Neon Highway Poetry Magazine

Neon Highway, Issue 21

2012-01-20T12:23:00.000-08:00

Neon Highway Issue 21 ISSN 1476-9867

Note from Jane Marsh:

November2011

Welcome my friends. It seems there hasbeen anarchy in the UK. Riots throughout the country!

It is strange that young people willrisk gaining a criminal record for the sake of a plasma TV? That tome is the saddest thing, that these material items have gained suchprestige amongst the youth of today that culture and art have taken aback seat.

When I was a girl, I spent most of myyouth walking through theColeccion de Arte Cubano, in the Belles Artes Museum, Havana,admiring the paintings of Jorge Arche. So what hashappened to create such emptiness that these material possessionssomehow have such power to fill these gaps in people’s lives? If Ihad it my way, I would introduce kids to art. Art needs to be top ofthe list at school. Artists, Poets and lecturers should be invited infrom all over the world and kids should listen and take part in theseprojects, projects that show how to protest through art and writingprojects that are fun and colourful, projects that are messy projectsthat are refined, projects that involve communities and youthstogether. It is this lack of inspiration, I feel that is preventingyoung people from discovering the key to their future. We needphilosophy, discussion, creativity, poetry and love and beauty. TheUk could be turned into a society that encourages the journey ofaesthetics. Etymology is derived from the Greek αἰσθητικός(aisthetikos, meaning "esthetic, sensitive, sentient"),which in turn was derived from αἰσθάνομαι (aisthanomai,meaning "I perceive, feel, sense"). This is what I feelthese children are missing. That’s why so called ‘privileged’people were looting also much to people’s shock and confusion. It’sbecause they are looking to feel. The trouble is that the looting didmake them FEEL. That rush of adrenalin, the excitement, thefeeling of self- control, the misguided barbarism and hooliganism.This is all just an excuse to perceive to feel, to sense to feelinspired!

And autumn approaches us and I amfeeling SO happy. I can’t explain it but there is an inner peace Ihave not felt in years. The letting go of old attachments, theletting go of heavy memories, the desire to wander through mymidnight park alone with only the sound of owls and foxes.

Contents

4. Sutirtha Roy

4-5. Alexine Aschler

5. Van Den Budenmayer

6. David Morgan

7-8. Eunice Ogunkoya

8. Richard Thomas

9-10. Grzegorz Jędrek

11-12. Scott Cameron

12-14. Nicholas Falkowski

14-15. MUDI

15-16. Nick Monks

17.Ben Macnair

18. Anthony John Ward

18-20. Drew Smith

21. David Mac

22-24. Graham Brodie

25-26. Stephen Doyle

26-27. Anne Rees

28-29. Steve Troyanovich

29-30. Robin Moore

30-34. Emma Bullen

35. Christopher Barnes

36. Publications/Listings.

Artwork for this issue byAC Evans.

Sutirtha Roy

Apologue

The clock was tickingtowards midnight

It was creepy cold –trampling down

The sound of the darknessand sea waves

A weird stallion reeledinto the eight

Polish Street – alone,perhaps leaving

Behind the easel ofPicasso instead.

No one else except aswarthy blind

Angel flying high in thelate city sky

Ever saw that – but themiracle prevailed.

Alexine Aschler

When to the milky wallsof the

When to the milky walls ofthe

Last city on earth theirwagon

Came, they did not expectthe

Gates to be open,unguarded.

Scouting warily ahead, the

Leader found only docility

Among the dwellers, no oneto

Challenge or to challengehim.

Languid imbeciles met himwith

Vacant mouths, obsoleteeyes.

Concluding this placealso was

Infected, the Leader told

his team they must facethe

wilderness again. His

wife said, ‘There was noclue?’

‘No,’ he repliedgruffly.

‘None.’

Van Den Budenmayer

Of Course I didn’t meetthe man near

The marble arch at HydePark in an

Idle Sunday afternoon,precisely at

Four p.m. nor he shook myhand or lifted

The dark felt hat for awhile, before

He could slurp. But Ialways knew that

He was the one – theinvisible maestro,

The Dutch who loved waltz,red tulips, merlot

Fragrance or, may besometimes fresh polish

Scones, – certainly thelife above all.

And only he could capturethe immense beauty

Of time and space silentlyflowing like rain

Beyond the grey-scale,perceptively limned ever

By him – the mostperpetual Van Den Budenmayer.

Eunice Ogunkoya

THE SIXTH SENSE

Expression,

In words and language,

By signs and symbols,

For speech and writing,

Is perceived andinterpreted,

By the Sixth Sense.

She is an ultra-sensation,

Which goes beyond theexperience,

Of the five normal senses,

Put together.

Her empathy is oh sohuman!

She expresses,

All manner of emotions,

Feelings and opinions,

Very vividly andvivaciously,

Such as hopes and fears,

Happiness and sadness,

Life and death.

Her drama is oh soamazing!

She feels free to speak up

And let the writing flow…

The heart racing atoverdrive,

A rush of blood to thehead,

A surge through theforearm,

An outpouring at thefingertips,

Totally out of breath,

Writing whilst catchingher breath,

The strange scenario,

Like a stroke of genius,

That is simply expression,

Her freedom of discourse,

For being such a wildcard.

Hopes and Fears

Richard Thomas

The Tear

The drop that drips downthe plump, twitching cheek

Magnifies the skin with asalty ooze.

Water that gathers in thecracked face creek –

The joy of Earth we’reafraid to lose.

The make up destroyerfilled with hot rage,

An anti-mascara ductcausing pain,

Putting black gunk on thewriting punk’s page –

But how dare it play sucha tactless game.

The poor eye is bathed andthe face is splashed –

Agony, the sea of thehuman face,

Waves of anger and brutaltimes have clashed

As the eyelid swims fromthe sad salt’s chase.

The eye shall close soonin great heaviness,

Openat daybreak in half of the mess.

GrzegorzJędrek

FromLowell’s Letter to Liz Hardwick

aneelnet made by man for the eel fighting

myeyes have seen what my hand did

R.Lowell “Dophin”

Madam,the lake is filled with feathers

afteryou. Who would have thought that an eel

feedson nightingales?

(Onlythose dainty wings could soar up to the past,

butyou locked up the skies and it is out of reach.)

Fearnone/Do not worry, I can be a kingfisher,

I amheading for the ocean, would like to listen to

thedolphins’ songs again. Their bodies

arenot carried with the current.

Wereyou capable of learning

theywould show you how to breathe.

Purgatory

Inhale,apnea, exhale, and in between

thereare two ways, chimney outlets

ofan old house you occupy in dreams

incessantlywriting yet another incarnation

weall have to type

newlessons, medicines and wars

tosave/salvage the walls and the roof from collapsing

renovatingthe house filling up our words

thethought is our native tongue

orderfrom the above, the first principle

thatyou will not deceive before yourself

butcan develop closing it to the full

Oddechy– zmiana, bo brak słów o podobnych podstawach = polskie “dech”,które działają w tym kontekście

Save– coś jest w złej sytuacji I ratujemy

Salvage– coś ratujemy, bo inne rzeczy zniszczono w takiej sytuacji

Fillingup = zapełniać, tzn. Fizycznie, nie „robić to, co się obiecało,na co się dało słowo” Tak?

Opcja:command/rule

Tenwers nie jest dla mnie jasny po polsku.

ScottCameron

FightThe Flag

Rulesincorporated, freedom overstated

Beneaththe scheme there’s a healthy dream

Growingright out of the mushroom cloud.

Feelthe power, feel the power

Chargingthrough the streets at the vital hour.

Electricityspark and the flame is set

Lickingup the flag with the people’s fire.

Theysay the war is needed, the plant is seeded

Moneyfor oil, and the wealth is weeded

Theman on the television’s telling lies

Givingyou an enemy you must despise

Butyou can tell by his eyes

It’sa big disguise.

Volatilityrises, the bomb explodes

Andthe alliance erodes.

Damnthis nation to all damnation

Workingovertime in their occupation.

Convalesceyour dreams and reveal their schemes

Andfight until they hear your protesting screams.

Salutethe flag with your fingers raised

Standup and be praised by the ones you saved

Fromdemoralisation and degradation.

Plota revolution and spread the cause

Fightwith all our fibre for the one solution

Toovercome the pollution of our pregnant airwaves

Collectedconsciousness mounting in the streets

Rainingnon-conformity in naked sheets.

Deadheroes mounting like fallen leaves

Testifybefore they bleed you dry

Testifybefore shots begin to fly.

I’veseen in my dreams

Calamitybursting society’s seams

Bloodflowing like rain from an empty sky

Paralysethe hope in the tyranny’s eyes

Untilvictory’s impossible, justice inevitable.

Marchon the capital and take the palace

Surrenderto our soldiers, lower the flag

Andcelebrate the birth of a brand new nation.

NicholasFalkowski

Youmight not understand and it is very hard for me to

Explain

butthere are certain sights sounds and strokes

ofthe pen

that

setfires in my soul and

fillme with an

unearthly

energy–

somebastard child of

mania

andsalvation

ittastes electric and grabs hold of my hands, shoulders

andthoughts

likethe sweetest

offevers

and

sometimes,

forthe briefest of

moments,

Iswear I glimpse the burnt oak gates of a heaven

wherewords

flow

water

andthe angels

are all mutes with the biggest blue eyes

andthe ground is my bruising

skin

andmy soul is both the mountain, the river, and

thesky.

MUDI

SHIKATAGA NAI

Thewinds came and stole your livelihood

Thewaters came and took your family

Skiesopened up and unleashed the contents of hell

Thebreath you take has become a poisoned enemy

Pollutingplumes assault your possibilities

Yourtears are of salt, fire, water and ash

Andyet…

Youare reclaiming your waterlogged memories

Rebuildingthe firmament of hope and kindness

Re-clothingyourself with the stoicism that never fades

Speakingonly to find order in the chaos

Neverdescending to the victimless cries of “Why Me”

Desperationnever taking a foothold

Self-abnegnationyour default

Possessingthe patience,

Theendurance

Theperseverance

Akinto death itself

Butyour end is far from near

Dippingfurther into your infinite reserves of Gaman

Youcontinue to find great strength

Yourcore unshaken

Youwill rise again

Ganbattekudasai

NickMonks

ManhattanSkyline

Luminouseyes across

Thelow rise, we have achieved

This,setting sun behind

Thestatuesque scrapers

Theblocks of steel and glass

Breathtakingviewed from afar

Babel’s towers reaching

Toconquer the pristine sky

Fromground level look on watch

Thesky change colour, reflected in

TheChrysler tower The Sony building

Oureyes meet their eyes

Wedrive down the roads

Inthe fantasia of neon

Owningall proud, while poverty

Liesdishevelled in the gutter

BenMacnair

TheArtist’s Self Portrait

Hewears his scars with pride,

pullsat the wounds until they bleed.

A face like a map of experience.

Hehas the face he wanted

butnot the one he needs.

Thetattoos are not permanent marks of pain,

theyare the rituals he went through to join the tribe,

andthe arguments he has are not with himself,

butwith an unjust God.

Darknessis hungry.

Itthreatens to shallow you,

andin the foreground stands a man,

ashe sees himself,

atthe mid-point stage of play

thatis only part written.

Heis all splodges and lines,

closedeyes blocking out the world,

aBoxer’s nose

causedby drink

andnot an opponent’s fist.

Animage where life has removed hope,

hangingon a wall in a millionaire’s holiday home,

wherethe canvas is seen as being far more valuable

thanthe artist who poured himself into

lines,splodges and whirls,

halfa century ago.

