Neon Highway ISSN: 1476-9867
Issue 17
(In process of editing this for webpage)
Contents
Introduction by Jane Marsh. P. 3
The First Collection. (New addition) P. 4
Clare Saponia. P. 5-6
Andrew Smith. P 6-7
Mark Pritchard. P 7- 9
Marc Carver. P 9-11
Colin Roberts. P 12-13
Ashley Bovan. P 13-14
Colin Beck. P 14
Henry Blake. P 15-16
A Catterall. P 16-19 Chris Hardy. P 19-21 David Hudson. P 22-23 Andrew Nightingale. P 23- 25 Kevin Meeham. P 25-28 Mel Quetzcoatl. P 28-29
Cristogianni Borsella. P 29-30
Simon Turner. P 30-31
Jonathan Doherty. P31-32
Mary Ocher. P 32-33
Simon Hambrook. P 33
Sarah Woolsey.P 34-35
Tom George. P 35- 37
Subscription. P. 38
3
Dear readers, welcome to Neon Highway issue seventeen. We have some fabulous poets
in this issue. I have been well, thank you very much but I will tell you a little story.
Yesterday, I walked up to a stranger in the street and I said, “Will you marry me?” I know this was very naughty of me but something just made me want to do it. I can‟t explain why.
Society can sometimes be so mundane. Thank god we live in our heads. I can‟t think of anything worse than „newspeak‟. You can despise certain things around you but at least you can enjoy the fact that you still have your own thoughts and ideas. Anyway, as I was saying, I walked up to this man. He was carrying a briefcase to work and wearing one of those smart suits and a bowler hat. I haven‟t seen a bowler hat in a long time.
I saw him walking across the bridge towards the embankment along the River Thames..
I kind of followed him. I know that is terrible. I don‟t usually do that sort of thing but you see, he reminded me of someone I used to like years ago and I thought, wouldn‟t it be strange if it really was him but obviously it could not have been, after-all this man I had liked had lived in Prague. We had met on the other side of Charles Bridge for coffee. It isn‟t that often that you bump into someone from Prague from the past as you are walking out of the tube station from Superdrug, after buying some shampoo and conditioner.
So there I was following him along the embankment in my new nineteen twenties outfit bought from my secret retro store on Brick Lane when all of a sudden he turns around and stares at me. We just stood there gazing at each other like we are in some kind of surreal trance and you know what? I could not believe it. If seeing and hearing is believing, he said “Jane, what are you doing here?” It was just so amazing. His name I remember is Antonio and we are meeting for a drink tomorrow night to catch up on all our adventures.
Isn‟t life just such a wonderful blessing at times? X
In the mean time, may the wondrous force of beauty and the exotic and demure mysterious imagination of nature be bestowed upon you all and don‟t forget I am now giving a spotlight to first collections of poetry and prose.
Jane.
X
4
First Collection
Send me your first collection and I will showcase
your book here and offer it some tender loving care.
Alice Lenkiewicz
'Men Hate Blondes'
Debut collection of poems and drawings,
£8.00 Original Plus books.
http://thesamsmith.webs.com/originalpluscollections.htm
ISBN 978-0-9562433-4-8
Lisa Jones
‘At 3 o’clock I think of Sex and Death’
Debut collection by Liverpool poet and musician, Lisa Jones.
Spike Press, 96 Bold Street, Liverpool, L1 4HY
http://www.spikepublishing.wordpress.com
ISBN 978 – 0 -946057-89-4
Siobhan Logan
'Firebridge to Skyshore'
A Northern Lights Journey: £8.00
Original plus books.
http://thesamsmith.webs.com/originalpluscollections.htm
ISBN: 978-0-9546801-7-6
5
Clare Saponia
for searching
Is it worth demystifying?
When the proportions
are right and the blanket
warm and familiar?
So that you don’t have to
look in the mirror,
because everything is a
mirror. And nature still
needs to explain itself.
Why can’t you stop
looking for oracles? Isn’t
there a freedom in you
own values beyond
institution and era, where
persistence is not
dependent on reward?
the next of everything
The next of everything and
how it began; the
contemplation of
devils under pressure to
select
and move on,
new fleeting choice
and nothing
finished. Just
peeling and
cracking in
obtuse ascent, over
and over,
the toes to
the heels and up
with a light
discretion of tone
in generation.
He took the
alarm-clock out
for a walk.
There seem to
be so many
unopened letters.
Andrew Smith
Chorus
There is a green leaf outside
That flatters itself by waving
its thin breast against the window
trying to grab my attention,
it’s saying
ME
ME
ME
why not
It only has one leaf fluttering
In a dance
and two
skinny buds left without solace
it only has one more
hold in the wind,
one last chance to be something
while the green shines through
the sun
and the wind
forgetting what it last did.
Mark Pritchard
EPITHANY ON THE WHEEL
Big bloody fairground attraction, in the centre of London town.
Ridiculous wheel, that offers the prospect of a view.
Tourist magnet, for Japanese and American suburbanites.
Don’t forget to take your camera.
Capture an inane grin, as you tower over Big Ben.
First holiday in five years, and I find myself here.
A lost man, with parents who pity him.
I promised to never holiday again.
Last time, I scared people with my solitary nature.
A week at the seaside, drunk and getting thrown out of bars.
But the parents pressured, and I agreed to go with them.
8
So, now I wait in line for our turn on the stupid bloody wheel.
Been in London for four days, haven’t smiled once.
The slow crawl of the wheel, and a smiling employee motions to us.
Our turn, the ‘flight’ begins.
Yes, they actually call it a ‘flight.’
Five people in our shuttle.
Mum, Dad, a young couple and Rorshach.
The young couple are lost in their world of romance.
Holding hands, their lives are just beginning.
I sit on the bench, and look at the floor.
“Stand up Rorsh, you’re missing the view.”
“okay mum.”
How to describe the view?
Concrete and light blanket a million lost and lonely souls.
That will do.
“Isn’t it great?”
“Yeah mum, it’s great”
The young couple ask me to take a photograph of them.
I am happy to do so.
They smile.
I point the camera and click
They look so happy, beaming with radiance and life.
Enjoying a love that I’ve never possessed.
9
The tears start to well, as I think of my own failure.
I sit down on the bench, and a tear falls.
Wiped away, before the parents can see.
“Isn’t it a beautiful view?”
“Yes mum it is.”
“It sure is.”
The ride slowly comes to an end.
The young couple go out into the night.
I go back to the hotel.
With mum.
And Dad.
And spend the night, writing this poem.
Marc Carver
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE
I want to live in a lighthouse and watch the sun rip itself from the sea everyday.
Listen to the waves tangle with the rocks.
Lay on the floor at the top of the lighthouse.
Peel back the roof and watch the clouds go by, until it is dark.
Remember laughter.
Wait for night to come.
Listen to the sea at night.
Someone would come for me there though.
Come to find me.
Would I open the door.
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Would I let them in.
How long before they would smash the door down.
How long would it take for them to make my life-theirs.
I look out of the window and know that my life must change but I cannot see around
the corner.
