He’s sitting in his comfy chair, Shouting orders at unsuspecting young cargo workers He hides me in the double bunk, Behind the freezer, With the cans of tinned beans, Me, 7 years old, Listening to his great “Boogie-Woogie” CD, At 6 in the morning, His old Teddy Duck, Sitting faithfully on his […]
Poems
Look at the Clouds
I need to change the sheets on my bed. They are thicker, less soft, than they were. I need to brush my hair and go for a walk, and I need to put the plastic bag in the bin to a recycling place, and I need to put ample milk on my breakfast, staring at […]
Pulau Ubin
it cannot be denied that the fields and forests have their minds – after all, morning dew does mix with earth, and they are fields of rain. and the hens and cockerels, they have to defecate somewhere. it is also true that such simple happiness here is often found in thatched houses (that […]
By Patrick Darren Connely
Today’s homework: write your life story. Well I was born in Langdon, Essex. July 13th, almost fourteen years ago. My name is Patrick, although, my Dad preferred Darren. That’s about it. The detention room is like a greenhouse. No windows open, just glass letting the June afternoon heat toast us.
The Wood
It sweeps on for miles, it seems, This creature, of green depth, Green shadow, and green gold, For miles, its bulk, heavy with pines, And lightened only by snatches of pale sun, In clearings, and in the movement of branches, Seems to stretch…. There are places, Near the heart of this creature, Where you […]
Queue to leave
A large muffin of a man Leans against a grimy signpost Swathed in a toffee coloured duffel coat Speckled with tears of rain, His coal black hair is slicked behind scarlet ears And a thin snake tongue licks pursed lips. Slitted eyes narrow dangerously as, Glancing at a silver watch Strapped tightly around his podgy […]
New Life
Who would think that you, a lazy gambler, could hide those sort of secrets in your curled black hair. Dusty roads, trodden by those who would stab your honest son and burn down your farm, forged from blood, sweat and tears. From under the wiry mosquito nets, I remember stumbling out and knocking from you […]
The hobby of searching for gold
When he asked me out on a Tuesday morning to a riverbank, I imagined being Onassis under the summer sun, tanned as a leather couch, slabbing sunscreen on my face, as I listened to the rustling waters and the humming magpies; not the smell of mud under his wellies in the car and the trudge […]
Gold Fever
Pioneers, those men were named, driven insane by the lust for wealth. Standing, faces contorted with greed, in clammy gold-ridden streams. Heroes, you called them– if you had seen under those humid, merciless skies families trapped in their wagons by the need for riches, you might not call them so. Perhaps some were there for […]
Midas’s Daughter
after the illustration by Walter Crane Moth-like, he circles her: an angel incongruous on the tiger-skin rug, her beauty too richly wrought to lift. And yet he longs to lift her hand, head, or the latch of her lips – Magnificat of marigold, canticle of candelabrum – and not to fright at his reflection in […]
The Seventh Largest City in Germany
It is midday, and finally The fire has stopped falling. I expect it looks pretty From 60 miles away. Here, it looks like anything But a city. When the burning gave way To ash pastures and gutted houses We went looking for leftovers. We found them in cellars Packed tight Carbon charred But still recognisable. […]
Camera Obscura
Eight-year-old sitting in Bramhall’s field, shoes scuffed from kicking a stone, too young for a key but old enough now to walk the short mile back from school. You’ve spied your mother down in the village crossing the street, purse in her fist. In her other hand her shopping bag nurses four ugly potatoes caked […]
to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river!
