org
” Carnation”
They´ve built a Body Shop
in the old butcher´s district
caul and pig skin giving way
to coconut oil, jojoba,
as if the cloying air
should remind us there´s no such thing
as a simple kindness
like the spring carnations
fetched from earth to roadside
and, while you wait, beheaded
for your buttonhole.
CLARE MULLEY
Clare Mulley was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and majored in English and Scottish Literature at the University of St Andrews, where she studied 20th Century British and Irish poetry with Don Paterson and was a regular performer at StAnza poetry festival. She was accepted onto the prestigious Christopher Tower Poetry Summer School at Christchurch College, Oxford in 2012, and has since been published by Christchurch Press and The Great British Write-Off. Clare is now a member of The Highgate Poets, and is currently shortlisted to become London´s next Young Poet Laureate. She regularly attends Poet In The City and other open mic nights around London.
The Rhubarb and Grandad
The corner where they can be found has little to commend it,
Only that sunlight and voices do not penetrate so harshly
Leaving room for sounds of water.
This isn´t sweetness as the easy picking gives from low-slung berries
Where the sugar glows, a Chinese lantern in the sheltering green,
But only in the making.
It is necessary for a nail to seek the crease between the rind and flesh,
And with a bowing motion, gently draw the centre from itself
In corkscrew skeins of wear.
Sitting, not smiling too hard, in the silence of another´s thought,
I try to shed the skins distance has grown on us, to softly call
To something gone to earth.
Death of a character
Who comes to view the body? There are none.
His words, his wit, his spirits have been quaffed
And praised and drunk again; some even laughed
To think of him that way…a catch undone,
A shattered bust, a topsail without wind …
The man who never spoke when he could curse
Or beam, or bellow, threaten, spit (or worse)
Made history in a second. “God was kind
To take him at his best.” They never saw
A man who left his face at his front gate,
Who, wide-eyed through the small hours, lay in wait
For meatless fingers scratching at his door,
Wondering that silence had so loud a tread,
And if to be unseen was to be dead.
KATRINA NAOMI
Pinochet´s Garden
Punctured gasps of bog cotton in the marsh by the stream
only he knew the way through. He liked his knowledge.
He had the gardeners dowse selected plants on the hour,
every hour, calibrating which were the last to droop.
He admired cacti for their instinct, their endurance,
liked the sweat of his greenhouse, the heat forced to its limit.
He logged what could survive, beyond the open mouths
of orchids. He knew all their Latin names.
As a boy, he’d snipped the heads off lilies, now
he wanted beauty, found comfort in the red wounds of roses.
One task he retained; no one was allowed to shoo the birds
from the lawn. He hung his catapult from a hook.
His blooms won prizes. His soil, rich. Bone meal rich.
Katrina Naomi, from ” The Girl with the Cactus Handshake” (Templar Poetry 2009)
Charlotte Bronte´s Corset
I´m sorry Charlotte for this disservice.
Of course, your corset is discoloured,
these padded cups no longer coral pink.
Strips of whale plunge the depths
of your bodice, the slightly rusty metal strip
grips from breastbone to wasp-waist.
I feel like a tabloid reporter, sniffing around
the armholes of your life.
…………………….I once wore a corset
in my late teens, black PVC over a black skirt,
fishnets and suede stilettos. I didn’t know
a lot of things then, hardly knew who I was,
had barely heard of you. So what gives
me the right to go searching through
your smalls, to lay out your stays
in the library?
…………………….I don´t have so many scruples,
can´t be tight laced. I need to breathe
the length of my lungs. And I do know
I´ve made your tiny body so much larger
than in life. Forgive me, my waist
is so very different to yours.
Other Theresa
“Nice singing” – John Hegley,
“Sharper than Lorena Bobbit´s best steak knife” – Niall O´Sullivan (compere: Poetry Unplugged & The Cellar),
“Pam Ayres for Generation X” – Niall Spooner-Harvey (Farrago UK slam champion)
“Victoria Woods with tourettes”- audience member
Other Theresa surfaced from the smog after a night down the Poetry Café in Covent Garden. From there, she vented her voice at various venues, mostly in London and the South East.
Now, she´s proud to be on the E17 scene, getting lyrical and satirical with spiky poetry, salacious songs and banter. Life has taught her how to be sickeningly shallow and dangerously deep.