The angle is too short, too obtuse.
Perhaps it is better not to look but to live in darkness.
I have love but do not have life.
Life is lost to me. It is over there and I am firmly here.
I don‟t want to be a better man just the man that I am.
Whoever that is.
A man that can laugh and cry at the same time.
The lonely man, who gets as close to women as he can.
To feel, the life that is the woman.
When I look into a woman‟s eye, I could drop to the ground and hug and grip their
waist.
Please stroke my hair, like my mummy used to do.
Let me curl up on their lap and breasts.
Let me be a child again.
Or maybe a dog.
a dog with a rope for a chain.
So look into my eyes and don‟t be scared what you see there.
It is not sadness or pain it is just me?
But do you really want to look. Why would you.
So if you pass me in the street
don‟t look into those blue eyes because I am not there.
I AM
IN- MY LIGHTHOUSE.
11
TITLE
I try to think about something important to write about.
Love, friendship, sex.
The more I think about it, the less there is to write about.
So, why do I write?
Why does anybody write?
Because they can say words on paper, that they cannot speak.
Too frightened that nobody will listen, held to their words.
All of these, and then some.
Look what they did to Jesus.
I lie in bed and fall asleep hoping and praying I can become the man that I need to be.
When I wake up
I am always in the same place.
Only one thing has changed
I can get up
and search for those important words
that will make a good poem.
I know that they are inside of me
I just need to drag them out.
They will come.
So, I will keep searching but I am unsure as to what will happen if I find them.
I think that I will know before you
But what happens then.
I have stopped writing for pleasure or for me.
I write for you.
Whether you want them
or not.
12
Colin Roberts
5 In London - Rush Hour
Why‟s the train so crowded, dangerous?
Watch the bodies pushing, pulling.
Watch the faces smiling, knowing, quizzing,
Black reflections flying, passing,
5 in London – rush hour
Why‟s our safety ignored, worthless?
Watch the children wondering, slipping.
Watch their parents trying, failing.
Hear their voices crying, moaning.
Why on Earth do these things happen?
5 in London – rush hour.
Different people from different countries,
Different thoughts in rolling tube.
Different fashions, lying mirrors,
No barriers, the world is one.
How do trains knock down life‟s barriers?
Watch the papers rising, falling.
13
See the headlines showing, hiding
5 in London – rush hour.
Ashley Bovan
Whitewell-on-sea
craggy spikes
the ocean throws its smell up into the air
Sploosh sploosh crush crush
Going on and on
Maybe it‟s the nature of timelessness
that in the complete moment
you have all the potential of the future
Odourous time stuck in old cottages
Front-rooms‟ musty
upholstery clutches memories
discards the chance to grow
out of darkness
a green shoot in the open sky
The thuck thuck of your grandfather‟s clock
Children of the White Islands
Tonight, in furtherance,
the star shapes are all wrong
chilly moon
Snow everywhere, conforms to my feet
ice-ants nip
14
I steal fur from dead warriors
In the future
when this 12-year process is over
I will have no need for dreams
but, for now, I should practice an attitude
that will avoid generating suspicion and hostility –
a suitable vulnerability
Colin Beck
Blues
When I look at you
I don‟t know what day it is
Im seeing stars
I don‟t know whats going on
Hold my hand
You see I watch you watching me
Im alive close your eyes
I don‟t know what feelings are
I seen your face in broken glass
Scattered the way I feel
15
Henry Blake
IF YOU CAN AFFORD A DUCK POND AND
PORNO FILMS WHY CAN‟T YOU BUY
YOURSELF A PERSONALITY
The glass screen in my bedroom
Transmits insipid faces
A man who purports to be Prime Minister
Of England has a face like a wet weekend
In Bradford….
He talks out of the corner of his mouth,
Smiles with a glass eye….
Reads out a list of statistics….
Expounds the economy is in great shape,
Unemployment is negligible…. In real terms!
A different man comes onto the screen,
He‟s got a nice hairstyle,
A slimy face….
He states the economy is in melt-down,
Unemployment has reached the highest rate
Since 1990…
This man has 30 million pounds in his
Bank account….
You don‟t acquire that amount of money by
Propagating the virtues of Florence Nightingale.
One of these law abiding individuals is lying….
Probably both.
I switch off the T.V. screen
It‟s a pretend democracy with puppet people
And it‟s bullshit
16
THE DEATH OF A COUNCIL TENANT
He left this world two days ago.
Some people from the refuse department had
Come to collect his things:
Broken furniture, old clothes, esoteric books….
They threw the stuff outside in a skip
With the rest of the rubbish.
He led the life of a complete nobody,
The ending was a quiet commonplace affair.
He died in his sleepfrom a brain haemorrhage.
He used to say to his one and only friend:
“It makes no difference who you are, where you come
from death will be your constant companion.”
He died on Monday,
They buried him on the Friday….
Nobody attended the funeral….
The keys to his council flat
Were passed onto the next potential tenant
A. Catterall
Come Closer Honey
As I left, she threw
My books from the window
Behind me
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Then she started
With the bottles
After a while
She stopped,
And I stopped
Shouting
She came down
And sat on the pavement
Next to me
And we sat amongst
The books and wine
I rolled a cigarette
And offered her one
She shook her head
And I have nothing else,
To give anymore
I never asked for you,
I never would
There has always
Been this between us
In my drink
I can forget, the sound of you
And it is wonderful,
Wonderful.
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Why We Wait
We sat playing cards
Because there was
Nothing else to do
And as the power
Ran out, we waited
For dawn
All night I wanted
To touch you,
But didn‟t
You wanted to leave,
But you didn‟t
Neither of us,
Had anywhere to
Go
I‟m just old
And drunk
And you,
You are young
And new
There would be,
No point
There is, no point
Just count the cards
At dawn
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Then you can leave
And I, will be able,
To sleep
Chris Hardy
THE HOUSE OF MIRRORS
Before me lies the past
a dark pool
the colour of regret,
which I must cross
to where chance
fate and choice
which makes regret
await
concealed in mirrors
on the wall
of a house.
I have to cross over
the pool
carrying the present
in my pocket,
go through the door
look in the mirrors
20
watch the roof
fade
take my hand
from my pocket
and open it.
IRIS
In the dark
she comes up close.
She builds a scaffold
and locks it to my face.
I see her comet
piloting in
she sees the doorway
where the world trades
and scans the shedding
tapestry
that makes a graveyard
souvenir,
lights upon motes
refines the shadows,
says if the litter
rises like a wall
or falls like a curtain
that I must call.
When she watches
I go blind.
21
THE BOOK OF GHOSTS
In the corner of the book-case
against the wall
is the book of ghosts
Open the book
and the dead wake up,
certain they‟re alive,
and apparitions appear
of those who I still meet,
who walk into my house
like people though
they leave themselves
in footfalls down the street.
And in the book
are my ghosts too,
ghosts of me.
When the book is open
we all return
like shadows in the hall
and when the book is shut
we turn our faces once more
to the wall
22
David Hudson
ORIGAMI
Snowflake events
The Paper Men. Yellowing, carious. All vicious angles, impossible geometry. Cut and
pasted from a thousand headlines screaming rape and murder. House security
butchered. Old man Murdock taken to the Printers. Blocks of text hammered into raw
flesh. All the latest news.