down by the southbank no one could find you if their life depended on it illuminations across the river spasm xenon (the yellowness is outstanding) refracting on acapulco gold smirched streets blood vessel epiphanies burst neon zigzag candyman turkey-tina star-dust snow-bird turf-jellies pig-highs hey you lights i did not encourage that wink the underpass is […]
Plateau
(written at the Blacktail Plateau Drive, Wyoming, USA) In the fields my mother stands stooped among the bison, her spine bent into the downward V of their necks, her hands panning for a wedding ring. Somewhere among those hills, there it is. My mother has found the herd, these bison, these girls who are solid […]
Summer Storm in a Village
Stream bursts its banks. Roars its new freedom over sodden emerald grass. Pavement slickens; Glistens in an explosion of quiet euphoria – Each trodden stone a dark flash to the final image of rapidly retreating raincoats – red blue yellow – A child’s watercolour. The oppressive embrace of heat melts away like warmed snow. Replaced […]
Northern Place
Down the striped bank The purple tree Sways in the afternoon breeze, And the shades of green That surround it Rustle in a cascading cloak Of leaves. Yellow field stretch past the fence Across the far road, Ribboned with fresh drying grass Cut for hay. The fields rise In steady waves Up towards the rough […]
Sunless Beach
Leg-hairs rope rat-tails after the gush of the brown froth we call the ocean hissing auto-tune to the distant jets that drop bombs into the sea and girls scream at dead fish, the mountains carved by waves collapse in ribbon dunes as insects lose footing thunder-flies slice leg-forests down, sewage surges black puddles; we wash […]
National Park
“I am glad I will not be young in a future without wilderness.” -Aldo Leopold The prairie is contained within a rough sketch of mountain, its trees whistling out their scratched tune like a child with fingers too small to cover the holes of her recorder. All this time the coyote’s breath has been thickening […]
Friendship
The root of our friendship is easy we met about five years ago Rushing through the school gates last minute we collided, sending maths books all over the floor The base of our friendship is trickier I just don’t know where to begin I’m quite sure that we are a circle but that means pi […]
Equational Proverbs
Glass-broken=fixed Milk+glass=unspilt Stitch+time=nine Eggs=one basket Fish+c=plenty Slowxsteady divided by race=victory Love+war=fair Parted=fool-money Proverbs=life lessons,out there,there are plenty We only see their truth in hindsight,where our vision=twenty twenty
Passing Time
I looked into the indigo sky, it’s late. 50 minutes since bedtime. A Homework book abandoned on the desk, it’s later. Three strikes of the grandfather clock since sunset. A bag sits on the floor in the centre of the doorway, marking the night’s half-life. It’s latest. The sun’s bright eyes peek over the mountain, […]
The math of peace
A world divided doesn’t mean it’s shared, Just because you’re parallel doesn’t mean you’re paired A negative + a negative is it really a plus? Does x = disagreement or does x = us Sometimes it feels like the equation’s not fair, But helpless + help means someone does care Sometimes you have to look […]
The Colors of Smile
Blue + Tangerine = The Sun admiring its replica floating on the smooth sea. Black X Orange = The dark illuminated by the Jack o-lanterns on Halloween. Brown + White + light blue = The mounts wearing a cap of snow and mufflers of streams around their neck. Pink + orange = The Sun making […]
Speed= distance÷time
The speed at which I fell for you Was made up by how close you were to my heart And how every minute we spent together Was like a moment in infinity.
Summing Me Up
Me + trampoline = happy Me – toys = sad Me x eight = me Me + tag rugby = competitive Me – trampoline = sad Me + toys = happy Me ÷ eight = baby me Me – tag rugby = bored
The Art of Splinters
Bach, St John Passion at Royal Albert Hall The stage is a show of splinters, shadows split and splay at the violin’s bow, stabbing in swords and swoops, the heart begins to bleed at its blow. Simon Peter struck the High Priest’s servant with a sword, cutting off his right ear. The ear crawls into […]
Eroica
Hey! Dust yourself off and get down from that pedestal. Your stone wig looks ridiculous; the pilgrims have dried up. Get down and we’ll take stock. Look: you have ten fingers and a splendid pair of ears, still keen to be taken for a spin. All you need, to be a hero, is the blam, […]
The Blue