She´s performed across the UK at a range of top venues including Manchester´s Green Rooms, The Pop Cafe; London´s Hackney Empire, Theatre Royal Stratford East, The Poetry Cafe and RADA.
Other Theresa has worked with famous names including World Slam champion Kat Francois, popular rap poet, MC Shortman, plus the legendary John Hegley and most recently, die-hard punk poet, Atilla the Stockbroker.
EVE PEARCE
Eve Pearce has been an actress all her life. Born in Aberdeen she came to London at the age of 12 and regards herself as a Scottish Londoner. She started to write poetry in Katherine Gallacher´s workshops, and in 2007 John Rety published her pamphlet WOMAN IN WINTER (Hearing Eye): and in 2012 her First Collection CAPTURING SNOWFLAKES, together with a CD, LEFT TAE´ TELL THE TALE, was published by Greenheart Press.
ANDROMACHE´S LULLABY
Today you are anchored to my belly
and I am rocking you, rocking you
your fine gold hair on my shoulder
a scarf of grief
They will come soon to take you away
to dash you from the highest rock…
we all know the place, overlooking Troy.
I don´t want to do this, says the Greek herald
He looks kind. I believe him.
No doubt he has children of his own.
The women are keening, beating their breasts
No words come to me, no tears
I rock you my son, my only son…
Hector´s child … golden one
Sleep now my love, so that the moment
when they snatch you from me
may be as a dream, and you wake only
to a flash of blue and your father´s arms
I am rocking you now
rocking and praying to Zeus to save you —
to Hera, Queen of Heaven
such a little boy
to add you to her family
The Herald says it is time
My arms tighten round you
I bless your astonished eyes,
bluer than the skies above.
I call your name:
I let you go
LANG TAE WAIT
Weel, ancient I may be, bit a Granny,
I´d lang tae wait, thocht it wud nivir cum,
bit life´s a funny thing, ye cannae
tell when it´ll deal a body blow, or sum
wee pressie … jist when ye´d gied up hope
and thocht ye wernae fit; and ye´d better be,
for Grannies are aye on call, so dinnae mope,
be a´ready fur the crisis, bit see
ye´re nae mouthin´ the borin´ platitude:
aye weel, this is the way I used tae dae it.
The wurld his changed, ditch that attitude,
aye weel, this is the way I used tae dae it.
The wurld his changed, ditch that attitude,
CARLA PECORELLI
Carla Pecorelli
about me:my family is from Italy but I was born in Brasil (so,I speak Portuguese-but I’m not from Portugal) www.carlapecorelli.com (my site)
ALL RIGHT
So cold when break your heart
Move on
Love turns away
Like foreigners, loneliness, incomplete, a cloudy day
I never let you down
Because you hands still with me
City lights
Breeze across the sea
Tell me it´s all right
What are you waiting for?
When you begin…
Tell me it´s all right
I wonder how
Ringing in my ears
Tell me it´s all right
I would not leave you
I never would
I could ever touch your face
Because your eyes still with me
Like morning light, bluish light
“Don’t push me aside”
Some time to breath
Once I had your love, your smile
One real think and I shed tears
Baby I could pray
I will try my dear
Words and Music:Carla Pecorelli Guitar ,vocals and harmonicas:Carla Pecorelli
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.USED BY PERMISSION.
PAULINE SEWARDS
I have been writing and studying poetry for several years, while working in healthcare. I´ve been published in small press magazines, including South Bank Poetry and enjoy reading and listening to poetry live.
A rough guide to the ghosts of Venice
At one Carnival some sprinkled rice flour
on the tumors of their skin
to hide the plague,
weak, but fortified
with grappa, they danced
like crazy to make one last seduction.
In the city built on trees bolted into mud
and turned to stone, death
is a refrain… ground
into reflected stone
the air smells of bitter herbs
skulls jeer at angels in stoic fascination.
It is often hard to find the line dividing
land and water, air from mist,
iridescence shines
on a pigeon´s breast,
all this he would have loved
is loving now beside you in imagination
GI Bride
It was bit of thrill…we weren´t meant to admit it.
Uniforms in High St, those creamy stateside accents.
All a bit of a puzzle…we didn´t understand it,
the black troops separate from the white officers,
friends said there was bad stuff going down,
all I knew was the thrill. Getting bussed in to the dances,
Saturday nights at the aerodrome…big bands
in the officers mess, the boom..boom of my heart.