Shocking what they‟ll print nowadays.
The CCTV coverage tops the ratings.
Feral media storming the TV studios. A code V situation. Aggressive interviewing.
Paxman stuffed live on Newsnight.
Bonehead and Gobshite, a couple of Irish troubadours, made their fortune fleecing the
punters on the “charity” circuit, forcibly sodomised on stage by a junkyard
synthesizer.
Talk about a critical shafting.
Bad ideoplasms. Egrigor mugshots. The police have taken to using silver bullets. Not
that it does any good.
One umwelt after another.
Mass UFO sightings over rubbish dumps and scrap yards. Pilots attempting intercept
find themselves flying over illusory landscapes. Fading transmissions.
23
Bodies as icons. Built from junk and bad dreams.
A pack of slavering Jabberwocks attack the House Of Commons. Blood and guts
everywhere. It‟s a horrible sight. All those politicians.
A giant octopoid reported surfacing at Greenwich. Strange chants fill the air.
England‟s Dreaming.
Andrew Nightingale
Coming into Canary Wharf on the DLR
Rather than being formal to the point of violence:
fucked up by its mantichoneymoon with dead water,
the rectilinear slurry graves and their brightly coloured boats.
Something homely in the smeared dusk: the yellow lights,
the slackened compulsion after six that eases
the slant rhyme of smart casual, the violence of crowds
cleverly dissipated by clever architectural design.
The sense of companionship it leaves is wrong,
As if a body, disinterred, were found wearing a novelty tie.
Curving in, over cold grey panels of meniscus,
the cathedral‟s candlelight and murmur is nodal,
wedding the purity of financial violence to chic cellular
home lives, echoes of the yellow light, mortgaged
mash-ups in hinterlands of children and pets.
An empty barge, bloated like a corpse: a lost soul, laid up,
going nowhere, floating where the taped voices miss,
the daylight bulbs are blind and there‟s no screen, no login,
only the formalities that follow self-harm,
cubes of stopped river bedding the dead bride‟s dream.
24
Division
1. interphase
Between population growth
and the notion of vermin
among the animals
Between cancer
and treatments for mange
among the falling shadows
Between a live pig’s heart
and unsorted chickens’ eggs
among the undead
2. Prophase
Before the illusion of this-means-that
fire and flint
the logic of forward
Before eating becomes consumption
the village GP in antlers
ceremony pushing forward
Before the shape of a plate as aspiration
bacon and burger
the alien races forward
3. Metaphase
Over hills beyond the inhabited world
worlds inhabited still
something stuck that can’t change
Over the laboratory a studied evasion
beyond the ken of skin or pump of blood
where living material harbours change
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Over vast self-healing systems of finance
beyond mythic technologies
markets change
4. Anaphase
The right to rape and murder and eat
what reconstructed instincts believe in eating
brings memory back to the hands again
On a straightened back internal organs
no longer hang naturally
next to the same explanation again
Timelessness comes back
to creatures waiting to die
the pre-death that life be lived again
5. Telophase
In the end their end is smothered by difference
dissection of autopsy concludes
there’s no ghost
An end in itself is born outside the species
ending in the fragmentation of species
into a million speckled eggshells
The relationship ends with cytokinesis
so separation exonerates
atrocities of difference Kevin Meehan
Stravisio Beach
Black olive
skinned vendor
you tread daily
lean and barefoot
26
upon the fresh combed
searing sand
into a desert with two oceans
Up and down the mediterranean‟s edge
in a shimmering mirage
persistent as the sun
your sure sole
prints the surface
of a sea of opportunity
slim pack muel
you carry your weight
without complaint
in a variety of hats, hairclips
watches,sunglasses and jewelry
tempter of the tan and naked
sun worshippers
on their backs and bellies
in deck chairs and recliners
your fake designer goods
glint and sparkle
for a purchase
with your carved lizard mirrors, watches, rings
and colourful necklaces
made from teeth and shells
luring the lazing
to sit up and part with some euros.
along the scorched
Sicilian shoreline.
27
Reflections of a Banksman It is summer here in Dublin. We pull on steel and stone in an international effort to raise apartments from a wounded and weeded acre of urban dereliction for the client. Poland, Romania, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia and the rest of Eastern Europe arrive half asleep to rise perfectly formed concrete columns on a military scale from the wasteground. Hard hatted, hiving, migrant workers graft another marathon of tasks to realize the drawings of an architect‟s plan before the sun sets on the last few hours they own. All are laboured and sore from steel and stone, glass and timber and the daily tread of tired feet upon a changing landscape. Nation by nation join together in The global language of effort. In their midst a tower crane rises
28
one of many that stand like still silent storks in the docklands with outstretched necks of angle iron dangling their chains and hooks to catch the Banksman's straps.
A noisy entanglement of metal and men All are friendly smiling and worn And dream of home
Mel Quetzcoatl
IRAQ
Shrapnel that splinters in one's body The woman crying Soldiers doing their ghost-dancing through Baghdad, the image of The young male, hooded, his crime? Unspecified, the 'enemy combatant' that lurks in the haze of the soldiers' imagination, everywhere but no-where, the Sun parchyed poster of Saddam, crisp, rustling its own demise in the Racous noise of gunshots and the Danger of hospitals, to loive or die? Is there an option? The 'enemy combatant' moves through his dance, in the imagination of the soldiers, the Flowing robes of Bin Laden everywhere but no-where, a two minute hate to justify...what? The eyes of the child movinbg through each ghost-moment, wondering where her father is, the soldier, spitting out his gum and calling in a Foreign language, the Death of a father and two sons at a checkpoint: they couldn't understand English, he Ran a small shop once, but that was the objective of a 'precision strike', the 'enemy combatant' was lurking amongst the cans of beans and stuff, existing through the imagination of the soldiers, the enemy combatant, like some form of Hollywood creation, a matter of culture, a matter of Dancing with the ghosts that stalk Abu gharib, moving through into some Intoxicating swirl, the 'enemy combatant' in each dark corner, existing through some Dream that didn't exist but ws forced into existence, the Imagination of the soldiers and the cry of a thousand orphans....
29
WATER
The sand flow of life And sparkle of dew-wet leaves on the brow of memory... The bird Rising with its song to that blue azure nothingness through which the dreams began to flow... River-like, from their beginnings, the shimmer of blue-moon silver on the waters that Flowed through my dreaming like a song I forgot and then remembered, the Ghost that touched my fiongers, and the elixir of some form of sense that Crept theif-like through my dreams and sung to the Flight we began as children when we held the world in our hands, our world, its heart beating to its history like the Jungle-drumming of some forgotten civilization, its echoes moving stealthily through the Distant horizon where I caught my dream in my hand and danced with her, spiralling through the uNiverse like some Quasar of foretting, each moment, caught within itself and the history that defined it, weaving silk with its movements, existing through the Urban hymn and the roar of cars, the quiet of the forest, intersecting, the motions through which Silently we dance through the hall of dreams, each one beckoning, each one singing its own song and Twirling through history, the dance on the water, droplets between our toes...