It could have been so perfect, Perhaps, So stiffened in its silvered path to that swelling, Dark esteem, That in the foxed and pulsing thaw, A hot trickle of beauty, Crushed softly from my husking ribs, Coffin velvet, coffin cheeks, As in some bodily confectionary – the she, That sweated crave for shrill oblivion, In […]
Arson
Owen in a Rose Garden
Beatbox Freestyle
The Mums in ASDA
Lilah
the borders of our beings
when the quiet eyed boy who spends class scribbling soft words onto paper meant for diagrams and equations who creates worlds out of pencil and freedom from the gentle movement of his fingers and wrist asks “would you like to see my notebook?” say yes when the sparkling girl whose laugh is so loud it […]
Cartography
You needn’t go far To notice the difference. The ground is the same The trees are still there But the air feels wrong. There are no skulls, no bodies No cheap horror film cliches. If it wasn’t so stifling, you could almost enjoy it. But it’s always so stifling. It used to be a pilgrimage […]
The Waiting Room
Just give it time A cyan sky will merge with the purple ocean The horizon will turn orange at dusk Just wait for a bit The evergreen hills rolling on and on (they roll like dice on a thunderclap) will bloom, revive beech trees from dust Give it time The brown clouds above you Borrowed […]
Bell Tower
My dad shovels the snow from our driveway Like a monk cleaning his monastery. I watch him from the bedroom window, Back bent into old age, The cupped hands of his tool raising The snow’s soft animal And putting it down again amongst its kind. Like a prayer, the thousand doves of winter Fly up […]
Your Story
tell me what it is about you that flies, kite-like, through crimson skies and seas of algae and marble turquoise frosted over with footprints and floating sand tell me what it is about you that fights, a sharpened scythe hanging at the very edge of a pale crescent moon a furnace-fired armour tell me what […]
Fire Fights Itself
Trust not a word I say, not one lick or spit of hot-hit-whisper. Don’t let me beguile you, peacock feather dance, melt the air above my head: this is no magic, just a rotten science. Resist the urge for compliance: pat me down, put me out, smother me with your rags. Clothe me in black […]
Barrier Breaker
So often we see the ocean tinkering neatly in its own space. Bouncing the wet bodies of swimmers like grandchildren on its knee, sucking the loose tooth of the shore and brushing clean backsides of jetties. How fascinating to see the waves break rock for once and shower over the small children on their stomachs, […]
a riveting gift
you are moved by the earth, you are moved by the earth hold it in the rage of the river something’s come loose this is water jumping off a cliff without wearing its bathing suit the audience sits on the bank are looking which here means nearly crying are all saying all in all your […]
Instinctive Thinking
My instinct tells me the wind is cooler I prepare for the torrent of birds Growing nervous, the bitter air is engulfing me Raw snow drifts lazily to the rocky floor A group of geese pass by To Africa! I cry, I fly Over the mountainous terrain and winding streams Never looking back. A new […]
Moon
It begins a comedy, a pocket-sized calamity, as eye and lens turn to sky, and there, fuzzed and haloed, sallow and pale, the moon shrinks in its socket. Slowly, slyly each night, it wisps to cobwebs, fizzes to ash, no longer the prize opal, but a synapse in the empty sheath of stars. And the […]
how to disappear in the city in the rain
wait as the water beats on your face like the perfectly flat skin of a drum and as it fits your smile like an oyster let memories of everything you’ve touched roll from your pockets like pennies somehow licked away by the cool water leaving just sticky rust left on your fingertips watch breathlessly as […]
Tapestry
You danced, you sung You smiled at the sun You coughed and the joy became undone That’s when the first thread vanished You laughed, you played You giggled and cried You doubled over and the happiness died That’s when the fifth thread vanished You lay, you read You retched and screamed You contorted with pain […]
Lines of Memory
Music by David Julyan. Years ago we were in France. One day we took the car to Spain, over the Pyrenees. The border was high in the mountains. We stopped to look at the scene, and memorials up there in the mountains to those who died in the civil war. On the road was the […]
How We Left
Music by David Julyan. We left in a hurry; our lives hastily packed in the two carrier bags: a toothpaste, some snapshots from the last Christmas (we’ve already forgotten aunt Mary was alive back then, her lipstick smudged around the edges) and our birth certificates to keep safe for the afterlife, when we’re not here, […]
Why War?