AnthonyJohn Ward

Astronomers

Weastronomers

liketo watch the stars

through our telescopes

asastronauts in our own homes

observingthe light of those astral bodies

whoselight shines from darkness

farfrom the earth that keeps us grounded

ourlives influenced by the celestial activities

thathold our interests for the duration

Drew Smith

Airless Mauve

a womanlabours

beneath theweight

of alightening-striking

migraineheadache

she sits on apark bench

with her headin her hands

beside a carplake

thatfascinates

a spinningchaos

of high-tunedflies

that aresniped in the wide gape

of a swift onwhose eye

tenses theairless mauve

high summerstorm sky

that aches tocrack under the pressure

of the rashlyflaring sun

thatinstinctively juggles nine disparate planets

for a sparseaudience of blind furnace-stars

that crowd intiny galaxies

in a minuteaqueous universe

as whirlingpearly organelles

suspended inthe mis-firing brain cells

of a woman

who sits

on a parkbench

beside a carplake

with her headin her hands

labouringunder the massive weight

of asuper-nova-star-spangled

migraineheadache

sequence ofillusions

in deepdisbelief of my daydreams and delusions

in a dismalstate that reiterates my most cynical conclusions

in absolutedenial of my reality in cloud-cuckoo-land and staring

into infinityin silent isolation in suspended animation

in starry-eyedmesmerized space-cadet lunacy

then all myinsecure confusions spontaneously convert

into truthfulsolutions for far too long inert

the sequenceof illusions tripping ethereally

fix into vividvisions that serve to alter me

in jettisoningthe familiar paranoia and claustrophobia

i invent astate of blissful tear-spilling euphoria

and in thepsychedelic primary colour blur

i’m sunstruck by a fantastic phantasmagoria

in stretchedperfect connection with the sense of ecstasy

that shineslike mercury-venus filling me to capacity

with thepromise of redemption atonement and entry

to gloriousannihilation in such light and purity

and now icreate beyond me a superb crystal cube

wherein iperceive i recognise and conclude

the naturalthe absolute the out and out truth

and thereinaccepting immaculate reality

i compose myultimate abstract philosophy

and conceivethe theory of the freedom

that sentencesme to the margins of this

prolongedcatastrophe

David Mac

a cigarette hissing in a

glass of Coke

the glowing ember

extinguishing

fizzing into the

sweet blackness

her eyes are sad petals

she’s the mud of my mind

I’m her male of

bony words, but

here we are in these

meaty costumes

darling, don’t you know?

this flesh is fake

and skulls are

expressionless

so it’s no wonder we

refuse to smile

GrahamBrodie

Salt

Thiswinter is coming

towardsus

ourhome sheltered

secure

Iremember the first time

whenthe grey lag goose

sweptlow across

harvestedfields

migratingfor feeding

seekinginnately

tosurvive our harsh blown winds

ourdarkness'

likefishermen

followingthe herring

whodart and dance away

throughthe seas

theyfollowed the route

giventhem by nature

apath plotted

throughskies shedding their skin

whiteand grey swirls of snow

fallinglike forgotten souls

leftbehind, empty

spinningas if to cry out

'Waitfor us'

wewait

watchingin wonder

thegeese chasing life

overour heads

andready our fire,

oursupplies of food, water

storedin preparation for this winter

outhere

thiswinter will greet us

passionatelyagain

andwe will love with it

acceptingher gift

Burnedbridges, broken up

Tolook back

seeingall the bridges burning

feelingthe losses

friendshipsthrown away

thesmiles of memories

givenfreely on first meetings

nowwithered

lostin a haze of life

offears unspoken

alongthis river

pathsto where waters fall

nowdrowning joy

notwarming hearts

norloving welcome friendships

justthoughts mixing in pools

withfeelings lost

nobridges not burning

lookingback through a darkness

alongthis river

cold

StephenDoyle

Between Death and Decay

Drifting ashes settleslowly among films of glass,

My bag of bones is heavyfrom the crush.

And mortars and martyrsand pestles and petals

Too sweet for decay,

But things are beautifultoo which aren’t held by bad air.

Burning on my lips wasonly,

Who I am to you?

Chew a bleached rag,

And purge your mouth ofmortal vice.

Cracking scraps of glasswreaths,

But you can’t tense withbones in your pocket.

To love a man is amasochistic kiss,

For cruelty has talons ofvice, of vice.

Indifference with yourcallous and your unyielding malice,

Wretched in woe, wring younot,

For dry runnings don’tflow.

But strength, oh contours,oh clay balls on birch,

Tease in landscapes someticulously sculpted

In tessellation, we have,nothing to go by,

Except the sweet morphineof hypothesis.

Hypothesis, hypothesis,subconscious, dreams, hypothesis,

Deadly serious ingraveness action,

Makes harder stones fallharder yet.

To think as you, is asacrificial grace,

For I have loft andbreasts of baste.

I’ve always likedstanding upright,

Hung off a rafter, mypetals flaunt sweet songs.

And in this compromise ofsex against sex,

I stand at a window,

Like naked, paintingmammals.

Anne Rees

ANNE'S BOOK OF COMMONPRAYER

ANNE'S BOOK OF COMMONPRAYER

Beyond the bedroom windowschimney pots, strung wires

are bolted rigidly againsthot sunset radiance,

these few minutes bymyself, I'm sitting on the bed

hands gripping one anotherso bone-white the knuckles with self-pressure,

family noises boil up thestaircase cavern, then mercifully a door shuts.

I admit to myself that I'mvery frightened of my head:

you may ask what I mean, Iknow I'm going mad,

how else express it? Ifear these nosy others

their looks, unspokencomments, they're the Welsh

working class I marriedinto, this terror is too personal I am too English.

My brain is splitting andI'm hearing Voices

steady girl – tauntingsneering parodying, I have held it in

in the kitchen, down thebeach, enduring the incessant television

every evening, hearing theWelsh accents and the hinted racism:

crouched with grippedhands staring through purple cloud maps

making a valley of red andgreen material with my body

weighting the bedspread.The Voices clamour you're not mad you are aware

shut up shut up! I must bemad, punching myself in the head,

too miserable to cry, if Icould claw out

a hole in my skin –dusty white trails with beaded blood on my forearm -

I'll have to go back in aminute. Saying I'm mad

is self-dramatising,claiming such a certainty of fiery

Gothic-winged mythology isthis really me? This word mad

is too definitive – theVoices say I'm showing off,

that I am fradulent, butwhat is this terror then?

Why can't I be sane likethe others? They are Darwinian about extraordinary

aberrations like mine, andso they flourish like the green bay tree.

Christopher Barnes

An OffspringManufactured From Kiddiewinks

The residue dreamersdispense

Has a lacework membrane,

Is postponed on herBaby’s- Breath leaf

As sun glints thaw, seacurls see-saw,

Fruit flies blurp alullaby.

Ferments are mettle, back,go-getting,

Stepped stones. A bundle-

To the farthermost ofisles

Where an incoming cell

Flooded its ocean.

Steve Troyanovich

A POEM FOR SHARON

you are gentle

the soft sounds

of a hummingbird’s wings

remind me of you.

your smile embraces me.

like the spring rain

you caress and warm

the earth’s rebirth.

you are like an angel oftwilight.

your laughter hushes thesadness of the lost day

while fireflies scatterthe silence of memories

and shattered souls.

sirenlike the music ofyour body

ignites the doomed night’slonging.

you blanket it with yourtenderness

unfurling your arms at theedge of the falling moon.

troubadour of melancholydreams

my poem to you is writtenon the wind.

somewhere before the coldfragments

of another loveless dawn Itouch you. . .

i offer you my kiss and myloneliness

all that I own.

Snow fall

For Elizabeth

You renewed me bylosing yourself

To our deepeningdialogue in fading light.

To stardust we shallreturn

---PhilipCasey

you are lovely.

i dream you again….

the snow falls in

fleeting stillness

lost images

dressed

in lonely white….

seeking your lips

moonlight touches you

Robin Moore

Strangers Once in Love ata Sports Day

We stand at our daughter’ssports day clapping and cheering for her to win,

She runs with vigour andyouth just like our love once did

But now there is a gapbetween us old and withered like a witches skin

In some dusty office awhite paper sits our names side by side but waiting to be apart

A decree nisi the catcollar a scaratch behind my ear where did the love go it was thereonly last year

Did some passing wind andcold ice blow under our bedroom door, I really can’t remember whenour love departed I never saw a post card, Maybe you did and hid itin the side board. Did it move to the coast with our memories, curlup under a blanket and retire.

Your lips look strange tome now, I once knew every contour and valley and sweet peak andshore. That dimple in your cheek that once I loved has turned into afurrow on my brow, an old farmer drags his plough through my heartsowing seeds of regret.

What would happen now ifour hands touched , would there be sparks of lust without any trust,would we fall crashing to floor like felled trees lifting leaves.Parents would scream and turn their children’s heads as we threwopen our bedroom door, a new event on sports day is what the teacherswould say.

As I turn to leave youboth something breaks each time like the first, I turn to see mymother standing at the school gates waving goodbye trying not to cry.I drive away from the stranger that was once my wife.

Emma Bullen

UnicornChild

First man succeeded infinding a mysterious baby girl. ‘Below her stretched a Dawn Cardfrom the east and from the south a Sky Blue Card and from the west, aTwilight Card and from the north a Card of Turquoise. The child wasrocking on Dawn and Turquoise Rainbows, supported by these cards.‘First man reorganised that Darkness was her mother and Dawn herfather and when he took her in his arms he found a small White Windin her right and a small Dark Wind in her left ear, placed there byher parents. She was Changing Woman.

-Navajo Emergence Myth

I sing

the unicorn dance

of an autumn child,

flood of a veil

sewn by the hawk and thedeer –

echo of antler,

rust of silk.

A white hind

mimes the dust

and a blue fawn

spins

she chants, she chants

emptiness,

autumn flower

lit backwards

through hunger

-the reverse ofherself –

mirror daughter

and the delicate changingof the stars

* * *

Iam, I am

Inwisdom I walk

Inbeauty may I walk…

Inbeauty it is restored.

Thelight, the dawn.

Itis morning.

* * *

Inthe hour of the wolf

thewren sings,

goldand

snow–

herwings are drawn from flowers,

athread of owl, a petal of dawn

offeringthought

* * *

The raven craft

of a violent prayer

drops

through her blue footfalls

White raven

blossoms –

iridescence of winter,

invocation of a starlingfire

* * *

She leans through thesmoke

of the sacred pipe oftwilight

silver woman, silverwheel,

Arianrhod, ishta-devi

* * *

The widow deer

with the hooves

of turquoise,

prayers,

dances the laughter

of winter.

And the white mare

walks the thunder

* * *

Theworld before me is restored in beauty.

Theworld behind me is restored in beauty.

Theworld below me is restored in beauty.

Allthings around me are restored in beauty.

Myvoice is restored in beauty.

Itis finished in beauty.

Note:Arianrhod is the nameof the Welsh heroine who features in Mabinogion, a collection ofancient Welsh tales. Here she is understood as

Anancestral spirit of the land.

Christopher Barnes

An Offspring ManufacturedFrom Kiddiewinks

The residue dreamersdispense

Has a lacework membrane,

Is postponed on herBaby’s-Breath leaf

As sun glints thaw, seacurls see-saw

Fruit flies blurp alullaby.

Ferments are mettle, back,go-getting,

Stepped stones. A bundle-

To the farthermost ofisles

Where an incoming cell

Flooded its ocean.

Publications

'This Sepulchre' -Avant-Goth poems by AC Evans.

Published by SpringbeachPress 2000

Email:sian@springbeachpress.freeserve.co.uk

Listings

whirlpool press

poetry imprint

Edinburgh

Editor: Graham Brodie

publishes 50 chapbooks of54 pages of work for the poet

Author holds all rights.

whirlpoolpress@hotmail.co.uk

Symmetry Pebbles

Online poetry journal fornew and exciting poets.

Editor: Richard Thomas

www.symmetrypebbles.com

PIGHOG Press

http://www.pighog.co.uk/

P.O.Box 145

Brighton BN1 6YU

East Sussex England

Abridged

www.abridgedonline.comfor news of Abridged

Abridged is supported bythe Arts Council of Northern Ireland

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 snail-mail to addressabove. Please always supply a sae for any returned material.

Please put yourname and address on your poems.

Neon Highway is available bi-annually,with 2 issues costing £5.50, or a single

Issue available at £3.00. Order yournext issue by sending a cheque (made out to) to Alice Lenkiewicz.

Please be patient on replies.

If you do not hear about your workwithin eight weeks, do feel free to contact the editor.

If you would like to write a review forthis magazine or if you would be interested in being interviewed byassistant editor, Jane Marsh, please contact us on the email above.

Neon Highway is a non-profit makingmagazine.

We do encourage you to subscribe.

We are grateful to all the subscriberswho have kept „Neon Highway‟ in print over the years.

Neon Highway issue 20

2011-04-28T00:38:00.000-07:00

Neon Highway issn: 1476-9867

Note from Jane Marsh.

I simply had to show you our new shoes! Dolores, Myrtle and I went to Manchester and found this old vintage store.

Aren't they just glorious! Okay ladies, shoulders back. Head up. Single file!

Welcome to the Spring issue 20011 of Neon Highway.

Neon Highway is now a member of EBSCO.

That means that our magazine and your poems can be downloaded via the USA cataloguing system for research and reference for students. Gosh, I can't believe I am saying that. To think my little magazine started in the gutter!

Here is the link if you wish to look further at where your dear little poems will be going on a journey to.

http://www.ebscohost.com/

Now I don't know if I can make any money at this but if I do, I will make sure you know about it and that it goes towards Neon Highway or even to you! Don't worry, I won't be buying vintage shoes in secret with any of the profits! So I'll keep you updated. Darlings! xxx

Now here we are in April. It is a little hot for my liking, kind of when the daffodils and crocuses should be coming out. . .? and instead we are blasted with this ultra heat of Caribbean sun. I don't care what anyone says, I like the seasons to remain where they should remain and right now I am not enjoying this early summer especially as I went out to buy a summer dress the other day and we were back to Winter the next day without any warning. It was most embarrassing to get caught out like that in the rain on the way to my interview! I arrived like 'Princess and the Pea', a lady standing at the door in a puddle of water, with the sun shining outside. Goodness knows what they thought. . .

One more thing! I have become a vegan! Yes, Jane Marsh is now a Vegan! This is my way of protecting the beautiful animals of our earth and also protecting your health and our planet.