Cristogianni Borsella
The Night Breeze
The night breeze
rattles the sound of angry stilettos,
sharp twisted iron coffins
in blue diamond shrouded graveyards.
Have I been here before?
A familiar tone excites me
howling in the wind, ever evasive,
30
just beyond the reach of the living.
Material dust settles in the
corner of my eye
like an abstraction of reality,
twice the size of my ear wax,
but night air is good
heightening my sense of dearth.
Simon Turner
Love is known
There is no qualm invented
that can resist the torrent that builds behind the log-jam of branches and corrugated iron
the plastic roofs and ripped-out fences tangled in weed and filth
all blasted down the gullies once stately
to jam the arched thoroughfare
of bridge to sea
the water rises and courses wider
screaming
you bastards will not stop me
I live in the sea
I will belong in salt and nothing will find me
you will not seek me out and hold ransom
my destruction and doom
I am love-like in my power and mirage
real but aching to be gone
there high to your stone buttresses
then gone to your gull-swooped masses
where I’ll carve my love-names in shore-rock and sand-grain
where I’ll shape pebble and cove
centuries of me you’ll not see
love taught me how
the force can sweep unstopped
how none deny the sight and all must bow to the sight
of how I decide to flow to the loss and the new vaster me
31
will you come too?
or do you hesitate on the parapet
your face lashed by drowning’s lure
aghast at why
devoid of reasoned abandon
and crushed against the absence of the witness
who walked away?
Jonathan Doherty
The Manchester Renaissance
Proper Mancs say: "Shut your North and south!"
divided only by shirt colour
come derby day.
My Manchester ,
built by buildings as big as its heart;
today we’re changing for the better.
We’re not so soft as the cotton made here,
cos we’ve had it mint and we’ve had it hard.
We’ve stood back and watched our mills fall quiet -
that was a revolution in ruin.
A government got its turn with Thatcher.
Eighties’ kids laboured on to gleefully
stick two fingers up at her in the Hac
while they were ‘avin it on pure acid
and mesmerised by ‘A guy called Gerald.’
Lots of cash and drugs have been injected
into Manchester - that’s the way we do it,
and today we are changing for the best.
On our Pennine throne, we are king
and over the northern realm may we reign
til’ those fibreglass cows come home. May we be top, sweet, sorted, sound
til’ that endless rain stops falling, when Leeds is bigger, Liverpool louder,
32
when London finally stops calling. Shout out to Oasis, the Smiths,
Edwards, Bell , Lowry and Turing. Anyone who's who, north or south,
red or the blue, the born and bred and diehards, to the through and through,
and don't forget the adopted few.
To the city that just dozes
in the dense concrete jungle.
A pulsating throb of vibrancy
pounding the labyrinth street.
All resounds and all is colour,
as I view the kaliedescope
of cultures, the fusion of creeds
in the simmering crucible
always toiling, always bubbling.
Pigeons and gothic gargoyles,
and me watch the sun run away,
and my Manchester , yours and ours,
settles under the brewing sky.
And, like applause, the rain slowly
falls down as a crescendo,
harder, faster, as to encore
such a symbol, such a gift.
Mary Ocher
"Proper adjustments' Big blue veins I wish they‟d be any other color but blue But they don‟t care, see - Opposing your wishes they grow and spread and take hostage of the body as it opens, and the blue veins conquer: We have always been" the emperors,
33
We have always ruled this waste-place, and nobody else but us
Simon Hambrook
Snow landscape
A landscape in the ever most airs
brings me here .
Desk of hearts . The hills
white polar arms in the grass fields at my standing feet
will to listen .
But I am a chief of crayons , not nature ,
thunder or these wetted flowers .
I can only find the hearts of memories in my world ,
and tunes which I lifted once can now play
in streams as beautiful as suns .
For I make that those waters
multiply into the sublime
until , Creator – full ,
blushes with their spending radiance .
34
Sarah Woolsey
Recycling
1.House
Domestic shadows
clutter up bookcases,
encased in gold gilt frames,
staining thread-less carpets.
A musty vapour
of damp and paper
unwelcomes
new tenants.
2. Street
Flattened tarmac
fails to suffocate
bursting tree roots. Cracks
zig-zag the sticky surface,
man-made molehills
mount and multiply
mocking that
Nature will prevail.
3. Body
Silvery strands
peep through an auburn bob,
35
tell-tale, glistening.
Under dark camouflaged
ammonia pigment.
Uncoiling, rebellious,
frizzing free
from a backcombed jail.
4. Skin
A dewy ivory mask
emulates a magazine cover.
Poreless, airbrushed
from a distance.
Smiling reunites creases,
creamy filler melting,
flawless finish cracking
like ceramic.
Tom George
My Bohemia I celebrate the overhanging tree that leans out over the wall Of the old abandoned house on Croxteth Road I wonder at its twisted waist, boughs and blossoms hanging down In a drunken sprawl that almost touches the pavement And you have to walk round A shameless and defiant gesture The house behind, repossessed by nature
36
With feral fronds sprouting from the eaves And crumbling steps engulfed by infant jungle A forty-something man walks past With six inch turn ups on his jeans A strange bowling walk And the hat and jacket of some long lost youth cult That I can’t identify Off he strides out of sight To somewhere I cannot possibly imagine In L17… On winding roads under maples and oaks I venture out to find Baby castles with turrets and green copper Collared doves on chimney pots And echoes of the chapters I have lived On idle afternoons under milky skies I celebrate the nine doorbells, The creaky floor and the shared bath Skinning up to Syd Barrett Walking round to somewhere With a hat and scarf Dusky gloom and the smell of a bonfire In our idyll I celebrate a draughty letterbox An echoey hallway cluttered with bikes Tattoed sheets at the window The intrigue of attics A mirror from a skip Brompton Avenue glade-like In the dappled day Ghostly and still by night With somewhere, the sound of a party I wonder at the countless lives and times Daydreams and desires That gave this scene its soul
37
The unspoken community that meets by chance Walking the shore of Sefton park’s green ocean And rat race refugees like you With hairline cracks Where a light shines through Seeking out the shade of trees The tranquil breeze We understand The mossy walls and magpie calls The mystery of sweet decay I celebrate these things today ‘Cos just last week I saw men looking at the empty house With clip boards, hard hats and plans To tear out the twisted tree that understands To knock through walls And lay Ikea pine floors For boring people To live (if that’s what they call it)... with huge TVs That don’t belong And live it wrong With sci-fi monster vehicles parked outside And security lights on the drive I celebrate the little old man who pushes A home made cart around the streets looking for wire and this and that A radiator or radio Over wet leaves on Ivanhoe A distant figure walking Fading into mist
38
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(This web address will be changing at some point in the near future)
Neon Highway
Submissions to be sent to the editor:
Alice Lenkiewicz: 37, Grinshill Close, Liverpool, L8 8LD
Email submissions can be sent to: neonhighwaypoetry@yahoo.co.uk
Or send via snailmail to address above. Please always supply a sae for any returned material.