He was gorgeous in uniform, smelled clean
unlike a dairy farmer or a clunch ploughman, he was
Washington DC or New England in the fall.
I was a jitterbug in faced up cottons, ink drawn seam
imitating stockings, my fingernails tarted up
with green enamel. Don´t you know there´s a War on?
Mother said. I did – that’s why I kissed so hard.
Pauline Sewards
RICHARD SCOTT
Richard Scott studied poetry at The Faber Academy and went on to win The Wasafiri New Writing Prize and was selected as a Jerwood/ Arvon Poetry Mentee. His poetry has been published twice in Poetry Review and twice in Poetry London.
Jeanne Baré Observes the Inlet
Roosting starlings watch the river continue
its labour. Anglers draw their boats up
onto the sand, erasing the hoof prints of cattle
who retreat into the violet cedars.
And as if they know they are alone
perch rise up out of the dark,
wake the inlet and drive the water mad
grasping for damselfly, beetles, boatmen,
mosquitoes, hawk moth and paper wasp.
This water sport soundtracks the dusk
inestimable leaps into that other world
through the fearsome belt of oxygen.
All of us are capable of great change;
you only have to watch the fish transform
into dark birds swooping the surface at enormous speed
to know.
Richard Scott
LIZZIE SHIRLEY Singing/songwriter of political and more personal material. Has sung all over , including Italy, France, Sweden, USA, Edinburgh Festival, and GB etc, and TV and Radio.
“..sings as sweetly as anyone in Edinburgh.” SCOTSMAN
” .. a rare and ringing voice.”
” …’equally talented in both arts” TIME OUT
” …a born performer” SOUTH LONDON PRESS
1
maybe next time
maybe next time
I won´t laugh at jokes I don’t understand
won´t do emotional somersaults
without knowing how to land
2
hello marilyn
though i never knew you at all
They bang it hard in a woman´s face
But for little girls they always open the door
Don´t come around here all flirt and silliness
And say you didn´’t know this
Don´t ask me if I´m sure.
You play their game and they mock you and call you ridiculous
They call you a whore
Then you turn around and blow them kissess and giggle
As if you are asking for more….
ANGELA STONER
Angela Stoner is a poet and storyteller, who has lived in Cornwall since 1998. Her work regularly appears in literary journals, and is performed at festivals. She loves the immediacy and connection of sharing her work through live performance. Her first book Once in a Blue Moon (Fal publications, 2005) was performed by Shallal dance and drama company, and her poetry has been interpreted by professional musicians. In 2012, She won the Poetry Society´s Stanza award and the first ever Poetry Out Loud competition held in Cornwall. She is inspired by the landscape of Cornwall and by the power of myth and metaphor to transform the inner landscape and contribute to emotional well-being. She has written articles for several professional journals on this subject and her poetry collection Weight and Flight (oversteps Books 2010) reflects this interest.
Swimming my way Home
All water always opens up a space
exactly me shaped when I slip inside.
In water I´ve a fluency and grace
I never sense on land, a weightless glide
of limbs, the movement effortless and smooth,
each stroke as easy as a heartbeat or a breath.
The ocean washes me of all untruth
opening me to something alien, immense.
The surface of the sea speaks to my skin…
but not in any language I can understand
however carefully I try to listen in.
What seeps in might be far too huge to handle
while all I´d hoped to keep locked solid, fast
will disappear, dissolve, and might not last.
Stone written
Not a calm or a cool stone
It still carries the charge of its birth
the fracture of every wave smash
the bruise of every pebble smash,
every power hammer of the sea
the jarring fall of every tide
the percussive battery of stone slides
as each pebble rubs its partner up the wrong way.
It carries the record of every knockout blow
etched in white hot lightning stripes.