Veganism is wonderful. Do not think that if you become a vegan you will instantly be confined to lettuce leaves. Oh no, don't you worry, it is not like that at all. There is alot more to being a vegan than meets the eye my friends. It is the way forward, amazing diet of fresh and delicious food. By the way, while I am on the subject, please sign my petition to ban abattoirs, to give animals the right to live and to help restore peace and harmony to our planet. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/ban-abattoirs-protest-against-the-meat-industry/

Believe me, I have rediscovered tastebuds all over again and the good thing is at the same time you save an animal! How about that? You save an animal! Which offer do you prefer? Greasy hamburger filled with preservatives that makes you unhealthy, blocks up your arteries and comes with free plastic toy or Lovely refreshing healthy meal that gives you energy and offers you a whole new group of friends who believe in ethical issues and also gives an animal the right to live?

Go for it my friends. You know what the right choice is. I will send you vegan recipes from time to time. In fact Jane Marsh may just start up her own Vegan recipe book! Bye for now darlings. Enjoy the poems. xxx

Contents:

Tribute to poet, Kate Edwards.

Artwork by Joe Murtagh.

"Joe's distinctive style is influenced by music, fashion and pop culture.

He uses Adobe illustrator and photoshop to create his colourful, bold artwork.

Having been a figurative painter and sculptor, his work is very much based on the human form and portraiture."

http://www.joemurtagh.co.uk/

http://www.behance.net/murtaghj

In this issue Jane and I would like to pay our respects to the poet, Kate Edwards who sadly passed away this year. Two of her poems are published in this issue, 'Arabian Nights' and 'Wedding Gift'.

Kate Edwards was raised and educated in Runcorn, Cheshire. She wrote poetry from an early age, but only started to send it to editors a few years ago. Behind the house where she now lives are hills and heathland overlooking a wide estuary, which inspires many of her themes. Other poems are derived from shades of memories of relationships and incidents long past, or spring from imagination.

After leaving school Kate worked in a bank, which did not suit her, then became an actress, a cat walk model and later a supply teacher of English and Drama. She loved reading, theatre, galleries, cooking, dogs and horses. Kate passed away peacefully in January of this year, 2011. She is deeply missed by her husband and four children, who take great comfort in reading the legacy of her work, more of which can be seen on her website - www.kateedwards.net

Kate Edwards: 5-7

Sally Plumb: 7-8

Alistair Hayes: 9-10

Nick Tsaldaris: 10-11

A’Yara Stein{ 11-12

Tendair Mwanaka: 12-14

Deborah Maudlin: 16

Adam Flint: 18

Jane Penaz Eisner: 19

Morgan: 20-23

Roy Bayfield: 23-24

J.P.Christianson: 25

Alfred Gosschalk: 27

Chris Hardy: 28

Catharine Wignall: 29

AC Evans: 31-32

John Elliot: 33

Claud West: 34-35

Robert Ensor: 36

Jacob Shaw:36-37

Anna Hands: 37-38

Publications: 39-40

Subscriptions: 41

Kate Edwards

Arabian Nights

There is no balm in Gilead anymore,

nor is there peace in the mosques and temples,

the thurifers no longer wave the censers,

the alleyways are silent, even the souks

almost deserted., the hard eyed men

with gold no longer importuning.

Once the sands were soft and empty,

now there are broken bodies, bones and blood.

Once the scents of attar, musk and jasmine

loaded the sultry night with fragrance,

now smells of cordite and burning

engulf the hot and stuporous air.

Cooking pots laden with aubergine and cumin

lie smashed among the fallen bodies,

yesterday a silken women lifted a latch

to meet her lover. Now the house is gone

and so is she. The wreckage, the damage,

the mindless uncaring, the struggle for territory,

how to be bourne, how to be ended.

Where shall we find faith in the East again,

what have we missed, what have we not done.

If only this horror was a myth, a tale, a story

told by Scheherazade on an Arabian night,

not the terrible reality we know it to be.

Wedding Gift

That was a bleak harsh day when they told me you had married her.

They came running with the news, still in their wedding finery,

excitement in their eyes, their fevered, mocking words

splattering like crystal rain into my head.

I wanted to throw my body down and lie on the soft beech mast

pouring my tears onto the browning leaves and the damp earth,

making fresh pools with the fluid from my seeping eyes

and tearing at the roots with naked hands.

Instead, I smiled, and went indoors to dress

in sheening satin, brushed my dark glossed hair,

placed lambent jewels against my olive skin

and touched a perfume stopper to my neck,

a pair of gilt strapped shoes slipped on my feet,

a pair of long sleek gloves pulled up my arms.

The wood was dark and shaded as I paused

to pull some seedlings from a darkling plant,

then to the tented lawn where music played

and bride and groom sat cheerful at their feast,

she with her blue eyed smile and curled light hair,

he fawning on her with a loving look.

I started dancing, drifting round the floor,

waiting until I caught his hungry gaze.

I ventured close and locked his eyes with mine,

holding a hand across the garlanded cloth,

fixing him with a look, while letting fall

the seeds onto his plate, a final gift.

Just as he reached toward my outstretched hand,

his bride cried out, he took his fork instead,

began to eat. I moved, back through the billowing white,

watching him still, and he still watching me,

all the time his fork moving from plate to mouth.

How avidly he ate, and longing, gazed.

Out of the tent, I ran back through the wood,

the deadly Nightshade loomed up through the dusk,

I rolled the gloves off, inside out, they fell

by that same plant whose poisonous seeds I took.

Now, indoors, I lie upon my bedsheets.

It won’t be long before they come for me.

He will no longer steal into my bed,

nor into hers, on this, their wedding night.

Sally Plumb

Imagine -

the whole universe

cupped in a hand

sparkling and clear

it is bright

in the night of the mind

pregnant and gently expanding.

Infinite.

Thought explodes

the devil's root

rose from the ground

laughing clouds

of sounds

made from the sky crying

red and silver

mixing the light

of day and night

in storms of stars

and spinning moons

with the sun burning

in its own heat

and the universe

cooly looking on

at its own destruction

and blaming the unknown.

Gabriel

He fused her womb

with angel dust

and she gave birth

to a star

Alistair Heys

Peter Pan

Musky scent of out of season lilies,

bird of paradise plant, fronded date tree,

juvenile bananas, eucalyptus taste,

dome of glass and painted white steel,

the uniform guarding against the dark

with its trees and magpies and waste bins,

Peter Pan statues of departed things.

The helix stairway to a dome of stars,

hoop stress acting on the cupola's tit,

the renaissance men of the slaver's port.

Lights from the tower blocks that girdle

Sefton Park with sentinel orange squares,

a muddly rill discharge into coarse ponds

that reflect fireworks on November fifth.

A hot house prison flushes the forehead

of the bored plant minder; the angel

of the dome, his own echoing footsteps

following him around the arboretum

to the sound of a hovering helicopter,

the smack head face seen at the window,

redbrick walls sprinkled with broken glass.

Mesmerized by the dome of pleasure,

socialist twinkle in a dead dog's eye,

dream of paradise in a bubble world

of books, this library of plant species

an out of season tourist attraction,

a boil of love, fizz of fresh creation

on the millions of tiny sand grains

smooth as the second they were vitrified.

Nick Tsaldaris

Love poem to a junkie

An old-timer, cruising up and down

Costcutter in Kings Cross begging

for a few quid.

She approaches me

tiny, wearing men’s clothes

with short hair (looked self-cut)

open blisters scattered all over the face

eyes heavy with dark shadows.

“Spare a pound?” she asks.

“I fancy a bit and I need a pound.”

And on that face I saw warm summer mornings

on empty beaches with long lost lovers.

Heard on her words the

hesitant voice of my grandmother

calling from another country

where things seem unchanged;

like the days she used to wake me

to eat the sweet warmness

of the day’s first bread.

That woman’s smile what happy memories

it offered;

a smile to

cut through stones

with a feathery caress.

I regret not having that pound

to this day.

A’Yara Stein

DETOUR

We drive up around the curve of the lake

To pick apples in Michigan and I asked you,

Between the cool, grassy lanes of trees to lie

Down with me but you declined and said

I can’t be with you as if nothing happened.

Later, I walked the long mile between

the fences of tomatoes, so many

so long unattended now it’s October

that I felt like the world’s abortionist

as I crushed thousands of tiny orbs

under my heavy feet –

there was no other way to get down that path.

APOTHEOSIS

The thing is, I always knew I was hungry

for something that should resemble Love.

Miserable, I was forever without reaching

that unfamiliar country where men find work.

With you came another kind of love,

that sort of secret ideal one cherishes

in the depths of the heart, not knowing why;

coming from no one knows where,

like a hunger that drives wolves to attack men.

It was Saturday toward the end of autumn;

you felt that it would rain soon.

Your lips, instruments of convenience

and forgetfulness, brushed my body

foolish with unusual music; I trembled.

It’s true. I never loved anyone as I’ve loved you.

I grew afraid and brave in turns. Revolutions.

TENDAI R MWANAKA

Squatter slums

The not-yet-in-the-now

The slums are still ghosts

Of yesterday, the slums we never

Left, demarcating boundaries of

Safe travel for comma travellers

Blinded, convulsing against mindsets

At home electricity was cut

In the dark of the candles’ flame

We chew our nails, entertaining ourselves

With smells of kerosene fires, dampening

Our minds, sometimes eating cold

Bread, heavy and stale, too much butter

Tightening the vein that circled

Our throats, the cold drinks

We sleep in cold rooms

Getting warmth from the cold

Bodies, penetrating the night

Clawing the night’s air

We have done away with sleep

Trying not to break

Trying not to crash

But still crying ourselves

Into child-eyed dreams

Freeing ourselves from the tyranny

Of facts, flying is just another

Embodiment of human exchange

Like fluids to language, currency

To meaning, sound to touch

I will name my unconcieved child

Hope, her hopes like morning dew

Will float like soap bubbles

Circling the cold air like streams

Of oppression, skin flying

The layered earth’s flies

Singing sings of mother earth

Till we find ourselves again when

Slave becomes master, he will not

Rule us by force, by favour, by

Fear, he will not cage our hopes,

Our dreams in prison, his power

Will come by bestowing it on the

Brave and the beautiful in heart.

Their meeting

It just happened

They were going

The same direction

They never stopped to ask

For directions

Or go separately

They did not compare notes

Try to define the methods

To get there or the end of things

They never thought of love

It just happened

It was beyond time even

Though time had other agents

Ivy, stealthy, prising them

They did not know what moment

Tipped time into abandonment

It just happened

Like two dolphins caught

In the shaft of the moon’s light.

Deborah Maudlin

Drowning

An intoxication of words

A babble of voices.

A kaleidoscope of colour in a dream.

She felt so much

yet learned so little

this gift of ancient sight

was wasted upon the girl,

she was too caught up

drowning

clawing for breath

in her modern world.

Adam Flint

Motherland

I remember an area of Edinburgh

where the Newcastle brewery was;

where the rusty air smelled

of beer gas and yeast

and I'd wake to metal dawns,

assentingly banging my head against

monumentally metallic walls

And it didn't matter

how much I hid

or what I did to take

that cold, matt, stale taste away.

Drink had become

a fully-formed spike

skewering a newly-born core;

a paling that held me,

helpless in place:

an inflexibly vital new spine.

And a pinned sodden butterfly,

blind I was

to the white swaddling I waved.

I remember Edinburgh

Land of my mother.

Nineteen.

Jane Penaz Eisner

Love Letter

I would not say California, not a nation

in a nation, nor a nation apart from Nation

I would not call her California, though she

feigns indifference and winks while

hibernating,

she beloved, because dead poets

range in her North Beach apartments,

those where piss-smell carpets line crooked rooms

mid-night the dead ones howl an ecstasy

with comrade ghosts near the sea: Come

slip with us from Ambien dreams to walk

the green and gold denuded hills that fold

quaking earth from highway to cliff Come

dream no more but walk home Breathe

the landfills, pines and eucalyptus, sweet car fumes

Come to work again and again in the crooked rooms

I would not call her California

David R Morgan

Robobards

Weary at the bar in the pub

in Stratford the Scientist

asked,

"What am I doing wrong?

I wanted to make

robobarbs.

I gave them perfect rhyme,

clear memories of great

works,

aesthetic theory and

polished skill at intricate

patterns.

All they write is crap,

Unworthy of a Hallmark

card.''

He drank deep from his

virtual ale.

They lined up in the

Skycar bays, rhyme without

reason. Help me?''

The out of work poet

tapped the bar.

''Listen,'' he said, I'll need

a hammer, Some magnets, a

handful of

dust, and a knife. '' These

being provided the out of

work poet

set to work in the Skycar

bays.

He cast magnets among the

robots pocking perfect

memories

with potholes as verse

became a stay against loss.

He hit them with the

hammer, some here, and

some there.

All dented, all different. He

scattered dust upon their

sensors.

dribbled it in thheir joints.

So they all saw the world

through unique

imperfections

and walked with personal

rhythms.

They remembered

perfection, remembered

memory even,

but knew neither any

longer.

Their hymns rose up

aching, moving, and

improving.

They were very good,

the Scientist was impressed.

''Excellent''

He said, ''But what about

the knife?

''Watch'' smiled the poet,

''My work is almost

complete.''