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Neon Highway is a non-profit making magazine.
We do encourage you to subscribe.
We are grateful to all the subscribers who have kept „Neon Highway‟ in print over the years.
39
Issue 17
(In process of editing this for webpage)
Contents
Introduction by Jane Marsh. P. 3
The First Collection. (New addition) P. 4
Clare Saponia. P. 5-6
Andrew Smith. P 6-7
Mark Pritchard. P 7- 9
Marc Carver. P 9-11
Colin Roberts. P 12-13
Ashley Bovan. P 13-14
Colin Beck. P 14
Henry Blake. P 15-16
A Catterall. P 16-19 Chris Hardy. P 19-21 David Hudson. P 22-23 Andrew Nightingale. P 23- 25 Kevin Meeham. P 25-28 Mel Quetzcoatl. P 28-29
Cristogianni Borsella. P 29-30
Simon Turner. P 30-31
Jonathan Doherty. P31-32
Mary Ocher. P 32-33
Simon Hambrook. P 33
Sarah Woolsey.P 34-35
Tom George. P 35- 37
Subscription. P. 38
3
Dear readers, welcome to Neon Highway issue seventeen. We have some fabulous poets
in this issue. I have been well, thank you very much but I will tell you a little story.
Yesterday, I walked up to a stranger in the street and I said, “Will you marry me?” I know this was very naughty of me but something just made me want to do it. I can‟t explain why.
Society can sometimes be so mundane. Thank god we live in our heads. I can‟t think of anything worse than „newspeak‟. You can despise certain things around you but at least you can enjoy the fact that you still have your own thoughts and ideas. Anyway, as I was saying, I walked up to this man. He was carrying a briefcase to work and wearing one of those smart suits and a bowler hat. I haven‟t seen a bowler hat in a long time.
I saw him walking across the bridge towards the embankment along the River Thames..
I kind of followed him. I know that is terrible. I don‟t usually do that sort of thing but you see, he reminded me of someone I used to like years ago and I thought, wouldn‟t it be strange if it really was him but obviously it could not have been, after-all this man I had liked had lived in Prague. We had met on the other side of Charles Bridge for coffee. It isn‟t that often that you bump into someone from Prague from the past as you are walking out of the tube station from Superdrug, after buying some shampoo and conditioner.
So there I was following him along the embankment in my new nineteen twenties outfit bought from my secret retro store on Brick Lane when all of a sudden he turns around and stares at me. We just stood there gazing at each other like we are in some kind of surreal trance and you know what? I could not believe it. If seeing and hearing is believing, he said “Jane, what are you doing here?” It was just so amazing. His name I remember is Antonio and we are meeting for a drink tomorrow night to catch up on all our adventures.
Isn‟t life just such a wonderful blessing at times? X
In the mean time, may the wondrous force of beauty and the exotic and demure mysterious imagination of nature be bestowed upon you all and don‟t forget I am now giving a spotlight to first collections of poetry and prose.
Jane.
X
4
First Collection
Send me your first collection and I will showcase
your book here and offer it some tender loving care.
Alice Lenkiewicz
'Men Hate Blondes'
Debut collection of poems and drawings,
£8.00 Original Plus books.
http://thesamsmith.webs.com/originalpluscollections.htm
ISBN 978-0-9562433-4-8
Lisa Jones
‘At 3 o’clock I think of Sex and Death’
Debut collection by Liverpool poet and musician, Lisa Jones.
Spike Press, 96 Bold Street, Liverpool, L1 4HY
http://www.spikepublishing.wordpress.com
ISBN 978 – 0 -946057-89-4
Siobhan Logan
'Firebridge to Skyshore'
A Northern Lights Journey: £8.00
Original plus books.
http://thesamsmith.webs.com/originalpluscollections.htm
ISBN: 978-0-9546801-7-6
5
Clare Saponia
for searching
Is it worth demystifying?
When the proportions
are right and the blanket
warm and familiar?
So that you don’t have to
look in the mirror,
because everything is a
mirror. And nature still
needs to explain itself.
Why can’t you stop
looking for oracles? Isn’t
there a freedom in you
own values beyond
institution and era, where
persistence is not
dependent on reward?
the next of everything
The next of everything and
how it began; the
contemplation of
devils under pressure to
select
and move on,
new fleeting choice
and nothing
finished. Just
peeling and
cracking in
obtuse ascent, over
and over,
the toes to
the heels and up
with a light
discretion of tone
in generation.
He took the
alarm-clock out
for a walk.
There seem to
be so many
unopened letters.
Andrew Smith
Chorus
There is a green leaf outside
That flatters itself by waving
its thin breast against the window
trying to grab my attention,
it’s saying
ME
ME
ME
why not
It only has one leaf fluttering
In a dance
and two
skinny buds left without solace
it only has one more
hold in the wind,
one last chance to be something
while the green shines through
the sun
and the wind
forgetting what it last did.
Mark Pritchard
EPITHANY ON THE WHEEL
Big bloody fairground attraction, in the centre of London town.
Ridiculous wheel, that offers the prospect of a view.
Tourist magnet, for Japanese and American suburbanites.
Don’t forget to take your camera.
Capture an inane grin, as you tower over Big Ben.
First holiday in five years, and I find myself here.
A lost man, with parents who pity him.
I promised to never holiday again.
Last time, I scared people with my solitary nature.
A week at the seaside, drunk and getting thrown out of bars.
But the parents pressured, and I agreed to go with them.
8
So, now I wait in line for our turn on the stupid bloody wheel.
Been in London for four days, haven’t smiled once.
The slow crawl of the wheel, and a smiling employee motions to us.
Our turn, the ‘flight’ begins.
Yes, they actually call it a ‘flight.’
Five people in our shuttle.
Mum, Dad, a young couple and Rorshach.
The young couple are lost in their world of romance.
Holding hands, their lives are just beginning.
I sit on the bench, and look at the floor.
“Stand up Rorsh, you’re missing the view.”
“okay mum.”
How to describe the view?
Concrete and light blanket a million lost and lonely souls.
That will do.
“Isn’t it great?”
“Yeah mum, it’s great”
The young couple ask me to take a photograph of them.
I am happy to do so.
They smile.
I point the camera and click
They look so happy, beaming with radiance and life.
Enjoying a love that I’ve never possessed.
9
The tears start to well, as I think of my own failure.
I sit down on the bench, and a tear falls.
Wiped away, before the parents can see.
“Isn’t it a beautiful view?”
“Yes mum it is.”
“It sure is.”
The ride slowly comes to an end.
The young couple go out into the night.
I go back to the hotel.
With mum.
And Dad.
And spend the night, writing this poem.
Marc Carver
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE
I want to live in a lighthouse and watch the sun rip itself from the sea everyday.
Listen to the waves tangle with the rocks.
Lay on the floor at the top of the lighthouse.
Peel back the roof and watch the clouds go by, until it is dark.
Remember laughter.
Wait for night to come.
Listen to the sea at night.
Someone would come for me there though.