The marching feet are busy raising dust. The barbed wire brains are tangled up in knots. Why do they go to war? Because they must? Why should they live amongst the shocks and shots that echo through the watery graves that they call trenches? Why should they die so soon, spread over fields, five foot […]
the song i am learning to sing
i know that no day in history saw more bullets exchanged than kisses, and that the love letters written outnumber those reported ‘missing’. this is something i need to believe: arteries pump more life than artillery drains, and while young people die for fields that will be ash soon (if not already), women in white […]
The Sand on the Beaches
Marylebone Station, 1914
Two women wipe back sweat Beneath their flat caps At the station on the main line; The weeping, the waiting, the working. Intrepid lady steers Her tram-car at dusk Towards the city-limits; The weeping, the waiting, the working. A bus-driver sips hot milk At the close of a dusty day; The working, the waiting, the […]
Post Code Wars
The Greater Good
There is a man Who lives atop a tower. He draws on his expressions With a pencil. He’s always on our side. Don’t try to shout him down; However loud you are He just pencils on a smile And we all smile too. The world is very small And full of people. The world is […]
Poems
Glass Red glass, red hat, red bull Red eyes, red tale, red blanket Blue glass, blue beret, blue ocean Blue waves, blue reflection, blue birds Orange glass, orange cap, orange sun Orange beams, orange light, orange hell. Green glass, green band, green grass Green dew, green hair, green trees Remote Control Remote control, follow buttons […]
Soliloquy
HAMLET: Holding a skull in his hands, staring into its vacant eyes I hold death in my hands, the simplicity, the coldness, the logic. For when a being has died, that is it. Their skin rots away, and their bones are left a while longer. Like a snail that has left its shell behind, a […]
My Crown, My Soul
As I place my elegant crown On my radiant head A tingle of power Shivers down my spine. Icy pearls and diamonds Cling to my silken skin. Golden netted ribbons Curl around my back. The strong odour of roses Sends a shock to my senses Like tumbling tear drops. Diamonds sway silently catching the light. […]
The smiling skull of sadness
Holding this man’s skull is like Holding his mind, and in it I can read And imagine his visionary dreams which Were slaughtered with knives sharper than His funny teeth that used to be the rainbow Of his jokes. This man was once my jester and what A ridiculous man he was at that, he […]
Skull Shop
The first skull I choose is yellow with age. My father’s sharp sword slashed a hole in its head. A drawn-out death; the grass stained red. They called this one ‘Old Fortinbras’. This head talked once, long ago! At least, that’s how the whisper goes. A bloody battle, a frenzied fray. A murdered man, a […]
Player King
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well
I am not here. I have left you to sit and sting with misfortune. I want you to weep willow woman. Bow down to the earth for you are false as water. Lie there and watch for the fickle stars. They know only the moon and look how they turn their faces from you. Demi-Devil […]
Gold Dust
he tries to catch the particles in the back of the money wagon filling his gold pan with gold dust forming it into neat rows folding and scanning he lassos words debt, debit, financial concern he bows to the sovereign on one side then turns and bows to the kiwi on the other the value […]
Dissolving into Crazy
Portrait
She has always wanted to be the sky. She captures dust motes dancing, races raindrops on windowpanes. She presses flowers between pages and hopes to pay for college with them. She spends too long in magazine catalogues, shortchanges herself on margarine. She wishes she looked like Andrej Pejic. That worn-away waist. Those modelled cheeks, those […]
Untitled poem
The colours and the sound Instruments everywhere Colours merged Eardrums beating Heart racing Moving my head My feet in sync With the beating sound I click my fingers And stamp my feet Instruments everywhere All made from something different Wood , plastic and bamboo Each sound is different Each sound is unique They can be […]
St.