Roy Bayfield

Pinewood Studios

From Milton’s cottage a home-counties hike

Through miles of wet suburbs and country-park

Heath leads to dreamland’s security fence.

Beyond metal palings on marginal

Concrete, foxglove and buddleia grow around

Fibreglass boulders -- erratics from At the

Earth’s Core, The Land or The People That Time

Forgot. In deeper, long walls are holding a

Batman, the Supermans, the Bonds -- the stories

Of orphans battling Powers, overcoming

Dominions. We walk on through drifting rain

Once round the boundary, into the woods, into

The hidden space behind all screens -- where dim

Coverts and the understory channels

Hold lost adventures, uncertain beginnings.

typing

it was mentioned

in the car, after New Year:

my first attempt at typing had been thrown

away in an early spring clean

I tried to recall those Imperial

characters as we drove

past the end of Long Lane, Shropshire

past the end of Long Lane, Cheshire

past the end of Long Lane, Lancashire

past the misted fields

where the lost ends

presumably

meet

J.P. Christiansen

Form of Poetic Thought Made Visible

The architecture of inevitability

which emerges naturally

when mind's rhythm

manifests breath

onto paper

thought

Thought

onto paper

breath manifests

mind's rhythm when

naturally emerges which

inevitability of the architecture?

Visible Form Made Of Poetic Thought

Sculpturing

I cremate a million neurons

paring thought for the poem

hidden in its slab of irrelevance

Fired by ethanol and music's fiery note,

mind sculpts history's mass to form an essense.

Alfred Gosschalk

D'You Hear

The Cuckoo?

There really should be a place,

not necessarily a globe,

but hexangular, or oblong, perhaps,

with possibly an atmosphere

composed of all you should have done,

or not done, or thought, or said, the day before,

with nothing wrong with any of it,

and healthy enough for tiny babes to breathe;

a place where two and two

not making anything like four

make pain unrecognizable,

and life no longer a journey from sty

to grave,

but liveable.

Chris Hardy

Heaven and Earth

Every night an owl tries

to make me think there is more

in the wood I walk through

than trees, leaves

and a watchful bird.

My daughter sleeps on her side

in the house.

Her belly holds

Africa and England.

I hope she sleeps easy,

too old for me to tuck in,

too young to leave alone for long,

sleeping under stars and owls,

though neither can touch her

here, safe on earth.

Stars pricked through

the black canopy of night

show that, behind, above

there must be

a world of light.

Cathrine Wignall

Mirror, mirror on the wall. . .

Ever the heart or banshee

reside in her gaze

in days full of wailing and growling.

In reach of the reflective line

a behemoth prowls

ready to crop its mighty bulk

onto such lesser creatures -

untrained is the art of condemnation.

The behemoth has weight and clout

to claim top prize, an invitation

for every single reflective surface

of any size and need -

even a home in the spoon that feeds

and fuels the call,

mirror, mirror on the wall. . .

AC EVANS

FAN DANCE

Blue light, empty hall and bare stage,

The music in her head, she stands alone

And, with such graceful gestures,

Gently makes her moves,

Gazing at an invisible audience.

They silently watch her indigo plumes,

Inscribe a formal pattern,

And, held briefly in a single spotlight,

She shyly turns around – too cute,

Like an angel,

This welcome visitor

To our sinful city.

SUCH AS THIS

Never again such as this sunset

Exploding across far horizons

Herald of a new darkness

Deep as ravens’ wings.

But yes, such as your halo,

A gilded, gleaming nimbus

Oh, a corona of pain!

Oh, this convoluted desire!

THE SECRET MOUNTAIN

A place of mystery: a shattered crag

Towers over a ruined city, a forgotten land

So far beyond our understanding,

Yet, from here the muses venture forth

To stalk the world disguised in human form,

And (condescending to speak through dreams

Of otherworldly inspiration) cause

Desperate poets to abandon familiar hopes,

Cause them to make that dire journey,

Across the dusty plains of a wilderness

Where dread predators of the spirit

Hunt souls by day and haunt the ruins by night.

What do they seek in the hinterland?

This is where pale-faced Hypnos guards the lair

Of our glass-eyed muses: they whose presence

Is a source of terrible clarity – and of transformation.

John Elliott

Ageing faces

There are things that can be done

ageing faces around dinner

will tell you;

ways to wring the light from the world

and dance in the puddle barefoot

like a boy again

without a plan

following the ripple –rings

that swell out and freeze in confused patterns

across ageing faces

always looking back.

and with heavier years

I rise no further

and my trailing coat tails still snag

on the dead minutes

so I sit on them bunched up,

a foot taller at the table,

looking down at the

meal-messed dishes

that amass tiredness

like ageing faces

with a feast behind them

and a feast ahead.

A Poem for Du'a Khalil Aswad

Claude West

This is a story about a girl aged 17

and this was her sin

She fell in love

To her family's shame,

yet she proceeded with her heart

Unaware of looming pain.

A plan was concocted

Designed with enthusiasm.

They dragged her from her home

Kurdish men gripped her hands and feet

Her fragile body

Out into the heaving street

All the while watched over

By undisturbed police.

They ripped off her clothing

Lashed out at her skin

All under orders,

Prearranged by her kin.

She lay there,

Bloodied and broken

With each individual kick

And hurl of a stone.

As the cheers grew loud

Harder they kicked

Until she did not make a sound.

There remains this community

That kicked a young woman to death

For what they called their 'duty'

Tradition looked on

As she took her last breath

She had to die they said

To preserve her families honour,

But this family lost all dignity

When they murdered their own daughter.

Must love permit death?

For the sake of our differences?

Must we forbid those to love?

In the name of our ignorance.

One girl,

out of many

Learned the world's truth

Yet this death would be meaningless

If you don't remember her name.

It was Du'a Aswad

And on me she brings no shame.

Robert Ensor

Someone Stole a Vineyard, Summer 2010

Thieves have cruelly trampled out the vintage

Where the grapes of passion were grown.

They struck in the dead of night like ghouls & spirited

Away and entire crop of precious, prime fruit.

Harvesting machines were used in the audacious

Theft, thirty-odd tonnes of the delicious grape

Stripped bare as a baby’s bottom from four fertile acres

In the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France.

A whole year’s craft stolen like a draught in one moonshine

Night: detectives suspect the immigrant Russian Mafia,

And the vineyard owner is facing financial disaster

As raw fruit cannot be insured in the Riviera area.

But the grape with ease can make the righteous dissolute,

And from their indiscretions Logic can easily confute

Jacob W Shaw

groove

hands that groove in the night

shades. who come from under long

sleeves. under and out. through

routine serve cold. at best room

temperature risks. too see other

hands gesture the okay. who

might think for a change. broken

silica. In a hand that grooves.

kristalls scattered on bitumen

slabs. what would a batch house.

hot end. cold end. Say keep it

coming. probably nothing.

Anna Hands

14/08/10

Whittle cleared of driving charge

Boys ‘thought dead parents asleep’

Bank warning fuel recovery anxiety

I have no reason to lie – Campbell

Want to quiz toddler death mother

Part-timers drive employment total

Drug smuggler jailed over rum death

Jenkins: Compensation not important

Anti-terror hotline advert banned

Married Robbie ‘happiest man alive’

Three clone offspring in food chain

Apology over storage room patient

Ramadan goes high-tech on mobiles

Hitman facing lifeterm for murder

Perroncel denies Terry affair on TV

Senator wants Lockerbie man’s data

Nurse guilty over faded crash death

Star denies photographer car attack

Woman, 90, locks herself to railing

Airline worker takes emergency exit

Get news from MSN

David Mac

The Night Running in Heels

And you ran down the street,

away. You

ran down the street and

I could only stand and watch.

You in the night,

heels on an empty town. You

trying to get away

from me,

to catch a taxi home,

leaving me with the moon,

a sighing face and

nothing at all.

Who are you?

Where you running to?

But get back, girl,

I am just

a stranger

waving goodbye

into blackened outer space.

Will I get to see you again?

What can I do to

make you stay?

And just then a mad car of lads

scream past,

horn bibbing fast,

shouting:

‘Oie, oie!!’

I’m grateful,

but

I ignore their advice.

Publications

Robert Sheppard: When Bad Times Made for Good Poetry
Paperback, 218pp, 9x6ins, £13.95 / $22
ISBN 9781848611368
© 2011 Shearsman Books Ltd
http://www.shearsman.com/index.html

Robert Sheppard: Berlin Bursts
Paperback, 96pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15

ISBN 9781848611351
© 2011 Shearsman Books Ltd
http://www.shearsman.com/index.html

THE OTHER ROOM
http://otherroom.org/
Experimental poetry in Manchester
WHO

The Other Room is organised by James Davies, Tom Jenks and Scott Thurston. Get in touch with any of us at otherroomeditors@googlemail.com
WHAT
The Other Room is a reading series presenting experimental writers at The Old Abbey Inn in Manchester.

Jean-Pierre Parra
Parra
http://www.parra-art.com/

Rupert Loydell: Wildlife
Paperback, 80pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15
ISBN 9781848611528
http://www.shearsman.com/index.html

TENDAI R MWANAKA
VOICES FROM EXILE
was published in 2010 by Lapwing publications
Northern Ireland.For more check his blogs at mwanakacreativewriter.blogspot.com

Knives forks and spoons press
http://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/

Blacklawrence Press
www.blacklawrence.com/pantano.html

Read the early fictional poems of Rene Van Valckenborch at
http://adirondackreview.homestead.com/VanValckenborch.html
Follow his fictional twitter trickle at
http://twitter.com/VanValckenborch

Pen & Sword Books Limited
The Pocket Guide to Poets and Poetry
Andrew Taylor
ISBN: 9781844680887
£12.99

lastbench
Contemporary bangla poetry in translation
editor: Tanvir Ratul
15, Adelaide Place, Liverpool L5 3RJ
England
lastbench115@kobita.ws

Pen and Sword Books Limited
The Pocket Guide to Poets and Poetry
Andrew Taylor
ISBN: 9781844680887
Price: £12.99

http://buzzwordspoetry.blogspot.com/
Buzzwords is a monthly poetry group in Cheltenham and in order to raise funds to survive in the current economic climate we have decided to run a yearly competition.

Neon Highway issue 13

2011-01-19T12:32:00.000-08:00

Neon Highway ISSN: 1476-9867

Issue 13

Welcome to the 13th issue of Neon Highway and thank you once again to our additional

Editors, Dee McMahon and Matt Fallaize.

It is the year 2008. I am presently residing in Liverpool, the year of Capital of Culture where supposedly many cultural things are happening, although sometimes I tend to forget as I am either in the studio or doing Karaoke these days in the Royal Oak pub, Toxteth. I have a fascination with the past right now. I keep playing Ska music. I am reminiscing about the mods and rockers, missing parker jackets with targets on the back and I am missing Paul Weller in his pinstripe suit and I miss Squeeze and The Specials and I am listening to Jimmie Hendrix, ‘castles in the sand’, must be my favourite song of all time.

I went to Wales recently. They have lovely beaches there and there were seagulls and a white chair strangely just waiting for me to sit upon and look out to sea.

It was very lovely, the way a beach really should be. Maybe we should have poetry readings on beaches. We could then throw them in the sea or post them in bottles. I think we should do it here on the River Mersey in Liverpool, post hundreds of SOS poems to promote peace and love in bottles, throw them into the Mersey. When people find them, they recycle the bottle, contact the poet and meet for coffee. That would just be such fun! Fabulous idea also for dating!

Recently, Costa coffee house in Bold Street, Liverpool has been running its own poetry readings. It’s kind of strange as you press the buzzer on the outside of Costa like in some surreal dream and voila, you are inside the poetry reading., like walking into a big glass cube with lots of people inside. Alice is reading her poems there July 14th. Robert Sheppard read there the other day! Alex Scott Samuel is the man running the readings. Well done…Jim me lad! Jim, as in ‘Long John Silver, Jim…’ I wasn’t thinking of any other ‘Jim’. But there was also Lord Jim wasn’t there? Who wrote that one again? Who was Jim anyway? I always meant to read it. In this issue, I will be interviewing the poet, A.C Evans. This interview was once in the only online issue of Neon highway, number 12 but I decided to bring it here along with the other interviews into hardcopy format. and in its new illustrated format by A.C Evans.

All best for now.

Jane Marsh

P.s. I just love the name Jim. No one seems to call their kids, ‘Jim’ anymore…?

Contents

2. Note from Jane Marsh.

3. Contents

4.William Bedford

5.Richard Fletcher

6-7. Dave Ward

8. A.C Evans

9. Flora Pederson

10. Colin Beck

11. Vanessa Burger

12. Juliet Troy

13. Michael Courtney Soper

14-15. Leonard Harley

15-17. Jamie Wilson

17-18. Kristian Cole

18-19.Ben Barton

20-21.Christopher Barnes

22-24. Reviews

25-35. Jane Marsh interviews A.C Evans

36-37. Listings

38. Subscription

The poet, Dave Ward will be interviewed by Jane Marsh inside issue 14.

Front cover drawing by Alice Lenkiewicz

William Bedford

Poetry Society

When Lennon lived in Emperor’s Gate

fans carved their lust on his blue door

and Prufrock’s ghost was forced to wait,

baffled by the music and Rolls Royce

that spoiled his early morning communion.