Come to find me.
Would I open the door.
10
Would I let them in.
How long before they would smash the door down.
How long would it take for them to make my life-theirs.
I look out of the window and know that my life must change but I cannot see around
the corner.
The angle is too short, too obtuse.
Perhaps it is better not to look but to live in darkness.
I have love but do not have life.
Life is lost to me. It is over there and I am firmly here.
I don‟t want to be a better man just the man that I am.
Whoever that is.
A man that can laugh and cry at the same time.
The lonely man, who gets as close to women as he can.
To feel, the life that is the woman.
When I look into a woman‟s eye, I could drop to the ground and hug and grip their
waist.
Please stroke my hair, like my mummy used to do.
Let me curl up on their lap and breasts.
Let me be a child again.
Or maybe a dog.
a dog with a rope for a chain.
So look into my eyes and don‟t be scared what you see there.
It is not sadness or pain it is just me?
But do you really want to look. Why would you.
So if you pass me in the street
don‟t look into those blue eyes because I am not there.
I AM
IN- MY LIGHTHOUSE.
11
TITLE
I try to think about something important to write about.
Love, friendship, sex.
The more I think about it, the less there is to write about.
So, why do I write?
Why does anybody write?
Because they can say words on paper, that they cannot speak.
Too frightened that nobody will listen, held to their words.
All of these, and then some.
Look what they did to Jesus.
I lie in bed and fall asleep hoping and praying I can become the man that I need to be.
When I wake up
I am always in the same place.
Only one thing has changed
I can get up
and search for those important words
that will make a good poem.
I know that they are inside of me
I just need to drag them out.
They will come.
So, I will keep searching but I am unsure as to what will happen if I find them.
I think that I will know before you
But what happens then.
I have stopped writing for pleasure or for me.
I write for you.
Whether you want them
or not.
12
Colin Roberts
5 In London - Rush Hour
Why‟s the train so crowded, dangerous?
Watch the bodies pushing, pulling.
Watch the faces smiling, knowing, quizzing,
Black reflections flying, passing,
5 in London – rush hour
Why‟s our safety ignored, worthless?
Watch the children wondering, slipping.
Watch their parents trying, failing.
Hear their voices crying, moaning.
Why on Earth do these things happen?
5 in London – rush hour.
Different people from different countries,
Different thoughts in rolling tube.
Different fashions, lying mirrors,
No barriers, the world is one.
How do trains knock down life‟s barriers?
Watch the papers rising, falling.
13
See the headlines showing, hiding
5 in London – rush hour.
Ashley Bovan
Whitewell-on-sea
craggy spikes
the ocean throws its smell up into the air
Sploosh sploosh crush crush
Going on and on
Maybe it‟s the nature of timelessness
that in the complete moment
you have all the potential of the future
Odourous time stuck in old cottages
Front-rooms‟ musty
upholstery clutches memories
discards the chance to grow
out of darkness
a green shoot in the open sky
The thuck thuck of your grandfather‟s clock
Children of the White Islands
Tonight, in furtherance,
the star shapes are all wrong
chilly moon
Snow everywhere, conforms to my feet
ice-ants nip
14
I steal fur from dead warriors
In the future
when this 12-year process is over
I will have no need for dreams
but, for now, I should practice an attitude
that will avoid generating suspicion and hostility –
a suitable vulnerability
Colin Beck
Blues
When I look at you
I don‟t know what day it is
Im seeing stars
I don‟t know whats going on
Hold my hand
You see I watch you watching me
Im alive close your eyes
I don‟t know what feelings are
I seen your face in broken glass
Scattered the way I feel
15
Henry Blake
IF YOU CAN AFFORD A DUCK POND AND
PORNO FILMS WHY CAN‟T YOU BUY
YOURSELF A PERSONALITY
The glass screen in my bedroom
Transmits insipid faces
A man who purports to be Prime Minister
Of England has a face like a wet weekend
In Bradford….
He talks out of the corner of his mouth,
Smiles with a glass eye….
Reads out a list of statistics….
Expounds the economy is in great shape,
Unemployment is negligible…. In real terms!
A different man comes onto the screen,
He‟s got a nice hairstyle,
A slimy face….
He states the economy is in melt-down,
Unemployment has reached the highest rate
Since 1990…
This man has 30 million pounds in his
Bank account….
You don‟t acquire that amount of money by
Propagating the virtues of Florence Nightingale.
One of these law abiding individuals is lying….
Probably both.
I switch off the T.V. screen
It‟s a pretend democracy with puppet people
And it‟s bullshit
16
THE DEATH OF A COUNCIL TENANT
He left this world two days ago.
Some people from the refuse department had
Come to collect his things:
Broken furniture, old clothes, esoteric books….
They threw the stuff outside in a skip
With the rest of the rubbish.
He led the life of a complete nobody,
The ending was a quiet commonplace affair.
He died in his sleepfrom a brain haemorrhage.
He used to say to his one and only friend:
“It makes no difference who you are, where you come
from death will be your constant companion.”
He died on Monday,
They buried him on the Friday….
Nobody attended the funeral….
The keys to his council flat
Were passed onto the next potential tenant
A. Catterall
Come Closer Honey
As I left, she threw
My books from the window
Behind me
17
Then she started
With the bottles
After a while
She stopped,
And I stopped
Shouting
She came down
And sat on the pavement
Next to me
And we sat amongst
The books and wine
I rolled a cigarette
And offered her one
She shook her head
And I have nothing else,
To give anymore
I never asked for you,
I never would
There has always
Been this between us
In my drink
I can forget, the sound of you
And it is wonderful,
Wonderful.
18
Why We Wait
We sat playing cards
Because there was
Nothing else to do
And as the power
Ran out, we waited
For dawn
All night I wanted
To touch you,
But didn‟t
You wanted to leave,
But you didn‟t
Neither of us,
Had anywhere to
Go
I‟m just old
And drunk
And you,
You are young
And new
There would be,
No point
There is, no point
Just count the cards
At dawn
19
Then you can leave
And I, will be able,
To sleep
Chris Hardy
THE HOUSE OF MIRRORS
Before me lies the past
a dark pool
the colour of regret,
which I must cross
to where chance
fate and choice
which makes regret
await
concealed in mirrors
on the wall
of a house.
I have to cross over
the pool
carrying the present
in my pocket,
go through the door
look in the mirrors
20
watch the roof
fade
take my hand
from my pocket
and open it.
IRIS
In the dark
she comes up close.
She builds a scaffold
and locks it to my face.
I see her comet
piloting in
she sees the doorway
where the world trades
and scans the shedding
tapestry
that makes a graveyard
souvenir,
lights upon motes
refines the shadows,
says if the litter
rises like a wall
or falls like a curtain
that I must call.
When she watches
I go blind.
21
THE BOOK OF GHOSTS
In the corner of the book-case
against the wall
is the book of ghosts
Open the book
and the dead wake up,
certain they‟re alive,
and apparitions appear
of those who I still meet,
who walk into my house
like people though
they leave themselves
in footfalls down the street.
And in the book
are my ghosts too,
ghosts of me.