STEVE TASANE
Permission to Dance
gimme your hand
I wanna shake it
permission to dance?
we wanna take it
but we´ve got to fill out a form, give six months notice
spin on our heads and spout hocus pocus
we can state out case but the cause is hopeless
as we lock horns with jobsworth jokers
pleased as punch as they try to halt us
with Pinocchio noses pointing out the small print
permission to dance is what they won´t ever give
no right no way no pride no say
no dance no drums no chance no fun
no more no
bring back the Yes, man, ignore the no body
less bans, more jams, let´s give a little give
cos no man’s land is no place to live
and if your mouth´s so big, make your message positive
better get a festival
Ramadan to Notting Hill
can we plan a carnival?
yes we can, so we will
savour every syllable
the only word we really need
is okeydokey, yessiree
si, oui, ya, da
Hannuka, Mardi Gras
si, oui, ya, da
lead us where the dances are
escape that bar
liberate your hips
truth of the matter´s gonna kiss you on the lips
the stamp of approval needs a great big lick
cos it´s not just kids getting teenage kicks
stop pen pushin, start toe-tappin
cut the finger waggin and add hand clappin
yes give yes get yes live yes let’s
yes do yes please yes you yes me
express that yes
the best word of all languages
si, oui, ya, da
Glastonbury, Diwali, Fleadh
si, oui, ya, da
Hogmanay, say ooh la la
nod not shake it
give a bit and take it
nod not shake it
if it´s not fair, break it
nod not shake it
live with give
let the rhythm beat the bans
permission to dance
is a universal passport
stamped by the people, not the man
yes means yes we said
yes means yes we said
yes means yes we said yes!
Rats In The Attic
The neighbours are at it again,
their scattergun domestic shakes the foundations,
setting off the howl of a dog
whimpering in nearby neglect.
A rumble of revellers nightbus
over the speedbumps of his slumber.
The dull chunter of a free-range alcoholic
and the pickaxe wit of overnight track workers
keep time with the pounding crunk of his inner panic.
The pre-dawn echo of yesterday´s complaints
is hectored away by the nagging advice
of an elder brother; lecturing from the grave,
on how best to cope with the voices.
Gas bags, rattling in his head.
Angry bed bugs.
Hush now. Baby needs his sleep,
for tomorrow will be war.
HEATHER TAYLOR
Away
There are layers between us
The sheets
The walls
The streets
The city
The phone
Your voice crackles over time zones
Sending kisses through fibre optics
To caress my ear
“I love you”
I say those words
In my vacant apartment
Neat as you last left it
Red wine grown murky
In the bottom of glasses
Your head printed in my pillow
A razor forgotten by the sink
A photograph empty of you.
My last memory seems to end
With waving though terminal gates
Or plodding down long hallways
Greeted by chirpy blonde attendants
And safety procedures.
Can that be enough
In that world of ours
In those moments between
Weekends and phone bills
Can that be enough
Bodies separating us
Water choppy under airplane wings
in the sky turning blue grey
There are layers between us
The sheets
The walls
The streets
The city
The phone
But I still have you.
published in ´Horizon & Back´
Architect & his Muse
Anton Rafael Mengs, 1779
Square lines, thermos, compass point
Circles drawn with hands guided
Your eyes drawn to space staring
There your muse tickles your wrist
Your neck back, curved spine
Leans a girls whisper in your ear
Never wanton, she delicately hovers
A mysterious perfume you inhale
To turn pencil marks into dreamed cathedrals.
ANN VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS
Ann Vaughan–Williams is a Merton Poet, published in their anthologies. Her first collection was Warming the Stones. She has been an editor of The Long Poem magazine for 5 years. She is a founder member of Write Afresh, the weekly writing group in Raynes Park library.
Retail Therapy
My favourite shop closed down some years ago.
I first saw it with wide furs in the window,
the models stepping out with pride
like in a Beryl Cook painting,
very high heels and soft pink flesh:
this was the Evans Outsize Shop, in 1960s Lynn.
I could go in there and feel smaller.
I do hate shopping in Kingston now
they?ve closed their Evans branch:
saris and trinkets took over,
everything glittery,
until that closed down as well.
I walk the mall past fashions that are slinky,
ride ´he escalator in John Lewis:
we don´t take larger sizes now.
Evans Outsize had a stylish brand called Essence,
I didn´t meet anyone else wearing their clothes.
The assistants were fat and chatty,
breezed about in brave colours,
waved me into a cubicle with as many items as I wanted.
I bought that loose knitted coat with the tasselled collar.
I found an M & S at Mortlake Retail Park,
bought a dress for Tenerife in winter.
The thing about this shop is
it?s all on one level,
the car park is immediately outside
which is a help with a bad leg.
The women in the changing room prance about
dispensing numbers and chat,
don?t mind how many times I go out for more clothes,
it´s almost like it used to be at Evans.
If when you get home you find the fit is wrong
you can return the items.