Now Lennon’s ghost has a Brooklyn haunt,

and T.S. Eliot springs alive

with annual volumes the pleased critics

declare ‘okay’ though ‘unauthorised.’

A Concord sings over Earls Court Square,

and Boy George fans now congregate

wherever the loudest volumes slam,

like scented talcum, their scented brains.

A tenant sold the door in Emperor’s Gate.

SONNÉ DYSENTERY

You were the first girl I slept with,

and we talked all night,

just like with other later girls,

welcoming the slow birdsong of light.

They kept our beds in separate corners,

nurses whispering in the corridors outside.

In the morning when I woke you had gone.

They said you wouldn’t be long.

I learnt later you had died.

Richard Fletcher

What were you like?

We could so easily have been

A pair of competing Wyverns

Chasing each others tails

To complete the circular chain

In the form of a gold brooch

Laid at the base of Ben Wyvis

Directly following my banishment to Bute.

Dave Ward

From (on the edge of rain)

13.

milk white moon

spills autumn seed

across the river

dark boats lure

ghost streets run

with scarlet leaves

14.

bird’s wing map

spread in flight

grey of sea

grey of sky

over the horizon

another horizon calls

15.

a silver morning

petals fly purple

slow circles turn

the leaving season

frail bones lattice

across cobwebbed field

16.

rain leaves rattle

pale voices touch

sky shivers frail

flower mouths moist

snow fires beckon

caressing warm breath

17.

edge of light

far fields calling

scarred hands healing

the river’s night

circle of journeys

turning in flight

A.C Evans

NO HOPE NOW

Here, where an overcast sky flattens

The world into a dead, grey expanse

And the banality of existence claims us,

The hard cut-glass edges of winter

Approach, and a baby, abandoned

On the steps of a church, whimpers

Unheard – for there is no one there,

No one to respond

And the mother,

A grainy figure on CCTV,

Is sitting many miles away

Trying to ignore the oncoming cold.

So, these are just provisional notes

Scribbled for no reason –

For no reason can be found

For the way things are,

And because

No feelings can make us think

That the real is unreal anymore,

Or that the sensations we know

Are anything but subliminal twitches.

We watch the painful spasms

Of an untouchable creature, crouching

In a comfortless corner,

Huddled in a forgotten room,

Listening to empty, uncaring voices,

Listening, in solitary despair,

As the footsteps fade away, and she

Gets to her feet,

And she clenches her fists,

And she cries out in solitude,

And the tears stain her dirty cheeks,

Her face a torn and shredded mask.

No hope now

As the footsteps fade away.

Flora Pederson

A feast for the breeze

A hunter’s breeze murmurs a soft lullaby

whilst stroking the veins of the leaves,

it floats in the open window –

subtle strings and stale air mingle

claiming by force, dust fragments caught in stasis.

Still atmosphere, now waits

airlocked between floor and ceiling,

remnants of lifeforce spent

dead plankton inhabit the space.

Preserved, enclosed inside –

glass shield parts a transparent sea,

permit to nature’s breath

to swallow, consume and digest.

Replenished and nourished by feasting, it sighs

teasing such fingers of freshness,

ebbing its’ cunning form away

whilst stroking the veins of the leaves,

a hunter’s breeze murmurs a soft lullaby.

Addition

It’s never the case

of not adding up,

numbers exist to consume

other numbers,

it’s the unwanted answer

that causes upset.

Colin Beck

Morning Tea

When in my moccasin

Did I sigh with a young mother

Beauty had her face reflecting

From a shallow complete complexion

Cocky in the head she eased her warm hand

Across my breast and brushing past my heart

I showed her how to tie stomachs

Lack charisma like England lowland pastures

Just a little waft

With an insect in a flower afternoon tea

Lazy green

White light gods

Gifts and wood feather nets

Kettle drum

She dreams with laughter

But no imagery

Lament of The Lamb

I dreamed a desperate dream alone

I heard her song like and unknown moan

I know she only comes to mingle in the autumn bloom

With her crimson eyes she held me down

Left me flaccid opened a box

And wound up the lullaby

A tired pair of lungs bellowed like a child

Crouched beside rolling thumbs fallen smiles

Like liquid life sun beading down

Die on my flaccid breast

A landmark of burning flame

A bad dream a bad seed

A silver flip of the coin

Vanessa Burger

Moonlit Garden

Indian summer

The hidden anvil thunderhead

Rumbles

In the leaden sky

And the shadows congregate

Around the pool

The stars silently sinking

Amongst the koi.

On the grass,

The sepia, stunted array of toadstools

Is seeking to take prisoner the watering can

The green guardian gnome grinning wickedly

At the cat.

In the Quietness

Through the open window, falling stars

In the luminous, thundery air.

Wooden beams are warping,

And I frown back, into the next room

Where a candle flame grows

Out of thin air.

Juliet Troy

Crustaceans

A simple nervous system returns to the boil exposed palisades and

promontaries tuber flowers brimming how to kill crustaceans weeping bright

tears push the spike with an electrifying example of simulacra ghost will

ever visit cobwebbed streaming and vermin hunted phrases in connecting a

tin turn the legs and claws melancholy wooden creaking caves rockpool

swimmers wrap china double binds one bilateral arm stretched upwards

streetwalker and flesh the way of Hatha Yogis the ghosts tapped on the glass

binoculars of that moment hired as a singing wolf we had a theodolite black

and infinite fans waving when Paris became quiet air was becoming a

barometer tinged with fig trees with our knuckles cut hard topped carapace

the children with rapping the sum of all embroidered green leaves too small

to probe with teaspoon tactile before we cook pathways to the holy grail

pick and dress the crinoline cage and half the articulated socket to find

diamonds cocooned in linen and silk.

Michael Courtney Soper

Guiding in the air currents

Shining metagyres in the sky, pierce through

Near the planar edge, flowing, in the cerulean,

Flowing completely from one side to the other,

Above the sapient highway, flowing, near the byways

Always of permanence in the strange dimensions of materiality.

Luxurient above on the great route…

Shining, piercing through, guiding.

In the strange dimensions of materiality

Flowing, near the byways of permanence, flowing

Piercing completely from one side to the other

In the sky, the metagyres are near their byways of permanence.

Leonard Harley

ALL OUR GREEN GHOSTS

All our green ghosts are burning

yet, undelayed by coming

and going, unaltered by abetting

the brag of breath, by extending

the business of the eating

worm. Our fingers will be extending

equal branches through the flesh, abetting

the going and coming

of other breaths for burning.

You are not nothing

my darling; you will be burning

yet, in all green living.

CRY GRIEF

Crazygirl, crazycry

for the man

who cannot lie

with you tonight

He’s a lie

he’s nonsense, dead

he’s gone to bed

another night

He’s far away

he’s gone away

So crazycry, crazymourn

the man who’s gone

to nothing at all

Cry, cry your loss

and dream he never was

Jamie Wilson

INTENSIFICATION OF FEELING

what are the roots that clutch

what branches grow out of this stony rubbish

then wilt

spasm

die

insect-like nerve impulses

recharge

what insect feet march along my optic nerve

what electricity

stunned

in the sun

what shivers and sharp-delight

what momentary pleasure – a faded wavelength

usage

strength

an emotional vampire

run down

run out

one more…

scratch card philosophy

dustbin entropy

the law

the law

just one

more…

ecstasy

ah.

what are the seeds we sow

what flowers grow from this chemical tapestry

oxidise

fragment

i can see

i can see

perfectly

what are the species that shriek like rats at love

what voices thrum and chant

escape

into never-say-never-land

slow burn

slow burn

retract…

bed side horrorshow

cinematic vitriol

the wall

the wall

is just too

tall

that’s entertainment

yes.

what planet is this I am on

may I be dismissed

with a bullet

blade

axe

spade

this anaesthetised planet

this topple down hamlet of black

blood

blood

no love

shrugged from the shoulders of the earth

with feeling.

once more…

Kristian Cole

Caring and Killing

Collapse upon the sturdy bridge,

And mourn out the lungs thick topic,

Miles from the village bound in Oak,

Guilt burns against the shimmer of the river,

Final reflection in the sealed eyes,

To remember the baby as it was,

You wind down the 'ours' in sorrow,

What's yours is mine within that carrier,

Passing now from this life to the next,

But carried for miles down the river,

Like Moses in transit,

Logistically correct,

Destination untrue,

If you cannot see it then it isn't really there,

This isn't really happening,

The blonde of her hair now worn thin to the scalp,

Like the career she is chasing,

Getting rid of the unwanted,

To better the self,

Logistically speaking,

To be bound down here,

In this town,

Is like being the baby,

Bag contented,

Rim filled with cavernous rocks,

That she just cast overboard,

Gracing a tremendous airborne swing,

Trouncing the rivers blue in white ripples,

She had dined on the last one through hunger and

defeat,

Some said to preserve the lack of evidence,

Announcing her core as ailing,

Bland otherwise spill from the court in

justification,

Due to the shadows of the upbringing,

But her defence was the caring and killing,

If a random unknown assailant,

Had outperformed the task,

It would have meant grand black nothings,

But in her motherly state,

Albeit temporary,

Tear the child from the teat and destroy.

Ben Barton

ZOETROPE

Aliens have crawled across the border

on their bellies

Signed names in blue biro:

Permits to trespass

on our living quarters.

We are powerless, shackled

destined to watch

as they infiltrate us,

demanding we perform

Like a spinning zoetrope

offering them clear vignettes

of our daily humiliations.

THE DEATH OF JIMMY DEAN

As they cut him from the Spyder

I took in my arms the tough, lean body

of this man so young

beardless, breathless

Well hung

Together; we laid him on the stretcher

and I caressed his broken arm

Contorted,

face smashed, splintered

His lips torn

and tongue wizened in a sea of froth

so black about the eyes

stone cold

and his forehead concave

Hot blood spattered on asphalt.

In the truck we were alone

and through the bumps

and horns and swerves

I kissed his mouth, his lips

found mine

Bitter with betrayal

from road to morgue

I willed him, no, dared

That he would rise-up

Awake; and speak our love’s proud name,

and tell our devotions, desires

To a world unwilling to listen

or to even believe.

I knew that his list of men

was as long as my arm:

his chest pockmarked with

their cigarette holes –

an army of gilded lovers

Stood in line, queued

far back

Snaked along the highway

their mouths wet.

They had left indelible marks on his flesh:

a constellation of keratoid scars.

In the foggy nights I was left behind

to ache and wonder

If those glassy eyes could really see

Did he see my face,

and would

he remember me?

Christopher Barnes

Reviews

‘from the field book’ by Carol Thistlethwaite

from the field book by Carol Thistlethwaite

ISBN: 978-1-905202-76-8

BeWrite Books

32 Bryn Road South

Wigan

Lancashire WN4 8QR

The cover of this book of bird poems indicates the strength and delicacy of the work within. It is based on both a knowledge and keen observation of birds in their natural habitat. As Carol indicates in her first poem 'split instant', visual recognition identified through movement (or non movement), colour and shape, the ‘jizz’, which is at the core of her poems. The ‘jizz’ is set skilfully within the bird’s natural habitat, by locating the poems at a particular time of day via the turning of the tide or the arrival of dusk, for example. This enhances the reader’s sense of being there.

Individual birds or gatherings of birds are characterised in language that grasps and pulls you into their core, as in the poem heron, where the description ‘is a calm’ allows you to understand the nature of the bird. As I write this I find myself thinking that the word ‘description’ doesn’t do justice to Carol’s writing of these birds. She doesn’t just give a visual picture – she writes you into the bird’s behaviour. You enter into the poem through the language used, especially the sound of the language which mirrors that of the birds, the formats, the syntax and sense of intention demonstrated in each text. For this reason Turnstone with its ‘chink plink chink plink pebble-flipping-turnstone flicking over stones,’ is perhaps one of my favourite poems. The language, the prose format, the gaps and syntax capture movement, sound and environ in a way that gives the reader his own key to the kingdom of the bird world. The internal rhyme in many of the poems, for example, Common Tern with its ‘dips’ and ‘pricks’, again enhances sounding out the jizz.

The imagery used in from the field book is very vivid. It surprises in a way that is acute, producing a gut reaction experience. A Common Tern ‘full stops another’. Cormorants are ‘long shadows of an era’. When Pink-Footed Geese ‘quilt the estuary, bedding down’ this does more than describe an action, it also describes the sheer quantities of geese present, the feeling of sinking into a downy quilt on a cool night, and more.

There are a range of formats and fonts used within the collection – concrete and prose poems are evident, and some work better than others, I feel. What does work well is the rhythm achieved throughout, supporting as it does the writer’s sense of intention. Read Treecreeper aloud and hear the rhythm created by the syntax, the internal rhyme, the words used.

These poems are skilfully crafted and immensely satisfying to read and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.