When the book is open
we all return
like shadows in the hall
and when the book is shut
we turn our faces once more
to the wall
22
David Hudson
ORIGAMI
Snowflake events
The Paper Men. Yellowing, carious. All vicious angles, impossible geometry. Cut and
pasted from a thousand headlines screaming rape and murder. House security
butchered. Old man Murdock taken to the Printers. Blocks of text hammered into raw
flesh. All the latest news.
Shocking what they‟ll print nowadays.
The CCTV coverage tops the ratings.
Feral media storming the TV studios. A code V situation. Aggressive interviewing.
Paxman stuffed live on Newsnight.
Bonehead and Gobshite, a couple of Irish troubadours, made their fortune fleecing the
punters on the “charity” circuit, forcibly sodomised on stage by a junkyard
synthesizer.
Talk about a critical shafting.
Bad ideoplasms. Egrigor mugshots. The police have taken to using silver bullets. Not
that it does any good.
One umwelt after another.
Mass UFO sightings over rubbish dumps and scrap yards. Pilots attempting intercept
find themselves flying over illusory landscapes. Fading transmissions.
23
Bodies as icons. Built from junk and bad dreams.
A pack of slavering Jabberwocks attack the House Of Commons. Blood and guts
everywhere. It‟s a horrible sight. All those politicians.
A giant octopoid reported surfacing at Greenwich. Strange chants fill the air.
England‟s Dreaming.
Andrew Nightingale
Coming into Canary Wharf on the DLR
Rather than being formal to the point of violence:
fucked up by its mantichoneymoon with dead water,
the rectilinear slurry graves and their brightly coloured boats.
Something homely in the smeared dusk: the yellow lights,
the slackened compulsion after six that eases
the slant rhyme of smart casual, the violence of crowds
cleverly dissipated by clever architectural design.
The sense of companionship it leaves is wrong,
As if a body, disinterred, were found wearing a novelty tie.
Curving in, over cold grey panels of meniscus,
the cathedral‟s candlelight and murmur is nodal,
wedding the purity of financial violence to chic cellular
home lives, echoes of the yellow light, mortgaged
mash-ups in hinterlands of children and pets.
An empty barge, bloated like a corpse: a lost soul, laid up,
going nowhere, floating where the taped voices miss,
the daylight bulbs are blind and there‟s no screen, no login,
only the formalities that follow self-harm,
cubes of stopped river bedding the dead bride‟s dream.
24
Division
1. interphase
Between population growth
and the notion of vermin
among the animals
Between cancer
and treatments for mange
among the falling shadows
Between a live pig’s heart
and unsorted chickens’ eggs
among the undead
2. Prophase
Before the illusion of this-means-that
fire and flint
the logic of forward
Before eating becomes consumption
the village GP in antlers
ceremony pushing forward
Before the shape of a plate as aspiration
bacon and burger
the alien races forward
3. Metaphase
Over hills beyond the inhabited world
worlds inhabited still
something stuck that can’t change
Over the laboratory a studied evasion
beyond the ken of skin or pump of blood
where living material harbours change
25
Over vast self-healing systems of finance
beyond mythic technologies
markets change
4. Anaphase
The right to rape and murder and eat
what reconstructed instincts believe in eating
brings memory back to the hands again
On a straightened back internal organs
no longer hang naturally
next to the same explanation again
Timelessness comes back
to creatures waiting to die
the pre-death that life be lived again
5. Telophase
In the end their end is smothered by difference
dissection of autopsy concludes
there’s no ghost
An end in itself is born outside the species
ending in the fragmentation of species
into a million speckled eggshells
The relationship ends with cytokinesis
so separation exonerates
atrocities of difference Kevin Meehan
Stravisio Beach
Black olive
skinned vendor
you tread daily
lean and barefoot
26
upon the fresh combed
searing sand
into a desert with two oceans
Up and down the mediterranean‟s edge
in a shimmering mirage
persistent as the sun
your sure sole
prints the surface
of a sea of opportunity
slim pack muel
you carry your weight
without complaint
in a variety of hats, hairclips
watches,sunglasses and jewelry
tempter of the tan and naked
sun worshippers
on their backs and bellies
in deck chairs and recliners
your fake designer goods
glint and sparkle
for a purchase
with your carved lizard mirrors, watches, rings
and colourful necklaces
made from teeth and shells
luring the lazing
to sit up and part with some euros.
along the scorched
Sicilian shoreline.
27
Reflections of a Banksman It is summer here in Dublin. We pull on steel and stone in an international effort to raise apartments from a wounded and weeded acre of urban dereliction for the client. Poland, Romania, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia and the rest of Eastern Europe arrive half asleep to rise perfectly formed concrete columns on a military scale from the wasteground. Hard hatted, hiving, migrant workers graft another marathon of tasks to realize the drawings of an architect‟s plan before the sun sets on the last few hours they own. All are laboured and sore from steel and stone, glass and timber and the daily tread of tired feet upon a changing landscape. Nation by nation join together in The global language of effort. In their midst a tower crane rises
28
one of many that stand like still silent storks in the docklands with outstretched necks of angle iron dangling their chains and hooks to catch the Banksman's straps.
A noisy entanglement of metal and men All are friendly smiling and worn And dream of home
Mel Quetzcoatl
IRAQ
Shrapnel that splinters in one's body The woman crying Soldiers doing their ghost-dancing through Baghdad, the image of The young male, hooded, his crime? Unspecified, the 'enemy combatant' that lurks in the haze of the soldiers' imagination, everywhere but no-where, the Sun parchyed poster of Saddam, crisp, rustling its own demise in the Racous noise of gunshots and the Danger of hospitals, to loive or die? Is there an option? The 'enemy combatant' moves through his dance, in the imagination of the soldiers, the Flowing robes of Bin Laden everywhere but no-where, a two minute hate to justify...what? The eyes of the child movinbg through each ghost-moment, wondering where her father is, the soldier, spitting out his gum and calling in a Foreign language, the Death of a father and two sons at a checkpoint: they couldn't understand English, he Ran a small shop once, but that was the objective of a 'precision strike', the 'enemy combatant' was lurking amongst the cans of beans and stuff, existing through the imagination of the soldiers, the enemy combatant, like some form of Hollywood creation, a matter of culture, a matter of Dancing with the ghosts that stalk Abu gharib, moving through into some Intoxicating swirl, the 'enemy combatant' in each dark corner, existing through some Dream that didn't exist but ws forced into existence, the Imagination of the soldiers and the cry of a thousand orphans....
29
WATER
The sand flow of life And sparkle of dew-wet leaves on the brow of memory... The bird Rising with its song to that blue azure nothingness through which the dreams began to flow... River-like, from their beginnings, the shimmer of blue-moon silver on the waters that Flowed through my dreaming like a song I forgot and then remembered, the Ghost that touched my fiongers, and the elixir of some form of sense that Crept theif-like through my dreams and sung to the Flight we began as children when we held the world in our hands, our world, its heart beating to its history like the Jungle-drumming of some forgotten civilization, its echoes moving stealthily through the Distant horizon where I caught my dream in my hand and danced with her, spiralling through the uNiverse like some Quasar of foretting, each moment, caught within itself and the history that defined it, weaving silk with its movements, existing through the Urban hymn and the roar of cars, the quiet of the forest, intersecting, the motions through which Silently we dance through the hall of dreams, each one beckoning, each one singing its own song and Twirling through history, the dance on the water, droplets between our toes...