We look at saints and streets The same way. Both are straits Between place and place: the saints, Like the streets, seem to stretch since Then to then, an obscure chain that sends Its hand to hand, to hand our sins To Heaven or the High Street. Streets, Of course (and here the difference starts), […]
Route Around
Round in my own round not in the centre sounding pounding down my own road. No eroding my round route I’m not a worn-down stone. Not ground to grinds on ground. I am my own road round the worlds. I’m hurled my own way round. I soar, my sound resounds throughout my pounding path of […]
Beautiful Tasting Words
Enticing and subsiding. Vibrant Midas touching, lust or love for aurous, ornamental auras. Flawless, floral suns and forfeit sight, lungs and sanguify, defy your heart, and hips, and rip yourself apart for fun and thrill. Chill and cheat. The stillness beats against the wind and water, waft the frosted air away – weigh your words […]
Piano
I am not mad, I assure you; Here is proof of my sanity: Eyes crossed over, genes messed further. Joy wrapped up neatly in vanity. Golden locks tied to my thighs, White coloured sticks bleached to the bone, Tapping the keys of my black beast that sighs. And the sunlight – too much – That […]
Good Morning Mrs Jones
*Knock* Oh My! Good Morning Dearie Why I thought I heard you knock Rat-a-tat tat… Rat-a-tat-tat Right I said to myself, gosh what a shock Someone at the door, shouldn’t have dropped that knife Shouldn’t have dropped that knife Not a whimsical woodpecker this time, No Way! What can I do for you dearie? You […]
Eccentricity
In Case I’m a Dauntless Warrior
Gow’s Battle Cry
For Imogen John Gow, ‘the Orkney Pirate’ (c. 1698-June 11, 1725) And do we not store salt in our eyelashes for this? Does dirt not constellate our heels, all for these unblinking untarnished suns– this stardust from beyond the earth’s creased edge? Why do we clench rust-dappled steel in our jaws? Why is it that […]
Tigerless
Images: Experimental go-pro video @ Marieke Helmus (shot at Ameland, Holland), 2014 In between hunts, when I lie in the grasses And practise the stillness of death, I have been thinking hard. And I believe, Father, that what is gone is certitude. We learnt the loss of you in between licks, When we asked […]
Untitled
Try to. Trust me; Look past the stereotypical teenager on TV. Don’t look at me the way the police would, Another teen; so you’re a hood. Smile at me like you trust me. No fake smile, you can’t hide with your eyes. No lies. Trust me. Trust me; Would you look at me like the […]
Salt
In the fall of her fifty-fifth year my mother Began to overspice her cooking. I watched her Night after night, face lit by the harsh glow Of the stove bulb, sowing handfuls of salt into the pot As if praying for something to grow. I wondered If this was her midlife crisis: revenge For taking […]
A Horse Is Not Always A Horse
Enter chorus of Trojan women I lived once by everyday things, in my everyday house and its four-cornered floors. I swept them with complaint, swept without, felt free to leave with bad grace if a friend told a filthy joke in front of the children. Mine was the house with the tree, umbrella pine, I […]
Ember Man
Music by David Julyan. Images @ Simon Barraclough 2014 We could sit here for hours Telling funny stories and Laughing through damaged lungs. The ember man and I Have plenty in common. He shows me all the faces That hide inside of him. And all his favourite places Sun baked and ready to fry. He […]
Le Corsaire
Look what the sea dragged in, rugged and salt-cheeked like a bit of weathered glass. All the ladies love a pirate. All the pirate loves is the lady with limbs like fireworks, throwing herself from shape to shape as though made of light. If sold, she’ll slip your fist before you touch her; if bought, […]
Wild Bouquet
for Conrad and Medora It bound them, wound about them, In and out all chains and cage, Slipper ribbons tied around them, Hold them in a wild bouquet, So she doesn’t slip away. Hidden in the heads of flowers, Petal letters; silent, spelt, Scented selam, soft empowerment, Speak a language, giant and gentle, Fragrant words […]
If I Could
If I could maintain the dip and swoon, the plume of pine needles on my jaw, seeing feathers rustle in the wind through an eyepiece… If I could take the boughs of your arms, ours, white knuckles set to burst with sea water, salt cuts healed yet red as a cutlet… If I could hand […]
Crop Circles
Whatever the explanation sudden storm, a barrow’s shadow hoaxers with their planks and ropes a vortex movement of air we find ourselves returning to walk the wheat fields as if Ceres herself might appear in a cloak of poppies as if we could decipher language in rings of broken corn
Call
The middle of the night and the phone rings. Nothing. But someone is there. We listen to each other in the dark and quiet we listen there is between us not even breathing. Yet I know the moment I’m released what could be said will not now be said. A click; the neutral purr and […]
Conversations With my Father
Sometimes you call me on your own, now Mum, drugged up, sleeps more. I ask you how it goes; you speak of broken nights, pain’s ceaseless hum, new side effects. But what I want to know is how you’re doing. People rarely ask the carer how they manage all the tasks dictated by an illness […]
Cola in a glass
Darkness sweating crystal balloons rising, not fast, not chaotic, but in queues scales of water pattern an alligator skin upon a smooth brow like a prow cutting past the lips and in great sips passing by in the silence.