Review of ‘Dreaming of Walls Repeating Themselves’ by Pat Winslow

Dreaming of Walls Repeating Themselves by Pat Winslow

ISBN:978-1-906285-03-6

Templar Poetry

Fenelon House

Kingsbridge Terrace

Dale Road

Matlock

Derbyshire DE4 3NB

Pat Winslow appears to be writing a social commentary on survival, on coping and not coping with life events. Certain themes come to the fore – war or perhaps surviving war, illness, childhood memory. The poems themselves intrigue, playing with the reader’s perceptions, demanding your attention and repeated reading. Time, as in The Persistence of Memory, and imaginary time in the poem Imagine, is used effectively to do this. Line length and punctuation are used to deliver rhythm, for example in The Front Room Picture, or emphasise and surprise, as in Mycroft. This interesting and intriguing work deserves to be read and re-read.

Review of ‘Test Paper’ by Linda Cash

Test Paper by Linda Cash

ISBN: 978-1-906285-02-9

Templar Poetry

Fenelon House

Kingsbridge Terrace

Dale Road

Matlock

Derbyshire DE4 3NB

This is one of those books of poetry where less is more because each poem is distilled fiction, a narrative exposed gradually, and sometimes hanging on a single line. Themes are predominantly the dark side of life, love, loss, and sexual encounter, and the poems constantly highlight the different approaches of men and women to them. The themes are treated in a practical, rather than emotional way. Humour, sometimes black or satirical prevents sentimentality throughout. There are occasional light-hearted poems too, but these left me a little less satisfied. Imagery is strong, and sustained imagery guides you through complete poems as in Aromatherapy Kit, or Half Life Crisis. Linda saves the best until last in the more experimental Test Paper. This poem made me think about many things – the questions posed, if they related to each other, the inadequacy of any ‘real’ test papers that may be littered with leading questions, other poems I’d read, and most of all, about methodology in poetry writing, mine and others. This poem was a great choice to end a very enjoyable group of poems.

‘Complete Twentieth Century Blues’

By Robert Sheppard

ISBN: 978-1-84471-264-9

Salt Publishing.

Salt Publishing Ltd

PO Box 937

Great Wilbraham

Cambridge

CB21 5JX

United Kingdom

www.saltpublishing.com

Wonderful to read this hardback quality edition of Robert Sheppard’s recently published ‘Complete Twentieth Century Blues’. A contrast of forms, techniques and subjects keep you wondering and always interested. Some of the poems I had read previously in other texts from the past such as ‘Flashlight Sonata’, ‘Basalt Wind-Chimes for the window-Box of Earthly Pleasures’, ‘Tin Pan Arcadia’, ‘Killing Boxes’ and ‘Far Language’. One thing that stands out from reading this volume is that Sheppard is one of today’s most talented and innovative poets. A ‘must read’ for all those interested in reading how boundaries in writing have been challenged and explored.

By Alice Lenkiewicz

Jane Marsh interviews the poet, A.C Evans

Interview taken from issue 12 (online issue 2006)

A.C then sent this back to me with his own personal illustrations, therefore resulting in ‘The illustrated Jane’ version of his original interview, which I have decided to publish in this issue of Neon Highway.

(Brief Biography taken from the,‘The ArgotistOnline:

http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Evans%20interview.htm

A. C. Evans was born in Hampton Court in 1949, and lived in South London until 1963 when he moved to Essex and co-founded the semi-legendary Neo-Surrealist Convulsionist Group in 1966. Moving back to London in 1973, he currently lives in Mortlake, near Richmond. Working in the tradition of the bizarre and the grotesque, he also considers himself a Realist. Influenced by everything on the dark-side, he is also inspired by the iconoclasm of Dada, revolutionary Surrealism and the immediacy of Pop. He regards all these as points of departure, none as a destination – we live in a post avant-garde world.

His individual author collections include The Xantras (Trombone Press), Chimaera Obscura (Phlebas Press), Dream Vortex (Tabor Press), Colour Of Dust. Poems And/Or Texts 1973-1997 (Stride), This Sepulchre (Springbeach Press) and Fractured Muse (Atlantean Publications). The poetry sequence ‘Space Opera’ was made into a digital film and shown at the onedotzero3 Festival at the ICA in 1999.

He considers creativity to be the indirect effect of irrational drives and desires; an infinite quest for self-discovery and, inevitably, an indictment of both established dogma and fashionable orthodoxy. In his extremist, author-centred, poetry and graphics he uses ambiguity, juxtaposition, irony and objective chance to question assumptions about convention, identity and reality – black humour and the absurd are his constant preoccupations.

Jane

1.

Hi A. C.

I would imagine you would appreciate this room. On the wall there are paintings by Klimt and Duchamp. My gramophone over there plays music by Liszt and Wagner.

The CD player plays music such as The Stones and The Velvet underground.

The weather is just wonderful. We are now in Mid winter so it is cold and icy outside. The trees are bare and there is some frost and ice on the ground.

On the bookshelf you may find some collections by Plath, Byron, Baudelaire and Swinburne. There are also two recent reviews of yours on Lee Harwood’s Chanson Dada. Selected Poems by Tristan Tzara and Symbolism by Rodolphe Rapetti. Now if you just seat yourself down I would like to ask you a few questions to someone whose writing style it seems has been described as ‘macabre, hermetic minimalism’.

Your work has been around for a long time and first published in the British alternative press in 1977. However it has been said that your work was more driven towards “ modern occultism” rather than the conventional ‘literary’ small press. Could you explain what it was that pulled you in this direction?

Gosh, Jane! You are looking very vampish this afternoon…. And you have gone to so much trouble. It is very much appreciated and very nice to talk… But, to answer your questions: My first ‘publication’ was, in fact, 1968 when I was lucky to land a tiny contract for greetings cards. A few designs were distributed through high street shops at the height of the ‘Beardsley craze’ during the Art Nouveau Revival… Also, under the umbrella of the Convulsionists, I managed to issue some mass-produced prints and get things into the school magazine. This was all in the late nineteen sixties. After a break I started submitting material to little magazines in the mid nineteen seventies, hence the reference to ‘alternative press….’. The first magazine to take some pictures was called Sothis. I soon found acceptance with other editors in the ‘occult’ scene. There were mags with titles like The Daath Papers, Illuminatus Monthly and Nox: A Magazine of The Abyss. I was instinctively drawn to this kind of subculture: it seemed more attuned to the disruptive, paraxial fantasy I was trying to achieve than the rather staid literary scene. In any case – despite my Aestheticism – I didn’t really see my work as a narrowly ‘artistic’ enterprise – like the Surrealists I was aiming at some kind of transformational paradigm outside mainstream definitions of art/poetry. There were clear affinities between Surrealism and ‘occultism’ (a vague, dodgy term I should say) and, at the time, one felt ‘occultists’ to be more ‘alternative’ than most exponents of the counter-culture who played at being hippies at weekends. The Surrealist ‘angle’ on the occult was, of course, non-mystical – unlike the Crowleyites, or the Alexandrians, for instance, I did not view the occult as an alternative religion. It was more to do with ‘reclaiming the imagination for anarchy and nihilism,’ formulating tactics to disconnect creativity from the hegemony of ‘the establishment’. Gothic Romanticism, Baudelaire’s ‘Satanism’ and Rimbaud’s use of alchemy provided historical parallels, while Jung’s psychology pointed to an ‘interior model’ for the ‘occult image’.

2.

Could you tell me a little about your work?

The work develops on two fronts: the written and the visual. Within these two spheres I operate on a narrow spectrum of formats. The written works fall into non-fiction and ‘literary’, the visual works are black and white line drawings in either pen or pencil, collages (mainly photomontages) and, more recently digital-photo images of various kinds. Regarding the literary work I would subdivide it into poetry/experimental prose, fiction (short stories) and poetry translations from the French. In both literary and visual work I often rely on automatism and chance elements. Automatism means a kind of immersion in the unconscious process, guided intuitively.

I have often regarded ‘automatic’ line work as rather like calligraphy, hovering on the borderline between pictorial representation and writing. All artistic activity is supported by the non-fiction work ranging from short review notices to extensive feature-length articles/essays like Angels Of Rancid Glamour (1998). Baudelaire said artists should also be critics – it is vital to maintain a sense of focus and context, and to engage with the history of ideas.

3.

Who were the first presses to support you?

Well, apart from the occult ‘zines mentioned the first art-poetry press to support my work was Stride edited by Rupert Loydell. Throughout the nineteen eighties Stride maintained a policy of openness to diverse approaches that was – and still is – exemplary. Stride published my first small collection Exosphere in 1984 and I contributed reviews, artwork and poetry to the magazine. Today Stride is one of the best independent presses on the UK scene. I should also mention Phlebas and Tabor who published the mini collections Chimaera Obscura and Dream Vortex.

4.

Can you tell me a little about your poem Space Opera?

Space Opera was short sequence of prose-poems first published in Stride’s Serendipity Caper anthology. It was subsequently re-issued as an illustrated booklet with an intro by Steve Sneyd.

Written in a kind of techno-reportage style the sequence evoked a universe where there is no distinction between inner and outer space and all communication is subject to widespread disruption from indeterminate forces. The general setting was onboard a clapped-out star-ship on a mission to investigate the mysterious planet NeoGaea, a kind of parallel Earth, but millions of light years from home. It was an attempt to fuse lowbrow and highbrow by taking a simple space adventure scenario and filtering through a mannered poetic style – the cognoscenti define this sort of thing as ‘speculative poetry’…

5.

Your work has been described as ‘artistic’ meeting ‘magical’. What would you say is your driving influence?

That’s quite a ‘deep’ question, depending on what you mean by ‘influence’ – influences should be points of departure not destinations, I think. In the nineteenth century from the time of the French Revolution to the First World War one can see a progression of ‘movements’, often referred to as avant-garde – we learn from many figures and themes of those movements and define ‘influences’ that way. That’s a very big subject and the cultural history, from Baudelaire to Beauvoir, is very important. Formative influences (i.e. contemporary, not historical) included Dada/Surrealism, Op and Pop Art, Psychedelia and Nouveau Realisme (e.g. Tinguely) – that’s on the visual side.

Contemporary literary influences included Burroughs, Borges, Nabokov, Pynchon, Angela Carter and J G Ballard. As I say this it is clear that none of these were poets in the strict sense, actually they are all prose writers. I had heard about the 1965 Albert Hall event but we didn’t really take much notice of the poetry scene – the era was defined by Mary Quant not the Children of Albion. My inspirational figures were Aubrey Beardsley, Antonin Artaud and Marcel Duchamp. I think we can return to this a bit later on when we talk about the Convulsionists because, amid this welter of references, I’m thinking about your phrase ‘driving influence’…. And Paul Meunier’s observation (quoted in Rapetti’s Symbolism) that ‘artistic concerns were originally alien to the production of art.’

6.

What kind of poetry or movements in poetry do you particularly dislike and why?

I have always been against any kind of literary theory that downplays or ignores the visceral basis of creativity. The creative imagination is driven by non-verbal, obsessive compulsions that, in the final analysis, are rooted in biological/genetic phenomena. It is obvious that creativity is value-neutral and independent of any particular form of expression, visual, literary or musical. Therefore, I have no positive interest in the kind of fashionable Post Modernism that locates the main theoretical focus of poetry in the domain of ‘language’. I see this trend and similar academic fashions (Social Constructionism or Reader Response Theory) as part of the regrettable inheritance of Wittgenstein – it is clearly reactionary. For example, the current oxymoronic notion of ‘linguistically innovative’ poetry is based, according to its luminaries, on doctrines of Ethical Criticism, specifically the writings of Levinas and Bakhtin. To begin with this is contradictory in that a truly ‘language-centred’ poetry cannot be based on an ethical framework of any kind. In the second place it is intrinsically reactionary as the writings of Levinas, Bakhtin, and the other gurus, are mainly propaganda for orthodoxy dressed-up in the ‘technical’ Newspeak of academia: ‘defamiliarisation’, ‘plurivocity’, ‘dialogism’ ‘sociolect’. The doublethink is the objectionable aspect – projecting a ‘progressive’ and ‘advanced’ image but working to a regressive, conservative agenda. It’s a question of cultural politics, not literary standards, because any art that is neither entertainment nor therapy is spin and propaganda – welcome to IngSoc! The Language Poets of the 1970s de-valued, even denied, the individual voice in the name of anti-Romanticism and in so doing allied themselves, knowingly or not, with the worst kind of literary Puritanism. I don’t really care if a given example of Language Poetry conforms to someone’s idea of ‘good’ poetry, in the end its only radical chic. I would say the same about the British Poetry Revival in its earlier phases: it was an amateur way of latching on to worthless American trends – Black Mountain, Objectivism, Projective Verse and all that frightful stuff. Actually, it was a publicity stunt to promote a generational revolt against the Georgians and – wassisname? – Larkin. They want to write Modern Epics – they take themselves far too seriously – give me Fiona Pitt-Kethley any day!

7.

To what extent has alchemy influenced your work?

The function of art is the transformation of substance into style.

8.

Tell me a little about your creative process.