Cristogianni Borsella
The Night Breeze
The night breeze
rattles the sound of angry stilettos,
sharp twisted iron coffins
in blue diamond shrouded graveyards.
Have I been here before?
A familiar tone excites me
howling in the wind, ever evasive,
30
just beyond the reach of the living.
Material dust settles in the
corner of my eye
like an abstraction of reality,
twice the size of my ear wax,
but night air is good
heightening my sense of dearth.
Simon Turner
Love is known
There is no qualm invented
that can resist the torrent that builds behind the log-jam of branches and corrugated iron
the plastic roofs and ripped-out fences tangled in weed and filth
all blasted down the gullies once stately
to jam the arched thoroughfare
of bridge to sea
the water rises and courses wider
screaming
you bastards will not stop me
I live in the sea
I will belong in salt and nothing will find me
you will not seek me out and hold ransom
my destruction and doom
I am love-like in my power and mirage
real but aching to be gone
there high to your stone buttresses
then gone to your gull-swooped masses
where I’ll carve my love-names in shore-rock and sand-grain
where I’ll shape pebble and cove
centuries of me you’ll not see
love taught me how
the force can sweep unstopped
how none deny the sight and all must bow to the sight
of how I decide to flow to the loss and the new vaster me
31
will you come too?
or do you hesitate on the parapet
your face lashed by drowning’s lure
aghast at why
devoid of reasoned abandon
and crushed against the absence of the witness
who walked away?
Jonathan Doherty
The Manchester Renaissance
Proper Mancs say: "Shut your North and south!"
divided only by shirt colour
come derby day.
My Manchester ,
built by buildings as big as its heart;
today we’re changing for the better.
We’re not so soft as the cotton made here,
cos we’ve had it mint and we’ve had it hard.
We’ve stood back and watched our mills fall quiet -
that was a revolution in ruin.
A government got its turn with Thatcher.
Eighties’ kids laboured on to gleefully
stick two fingers up at her in the Hac
while they were ‘avin it on pure acid
and mesmerised by ‘A guy called Gerald.’
Lots of cash and drugs have been injected
into Manchester - that’s the way we do it,
and today we are changing for the best.
On our Pennine throne, we are king
and over the northern realm may we reign
til’ those fibreglass cows come home. May we be top, sweet, sorted, sound
til’ that endless rain stops falling, when Leeds is bigger, Liverpool louder,
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when London finally stops calling. Shout out to Oasis, the Smiths,
Edwards, Bell , Lowry and Turing. Anyone who's who, north or south,
red or the blue, the born and bred and diehards, to the through and through,
and don't forget the adopted few.
To the city that just dozes
in the dense concrete jungle.
A pulsating throb of vibrancy
pounding the labyrinth street.
All resounds and all is colour,
as I view the kaliedescope
of cultures, the fusion of creeds
in the simmering crucible
always toiling, always bubbling.
Pigeons and gothic gargoyles,
and me watch the sun run away,
and my Manchester , yours and ours,
settles under the brewing sky.
And, like applause, the rain slowly
falls down as a crescendo,
harder, faster, as to encore
such a symbol, such a gift.
Mary Ocher
"Proper adjustments' Big blue veins I wish they‟d be any other color but blue But they don‟t care, see - Opposing your wishes they grow and spread and take hostage of the body as it opens, and the blue veins conquer: We have always been" the emperors,
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We have always ruled this waste-place, and nobody else but us
Simon Hambrook
Snow landscape
A landscape in the ever most airs
brings me here .
Desk of hearts . The hills
white polar arms in the grass fields at my standing feet
will to listen .
But I am a chief of crayons , not nature ,
thunder or these wetted flowers .
I can only find the hearts of memories in my world ,
and tunes which I lifted once can now play
in streams as beautiful as suns .
For I make that those waters
multiply into the sublime
until , Creator – full ,
blushes with their spending radiance .
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Sarah Woolsey
Recycling
1.House
Domestic shadows
clutter up bookcases,
encased in gold gilt frames,
staining thread-less carpets.
A musty vapour
of damp and paper
unwelcomes
new tenants.
2. Street
Flattened tarmac
fails to suffocate
bursting tree roots. Cracks
zig-zag the sticky surface,
man-made molehills
mount and multiply
mocking that
Nature will prevail.
3. Body
Silvery strands
peep through an auburn bob,
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tell-tale, glistening.
Under dark camouflaged
ammonia pigment.
Uncoiling, rebellious,
frizzing free
from a backcombed jail.
4. Skin
A dewy ivory mask
emulates a magazine cover.
Poreless, airbrushed
from a distance.
Smiling reunites creases,
creamy filler melting,
flawless finish cracking
like ceramic.
Tom George
My Bohemia I celebrate the overhanging tree that leans out over the wall Of the old abandoned house on Croxteth Road I wonder at its twisted waist, boughs and blossoms hanging down In a drunken sprawl that almost touches the pavement And you have to walk round A shameless and defiant gesture The house behind, repossessed by nature
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With feral fronds sprouting from the eaves And crumbling steps engulfed by infant jungle A forty-something man walks past With six inch turn ups on his jeans A strange bowling walk And the hat and jacket of some long lost youth cult That I can’t identify Off he strides out of sight To somewhere I cannot possibly imagine In L17… On winding roads under maples and oaks I venture out to find Baby castles with turrets and green copper Collared doves on chimney pots And echoes of the chapters I have lived On idle afternoons under milky skies I celebrate the nine doorbells, The creaky floor and the shared bath Skinning up to Syd Barrett Walking round to somewhere With a hat and scarf Dusky gloom and the smell of a bonfire In our idyll I celebrate a draughty letterbox An echoey hallway cluttered with bikes Tattoed sheets at the window The intrigue of attics A mirror from a skip Brompton Avenue glade-like In the dappled day Ghostly and still by night With somewhere, the sound of a party I wonder at the countless lives and times Daydreams and desires That gave this scene its soul
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The unspoken community that meets by chance Walking the shore of Sefton park’s green ocean And rat race refugees like you With hairline cracks Where a light shines through Seeking out the shade of trees The tranquil breeze We understand The mossy walls and magpie calls The mystery of sweet decay I celebrate these things today ‘Cos just last week I saw men looking at the empty house With clip boards, hard hats and plans To tear out the twisted tree that understands To knock through walls And lay Ikea pine floors For boring people To live (if that’s what they call it)... with huge TVs That don’t belong And live it wrong With sci-fi monster vehicles parked outside And security lights on the drive I celebrate the little old man who pushes A home made cart around the streets looking for wire and this and that A radiator or radio Over wet leaves on Ivanhoe A distant figure walking Fading into mist
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Neon Highway
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