Because of my mixed feelings about shopping I don´t go back,
I put the clothes in the charity shop,
so I am quite popular.
I love playing shops with my grand-daughter,
it’s the real thing that´s difficult.
Ann Vaughan–Williams
Travelling the roads in my Red Mini
The outside was unpolished,
the inside held bottles of juice and maps,
showing streets where depressed women lived.
There were crumbs from the lunch I took in a layby.
There was mud from the woodland walk I might take
trying to shake off the enclosure of the hospital,
my psychiatric load, the stench of cabbage water.
My red mini had punctures
so there was always a jack at the ready
and someone would stop when I was in distress.
The distributor of those early models was faulty:
go through a puddle and the car runs to a halt.
Eventually I was told what spray would keep it dry.
After an accident in another car
where I had been in the passenger seat
as we rounded a bend into a tractor, swerved,
went head–on into a lamp–post,
I had a fear that lamp–posts would suck me towards them.
I loved hearing the zing of tarmac,
winding the windows down,
letting the air circulate,
singing to myself at the top of my voice
to keep awake on the long journey home
from Leamington Spa to Norfolk.
I loved how you could swing around bends,
daring if there was room to overtake.
On a dark night I´d sense that I had a stow-away in the back.
I?d turn my head quickly to catch him out.
He was going to gag me then make off.
Once I took a man who had murdered his mother to a hostel,
Your car is inhabited by people you have given lifts to,
Streams of thoughts you have harboured,
The songs, the sound of pouring rain,
heat, fears of stalling or of breakdown.
The car is an accompaniment.
FRANCES WHITE
Frances lives in South West London and has read as a guest poet at poetry venues and festivals in London and Wales. She is working towards her first collection.LINKS to more poems by Frances White:Second Light Live Members´ Page http://www.secondlightlive.co.uk/members/franceswhite.shtmlpoetry p f pages http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/franceswhitepage.html
Back to University
Poinsettia extends its wings…
you pack your things.
at student gates.
Along the motorway you speed
with all you need
PC, CDs
we pay the fees.
I slowly start to strip your bed.
“Bye, Mum,” you said……………..
Despite your height
Frances White
Published in: ´AWAY WITH WORDS. An Anthology of Poetry´ (Aeronwy Thomas, Beryl Myers, Annie Taylor, Frances White) Poetry Monthly Press, 2007, ISBN 978-1-906357-01-6
The Lake
Trousers rolled up, his knees
quake by the waterside.
Don´t go too near.
Keep away from the edge.
Pool black, his eyes tell
he´s ready to dive.
Matchstick arms fly out
in an arrow head.
The waters enclose him.
There´s silence
then splashing and whoops of boy
as he climbs out on the other side
ribs rippling
hair sleek as otter pelt.
Frances White
Published in: ´AWAY WITH WORDS. An Anthology of Poetry´ (Aeronwy Thomas, Beryl Myers, Annie Taylor, Frances White) Poetry Monthly Press, 2007, ISBN 978-1-906357-01-6
ALISON WINCH
Alison Winch has a showcase feature in issue 51 of Magma.
Honeymoon
The sleeper drops us in a Bologna dawn
rinsed blue; my mind is cracked,
out of synch
from too much snoring intimacy.
Upside down you turn me
you seek toilets and I track sound
and men upside down boy,
you turn me inside out
thoughts asleep, senses freed,
sharpening to café clarity,
split coffee beans, spuming milk,
glare of a white cup and the fizz
of aqua frizzante in a small glass.
aware that you’re cheating
the mirror sneaks the barista,
his neck, hips, fishbowl windows
giving love instinctively
we hum, breathe in time, a wink, a flush,
the radio as driven as our flirting.
You open the door. I cherish the moments with you
Russell Square
I lie in a green incubator,
disinfecting my soul with chlorophyll.
I´ve been scavenging at the back
side of yellow lines
in this city´s tubes for too many lives.
The sun is ignoring me
but the sky is mine; yellow roses, ash trees,
sycamores are mine
and nectarine stones, pear cores.
I´ve been in repose
since the scraggy dawn
handed herself in
to the summer solstice. It´s Tuesday
and I´ve surrendered my 9am.
I´m incensed by pregnancies
and mortgaged friends.
This is all I have.
My soul is not a bird,
it is sluttishly coupled
to this body, its chins, verrucas.
I breathe London´s collapsing lung,
its green thoughts.