The ‘creative process’ is a primitive, bio-psychic phenomenon characterised by the interaction of external stimuli, unconscious drives and the neural-endocrine levels of the biological system (physis). These interactions generate the ‘altered states’ intrinsic to creativity. Cultural factors determine how various features or facets of creativity are defined as ‘artistic’. The main impulse for any creative act takes the form of an obsessive compulsion or drive-demand, often referred to as ‘inspiration’: the production of a given work of art, and its dreamlike characteristics, can be explained from the psychoanalytic perspective. Composer Toru Takemitsu said his work Quotation of Dream (1991) was ‘fragmental’ and episodic, reflecting the ‘shapes of dreams’. He observed that a work can be vivid in detail but may describe ‘an extremely ambiguous structure when viewed as a whole’. Following both Freud and Takemitsu, I would say that poetic form should resemble that of a dream where, for instance, details may be clearly defined while their disposition is determined by the ‘fortuities’ of a ‘self-propelling narrative’. For me the attraction of collage – and other modes of juxtaposition – derive from conformity with the Freudian ‘dream-work’ and the laws of the unconscious – the two main properties of dream-work being compression and displacement. The law of compression determines the fragmental and condensed format of all my work in any medium. The law of displacement encourages an allusive approach to ‘mood’ or ‘atmosphere’ akin to Mallarme’s adage ‘paint not the thing but the effect it produces’. Displacement of psychic intensities ensures that the least important features of the work are given more prominence than the most significant, leading (with luck) to a somewhat ‘hermetic’ or enigmatic effect…. I must add that chance plays a key role in everything…

9.

If you could go anywhere in reality that somehow was created from your imagination where would it be and what would it be like?

It might be like a neglected pleasure pier on the North Sea coast. During the day there would be howling gales and isolated rainstorms, at night the sea would be like purple glass – the moon would look huge. From the shore would float the distant, scratchy sound of an old 1940s Benny Goodman/Peggy Lee recording of ‘Blues in The Night’.

10.

You have said that Surrealism has been a strong influence in your work.

If you were to exhibit your work in a gallery these days what kind of show do you think you would focus on?

Dark Energy – Dark Energy comprises seventy percent of the universe and provides the repulsive force necessary to power the ever-accelerating expansion of the galaxies. Just as the existence of the unconscious can be inferred from Freudian Slips, so Dark Energy can be detected indirectly from the effects of virtual particles on the orbits of electrons. I like the idea that seventy percent of the universe is ‘dark’, just as seventy percent of the mind is ‘dark’ and seventy percent of human prehistory is ‘dark’. So my exhibition would be based around Three Zones Of Darkness.

To the side there might be shrines dedicated to some modern goddesses: Veronica Lake, Caterina Valente, Julie London, Donyale Luna and P J Harvey. I think the décor would look rather like Martin Hibbert’s Burnt Out Hotel. Oh, I might exhibit some collages and drawings as well! At lunchtimes there would be tasteful piano recitals and in the evenings there would be poetry readings – in the dark, obviously…

11.

You say you enjoy the work of Louise Nevelson. I do also. I read a book about her work a while back and I was fascinated by her assemblages made from found objects and painted gold. I just thought I would mention that to you.

Yes! The Tate Gallery has a couple of her things. There was one called Black Wall (1959) and another called An American Tribute To The British People (1960-1964). I thought the Black Wall was fantastically sinister… There are Sky Cathedrals, Royal Games, Rain Gardens and Night Scapes, all very intricate and painted uniformly in either white, black or gold… there are echoes of Nevelson in some of my drawings…

12.

Can we build an assemblage together? I’ll collect a few objects and you put them together how you want. Here we are, some old boxes, feathers, a doll, picture frames, books, string, a glass case, medicine bottles, paper, broken mirror, pieces of rusty engine, glossy magazines, shoes, a mannequin, lots of old china plates and a few cans of spray paint. What do you reckon? I’ll come back in an hour and see what you produced.

OK, I have added an empty window frame and a battered wig-maker’s white polystyrene artificial head called ‘Ultima’ to this assemblage.

‘Ultima’ is an important totem. In the glass case will be several old sepia photos and the diary of a bibliomaniac.

The broken mirror must be at the centre of the installation. You can just take a photo and add it here if you wish?

13.

Now I just want to show you the chamber. This is the deepest room in the house way below the ground and the steps are a little creaky. Hope you’re not too tired, it’s quite a way down.

Hope you like my spiral staircase. Here we are at last.

Please step inside. Okay please do sit down. You can use that old gravestone if you wish?

Jane, this is such a friendly way to conduct an interview – thank you, this gravestone is quite comfortable – what does the inscription say? I can’t quite make it out as it is covered in yellow and black lichen. What a gloriously spooky wrought iron spiral staircase that was – I can almost taste the rust.

Could you tell me about the group you formed called The Neo-Surrealist Convulsionist Group?

It is tempting to say we were just a group of alienated teenagers…! We formed the thing around 1968 and it only lasted until around 1971 or 1972. There were about five or six participants based in Chelmsford, Essex. Other places included Colchester, Ipswich and Witham… people used to meet in coffee bars after school – we were all sixth formers doing art or literature, mainly as a way of avoiding sport. The associations continued after everyone left school and tried to get jobs. Some poetry was written and experimental prose cut-up; atonal electronic music was composed and lots of paintings and collages produced. There were occasional expeditions or ‘pilgrimages’ to ‘displaced destinations’ such as the old Hungerford Bridge, the Victoria Embankment Gardens (for the Sullivan Memorial – very ‘convulsive’), The Atlantis Bookshop, or the Dashwood Mausoleum and Hell Fire Caves at West Wycombe. But mainly there was a lot of loafing around, drinking coffee and snogging – or going to see Hammer Horror films and German Expressionist movies at the NFT.

There was one exhibition at Hylands House – the exhibition was for all the school leavers but we managed to commandeer a room – as the Convulsionists were the general organisers of the show it was quite easy to get the space! We came up with the term ‘Convulsionism’ after the phrase ‘Beauty will be convulsive…’ (from Breton’s Amour Fou). I felt it implied the ‘visceral’ idea – my ideal work of art was to be a meaningless allegory generated by a kind of neurological spasm or frisson that could be transmitted to the viewer – well, if it gave me a frisson it might give you one as well.

One old policy document from my archive says: “CONVULSION IS CONCERNED WITH THE BEAUTY OF PURE IMAGINATION AND FANTASY AND IS VIOLENTLY OPPOSED TO CONTRAPTON IN ANY FORM” (Convulsively Produced Notes On Convulsion, 1968). Earlier, I mentioned some key influences… I should add the Lost Generation to the list – the Francophile ‘Yellow Nineties’ Decadent poets and artists (Arthur Symons, Ernest Dowson et al) and, also, the ultra-Symbolist absurdism (as we saw it) of Laforgue and Alfred Jarry – we were quite keen on ‘Pataphysics as I recall… There was some empathy with English Pop Art, so we rather revelled in the Mass Media – Pop Music (The Doors, Brian Auger), Jazz (Indo Jazz Fusions, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis), Science Fiction and ‘cult TV’. It was ironic that the real Surrealists had disbanded themselves in 1966 so we settled for being Neo-Surrealists!

14

What are you working on at present?

I am continually revising my ‘personal aesthetic’ (which is not a literary ‘poetic’) and have found this has absorbed much of my time in recent months. In our present situation when, for various reasons, free artistic expression is coming under threat as never before, I have been driven to ‘sharpen up’ my thoughts on such issues… On a more practical level I am revising and digitizing some non-fiction from the back-catalogue – various reviews and articles that I feel I have neglected and must revisit. I have an ongoing programme of computerisation that is quite time-consuming – some examples appear on the Tangents website. Publication-wise there are various poems accepted by magazines including Fire. Recent appearances have included ‘Vespula Vanishes’ a poem for Tori Amos (Inclement), ‘Danger (Midnight Street)’ (Pulsar), ‘Beautiful Chaos’ and ‘Dadar Radar’ (Fragments), and another piece called ‘Not The Cloudy Sky’ (Harlequin). Forthcoming, among other items, is a short story ‘Vikki Verso’ from Atlantean Publications who have taken a number of texts and drawings over the last couple of years. A recent collage, called ‘In the Beginning’ is on the cover (designed by Neil Annat) of a new Stride publication – Peter Redgrove’s A Speaker For The Silver Goddess (2006).

Thank you for answering my questions A.C.

And, thank you, Jane, for a fascinating conversation…

I’ll go and get you a glass of wine from the cellar

Be careful how you go – mind all those cobwebs!

I wish you luck and fortune with your work, as Salomon Trismosin once said:

Study what thou art

Whereof thou art a part.

What thou knowest of this Art,

This is really what thou art,

All that is without thee,

Also is within

All best for now.

Jane

This interview can also be viewed online at:
http://ac-cygnusx.blogspot.com/2009/11/interview-with-jane-marsh.html

Neon Highway February 2006

Listings

Purple Patch

Editor: Geoff Stevens,

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B71 2EH

England

www.geoffstevens.co.uk

West House Books, 40 Crescent Road, Nether Edge, Sheffield S7 1HN

www.westhousebooks.co.uk

www.poemsinthedark.com

www.thewordtravels.com

www.mslexia.co.uk

http://ac-cygnusx.blogspot.com

http://www.stridemagazine.co.uk

Stride, 4b Tremayne Close, Devoran, Truro, Cornwall TR3 6QE, England

www.cinnamonpress.com

www.publishandbedamned.org

www.writeoutloud.net

http://www.planetmagazine.org.uk/html/contrib.htm

The Measure: an email magazine of poetry and prose

http://hometown.aol.co.uk/jumpcatrod/myhomepage/writing.html

http://www.poetsletter.com

Sara-Mae Tuson

Editor

Trespass

trespassmagazine@yahoo.co.uk

London Review of Books

Editor: Mary-Kay Wilmers

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The Journal & original plus

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Cumbria CA15 6BQ

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See also The Select Six - www.bewrite.net/select_six.htm

http://www.ginoskoliteraryjournal.com/

www.stimulusrespond.com.

POETRY KIT (www.poetrykit.org)

http://www.thunderburst.co.uk

davidcaddy.blogspot.com

http://www.onthepremises.com/

http://www.incwriters.co.uk/

http://www.saltpublishing.com

http://www.ginoskoliteraryjournal.com/

http://www.commapress.co.uk

The Book Of Hopes And Dreams: a charity, poetry anthology, published to raise money for the Medical Aid, Afghanistan appeal of the Glasgow-based charity Spirit Aid.

The anthology features the work of many well-respected poets, including Margaret Atwood, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Heath-Stubbs, Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Tony Harrison, Alasdair Gray, Edwin Morgan, Penelope Shuttle, Anne Stevenson, Jon Stallworthy, Alan Brownjohn, Ruth Fainlight, David Constantine, Moniza Alvi, Cyril Dabydeen, Elaine Feinstein, Vicki Feaver, Michael Horovitz, Tom Leonard, Robert Mezey, Lawrence Sail, Jay Ramsay, Charles Ades Fishman, Geoffrey Godbert and Ian Duhig, amongst others.

Neon Highway, the magazine for experimental and innovative poetry.

Submissions of innovative poetry to be sent to editors:

Dee McMahon: 14, Tower Hill, Ormskirk, L39 2EG

Matt Fallaize: 54, Chapel St. Ormskirk, L39 4QF

Alice Lenkiewicz: 37, Grinshill Close, Liverpool, L8 8LD

Neon Highway is available bi-annually, with 2 issues costing £5.50, or a single

Issue available at £3.00. Order your next issue by sending a cheque to Alice Lenkiewicz, 37, Grinshill Close, Liverpool, L8 8LD.

2011-01-09T10:04:00.001-08:00

Neon Highway Poetry Magazine

ISSN: 1476-9867

Description:

Neon Highway is edited by Jane Marsh and Alice Lenkiewicz. Neon Highway was set up in 2002 as a non profit making little poetry/arts magazine

Neon Highway

Avant-garde

Literary journal

PUBLISHES:

POETRY and ART

Neon Highway is available bi-annually, with 2 issues costing £5.50, or a single Issue available at £3.00. Order your next issue by sending a cheque made out to Alice Lenkiewicz at 37, Grinshill Close, Liverpool, L8 8LD

Readings

2011-01-09T09:40:00.000-08:00

Solo Readings

Journeys: Blackburne House: 2010

Manchester Independent Book Market: Lit North West: 2010

Digital Content Day: 2010

Hammersmith Ram: Seven Towers Writers: 2010

Bookclub Boutique: Through the Looking Glass: 2009: London Soho.

Tate 5th Floor project: Ideas Taking Space: CRUNCH. 2009

Costa Liverpool Poetry Cafe: 2008

Everyman Bistro: Dead Good Poets.

The Rose: Edge Hill

33-45 Club

Masque Club

Hornby Room

Bluecoat Sandon Room.

Curated Events

Journeys: Poetry Reading: Blackburne House: 2010

Voice & Visibility: Toxteth Town Hall: 2010

Climate into Change: Fact: Zines. 2009

In an Ideal World: St Brides

Poetry Readings and Guest poets.

Readings have involved people published in and outside Neon Highway Magazine. The aim being to bring together local as well as guest writers from further afield.

Readings have taken place throughout a variety of venues around Liverpool such as Central Library in the Hornby Room, 33-45 Club, Bluecoat, The Planetarium and The Walker Art Gallery. Details listed below.