Sheep
Look at those golden jaws they’ll get stuck in the machine the dentist remains alone. And his room’s as white as wool faces flutter the butterflies on the moor, that dentists fail to put on the shopping list – brings back the sheep hiding in supermarket trolleys, hooves slipping through metal mesh that keeps birds […]
Poems
Glass & Water Ripple in clear instruction, with no listening ears, only listening mouths, mouths that would give much to get action of this light – Light that stands through, this way that way up way sideways under ways – blinding diamonds perfect for hollow bending spheres of white on liquid high delight. Delight is […]
Poems
1. My Painting The nose is hanging on my lips, eyes scream and eat my ears to the tragedy of this white-white colour. The whiskers turn pale and stretch. 2. Wedding A scope of wearing white; hamper the black muscled cove. 3. Coffee It is not it. Milk white, coffee-auburn.
Poems
The Kiss two lips and now it’s thunder boiling trouble the artist splashes paint over the looking glass who knew skin could be electrified and blades could stab the barks of trees too high. Tension Flee while you can while the seconds, the seconds stick together like rats – why is the road so dark […]
Lighter
Before Vesuvius there was no name for volcano now with silver muzzles four eyes, a butterfly tongue we you I nurse pocket explosions in well pockets etc. capsules tanks of the stuff the fluid the artist took to arms to burn a sketchbook he was ashamed of (fair, the quivering beck textured like tweed quilts?) […]
Kitty Kat
If lush and luxurious rugs make spines shiver and shudder, Then how much more does a feminine felines cause pouring out of perfect love? I tell you, if silver splashers and cud chewers gifts are taste bud tickling treat, Then this elegant stunt actress is the cat’s whiskers.
Burn Notice
A patch of scorched grassland, surrounded by desert sand The deadly sun shone to dry out the land, and burned it ’till the very treatment touch on it was painful. Yet still it is burnt, and the burn, notice, is a welt deeper than the pores of the ground which cover said country. But said […]
Ten Pound Note
Paper folded lengthways this way that: five different doors open at five different angles, evolution is creased down the middle, a ship afloat on the watermark turns its back on you. Does it leave, this ship, does it leave or does it return. Does it matter, when you are left either way on the shore? […]
In Coding
– -.– … .. .-.. . -. -.-. . . .- .-. -. … .. – … . .-.. ..-. .- .–. .-.. .- -.-. . .- – – …. . -.. .. -. .. .- –. – .- -… .-.. . … — … (Translation: MY SILENCE EARNS ITSELF A PLACE AT THE DINING […]
Untitled
Traps are open Traps are sharp Wolves run no more
Highlight
Sand browns the water like weeds, buds of light open the skies in hashmal sunset. It is soft from the toes, rising.
A Lifetime
slowlie
Untitled
Hemingway’s baby ran barefoot in sun.
Untitled
Fra
after Robert Browning’s Fra Lippo Lippi See! There, by the grey beginning of the morning, there he comes, over the horizon of the road. Like a god to us, he is, with his beautiful old, old clothes, and his sayings, Zooks! he says these things about art and shakes his head. Lived a lot of […]
Guy
The cold air bites like fear My hands ice hard grasp the grains and pack them like powder Momentarily they are sands between my fingers Later to be fire which will break bones and breath The wind whispers revolution, its soft snuffle wheedles like politicians’ promises Window panes bend as I look out on a […]