Neon Highway poetry readings

2004

Thursday July 8th

Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll

Matt Fallaize: Featured poet

Dave Ward

Alice Lenkiewicz

Carole Baldock

Dam Robinson

Bruno Darcy

Eugenie Kelly

August Thursday 19th

Postmodernism and Urban Life

Bill Griffiths: Featured poet

Eleanor Reese

Robert Sheppard

Scott Thurston

Andrew Taylor

Angela Keaton

Dave Ward

September Friday 17th

Dreams Myth and Magic

David Greygoose: featured poet

Eugenie Kelly

Eleanor Reese

Ursula Hurley

Jane Darcy-Lewis

Geraldine Green

Chas Johnson,

Joan Poulson

Stazia Lenkiewicz

Alice Lenkiewicz

Thursday October 14th

Secrets and Diaries

John Hall: featured poet

Robert Sheppard

Alice Lenkiewicz

Jane Darcy Lewis

Cath Nicols

Janine Pinion

Sudley House

A Text Performance by Robert Sheppard.

An alternative guide to the art collection at Sudley House, Liverpool.

To be performed in Sudley house itself by the author.

6th and 12th November 2004

2pm and 3pm

Robert will be reading his text performance as a guided tour.

Supported by the Learning Department of National Museums: Hosted by Neon Highway.

November Friday 19th

Journeys Near and Far/Health and identity

Sam Smith: featured poet

George Wallace: featured poet

Eugenie Kelly

Ursula Hurley

Alice Lenkiewicz

Carole Baldock

Carol Thislethwait

Dee Mcmahon

Poetry in the City

Capital of Culture.

April 10th, 2005

Allen Fisher

Guest Poet

The Walker Art Gallery

William Brown Street

Liverpool

Room 12

Poets from the Edge Hill Poetics Research Group will also be reading their work.

Robert Sheppard, Scott Thurston, Angela Keaton, Cliff Yates, Andrew Taylor, Alice Lenkiewicz and Matt Fallaize.

Steve Sneyd

The Planetarium

World Museum Liverpool

Saturday 29th April 2006

12-2pm

Philip Davenport with Tony Trehy and Ben Gwilliam:

performances and versions

A poetry event

at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Saturday 13th May

2.30pm - 4.30pm

Neon Highway Poetry Magazine presents CRUNCH

Readings from The Fifth Floor

Sunday 25 January 2009, 16.30–17.50

Performance and reading. Jane Marsh (Editor of Neon Highway) and The Public Service Announcer played by Alice Lenkiewicz and Nigel Harrison, read poems influenced by text and thoughts concerning The Wall Street Crash of 1929. Their poems will be a response to artists and their work throughout The Fifth Floor project concerning the credit crunch and present day Liverpool. Listen to poets and writers reading their poems and prose in response to this theme, and musician Duncan Stuart will be performing.

Performance curated by Alice Lenkiewicz. Music composed by Duncan Stuart.

Performance will take place on the fourth floor as part of International Festival.

Tate Liverpool Fourth floor galleries

Free, no bookings taken

This event is related to the The Fifth Floor: Ideas Taking Space exhibition

Editor Edit Neon highway

Writing and Editing industry

September 2002 – Present (8 years 5 months)

Description:

The Avant-garde poetry magazine, 'Neon Highway' is edited by Jane Marsh and Alice Lenkiewicz. Neon Highway was set up in 2002 as a non profit making little poetry/arts magazine. It has since published many talented known and unknown poets.

Neon Highway

Avant-garde

Literary journal

PUBLISHES:

POETRY and ART

Neon Highway is available bi-annually, with 2 issues costing £5.50, or a single Issue available at £3.00. Order your next issue by sending a cheque made out to Alice Lenkiewicz at 37, Grinshill Close, Liverpool, L8 8LD

Neon Highway issue 19

2011-01-05T06:28:00.000-08:00

Contents

Front cover and artworks by the artist Jacqueline Mckenzie

Note from Jane Marsh, assistant editor.

Page 5-6: Chris Hardy

Page 7: Harriet E Rose

Page 9: Leilanie Cesnik

Page: 10: Carlos Nogueiras

Page: 11: Noel King

Page 11- 12 Rabie

Page 12-13: Geoffrey Godbert

Page 14: Anne Reese

Page 15-16: Phil Knight

Page 17: J.P Christjansen

Page: 18-19: David Mac

Page: 19-20: Darren Caffrey

Page 20-22: L Montauti

Page 22-23: G David Schwartz

Page 23: Chris Churchill

Page 25-27: Scott Laudati

Page 28: Publications

Page 29: Submissions

Note from Jane

Welcome dear readers to our late autumn issue. I do apologise for this late issue. Last year I had a terrible time. My horrible landlord tried to evict me for being behind with my rent. If I have to type up the magazine or try and sort out my situation, well you can understand which choice I have to make. Without my home and without my computer, there is no magazine. But I do so apologise and please do be patient. If you have any enquiries about late submissions or unanswered letters, do keep contacting me until I answer and please do not worry about badgering me.
It seems a long time since I applied my thoughts to poetry. For some time now I have been worrying about my rent. I lagged behind for a while due to the fact I was travelling. My landlord, a certain 'Vinny' as they call him wanted seven weeks rent from me. I had to delay him and told him that it would be fine next month, that he would be paid but intead he sent me an eviction notice. (Nice man). My neighbour opposite is on housing benefit and Vinny wasn't very pleasant to her as he didn't want to wait for her housing benefit to come through even though she showed him the letter with backpay as proof. She has a child and wants to get a place through a housing association but the goverment have changed all that now so it's alot harder. So, it looks like my friend is stuck in her dingy bedsit for the rest of her life unless she comes into alot of money or trains again but even that is hard as the fees are high. Times are becoming harsher my friends. And yes, we cn see what is happening. It's that old, dog eat dog mentality creeping up again, the survival of the fitest and all that rubbish.

I must admit, I am so bored with success lately. Succesful people bore me. I want to hang around with down and outs, people of the street, loners, dropouts, the homeless. There is a beauty in this kind of exile. I get so bored of people parading their success stories around during these harsh times which is why poetry is still so important because poetry speaks between the lines, poetry is for every person. Don't forget to care and help others my dear friends. And while I write this on 31st October of Halloween, let us spare a thought for those who have very little comfort and whose lives have not gone according to their wishes.

Blessed be

Jane Marsh

Chris Hardy

BELLE TOUT

The cliff top leans

like the lid

of a grand piano.

High up on rising ground

the air sings

the note first struck

when I drew breath,

that will sound while I am here.

Ahead the horizon retreats

step by step.

Above it stands

a trackless blue

inviting mountain.

The sheer impossible face

must be accomplished

in one move,

to be silent again

with the unborn.

BLACK MARSH UNDER CORNDON

Black hedge- trees drip along the lane,

cut lines across the hill

beneath its snow-cap merging

into a white cold sky

as we approach Black Marsh

under Corndon.

A big grey mare hooves stamping down

between rough grass tussocks

thick with snow appears

her eyes are marble yellow globes

her mouth and soaked hide smoke

in the perishing wet air.

A driver on the road

glancing through the gate

saw us stop then stumble on

across an empty field

towards the stones that stand

above the snow like graves.

Harriet E Rose

GRISELDA – OR THE SECOND COMING

The microphone exaggerates, spittle on tongue, acid rain.
The Divil has many progeny
Sanctus erectus, his member, large as a bull’s
has been fruitful and multiplied
subduing earth with numbers, rivers of blood,
purple as robes of office, decorated with gold
by that Sun that melts the soul in summer.
The Devil’s spawn are greedy as swarming locusts.
They are consumed by lust.
Each creature has a time.
The prophets of Lucifer have made
a God of Death, Prophets speak in riddles
and aphorisms widely broadcast to any who will listen.
They claim that they can placate Death with worship
and the weapons of destruction.
that nothing there is can be uninvented.
The tigress roars, Blood drips from her mouth.
Blood stains the metal fangs of engines of destruction.
In cap and gown a crocodile of young gradulates
approach the podium each to receive a piece of printed vellum
that will enable them to indoctrinate the following generations
to practise alchemy in laboratories and surgeries,
to lie in courts of law enslaving
their own kind with legislation.
Sun burns their foreheads and souls of feet.
Thunderclouds gather in the east
from where originates all weather and disease.
Then a grey harridan, her body bent double with old age,
begins to hum a Muzak echoed by planets,
millions of transistors joining in. My name’
she announces ‘’ is Griselda’’.
A white acid rises from her forked tongue
becomes a vapour. It cleans away
all signs of age revealing beauty.
She grows in stature till she dwarfs the universe
which with all inhabitants she swallows whole
mouth expanding to the mouth of a cave.
This she calls ‘’THE SECOND COMING’’.

Leilanie Cesnik

PERCEPTIONS AS TRUTH

What if the sky was made of Papier-mâché
and the land a giant bathtub
with its stopper in New Zealand?

And what if the lines of latitude
were rings of wire suspending the paper dome
above the earth?

What if it's all illusion and we're simply make believe
and our eyes are telling us
what they perceive to be the truth?

What does it really matter?
What do we even care?

Carlos Nogueiras

A Terror Let Loose

Men divulge their sadness as proof
That in all endeavour there is

An attempt to get across
A terror let loose,

And if time cannot be relied upon
As a measurement of talent

Then destiny must surely be a fluke.
All caution thrown to the wind

Should we die in a tailspin,
Yet for those who live long

A kindness in old age,
For a battering awaits them

In the world beyond.
The longer you live - the more karma

To your name, and don't tell me
You think yourself strong.

Noel King

Lemons in History

Yellow is this mother's colour. She sees
lemons on branches of a tree bending
in gentle winds, a tree that bottoms her garden.
But oranges are the more normal orifice
of her routine. She squashes eight to her family
every morning with an electric squeezer.
Her mother did it by hand while her father
made porridge; her own children eat Ready Brek.

There must be something, perhaps a meaning
in Greek Mythology? For now we squeeze away
onto foods, tongues, while less cultured families
buy processed lemon juice in plastic lemons.

Rabi

Shades of Love

winter skies tremble
‘never leave I beg you’

The wood nymph sneers sadly
‘It is our calling to ensnare the issue of Adam
and over the centuries I have ruined myriads of men.
Why should I feel any differently about you?

I gurgle like a baby
‘witch-demon I love you,
left everything because you love me.
I know it and so do you.’

Now the temptress sobs and unfolds
wings feathered with green leaves
like thumbnails, her sighs hollow as a bell,
‘Then I must leave you for a while
to return to my master.
A year is but a day in our time
so wait and I will send you word.’

Twelve months pass like
a slow slow drive behind a tractor
on a winding country lane.

I sip autumnal wine in my rose garden,
thoughts of her promise
‘I will send you word’

And as I muse
a leaf like a thumbnail
drops into my glass,
floats on my drink –

so brown and twisted
how it curls
like a sigh.

Geoffrey Godbert

IL SISTEMA PERIODICO

In memory of Primo Levi

I’ve just been breathing to see
what happens tenderly
delicately violently:
a touch of strangeness, a drop
of this or that, otherwise
it wouldn’t work, it couldn’t protect
and so give rise to change

generate life, diversity
in a grain of salt
of what is needed
from the hidden order
what naturally makes
the natural world

suddenly and best of all
in one’s own surprised life
even for a second or so
is quite long enough

so we can pass through infancy
we can pass through adolescence
scenes of daily life, survival,
metaphorical experiments
to see what happens next

which makes a story
of which all the peoples are composed
even in foreign languages
as each make their own detections

just as I shall make my own
investigations, too,
into what is worth discovering

and so begin my own enquiries
into everyone
and everyone’s discoveries
for as long as life allows.

Anne Rees

MOMENTO MORI SADIE

The sun’s still golden but it’s local
to sheltered corners, hazy white middays.
at dawn, at sunset, sharp cold draughts of air
blow through frayed leaves and spiders’ webs
winter is coming near down its freezing corridor.

The first anniversary of your death presages
evaporating golds, scaffolds revealed behind motheaten fabrics
gardens yawning illimitably to let in frosts and darkness.
Nothing I can say can stop it, our shadows fade just like
our deaths sewn to our heels, flickering greyly over sunny brick.

Overhead at night wide wings beat, musical trumpetings
ring out as wild geese flee the Arctic tundra
daring depths of raging autumn air to reach the reservoirs.
Branches may snatch their rags, we may clutch coats
but wild geese expose warm feathers to cold searching night

like warriors, like Valkyries, they called, your brave soul went in faith
that God would not obliterate such courage. Wild geese are harbingers
of the terror in my heart in this dark borough, the wilderness
wormholing town hall and glowing pubs, people are getting ill
and dying all the time beneath this crust of brick and tile.

Jolly voices cry out on Capital FM, we can’t kid ourselves, no - one is safe,
wild geese cry out for death, for glory and Valhalla! Death!

Phil Knight

HOW CULHWCH WON OLWEN

“Before you can take as a bride my daughter the fair Olwen
She of the short dresses and golden thighs,
you must perform certain tasks to convince me of your worth”
said Ysbaddaden Chief Man of all the Giants of Wales”.

“Ask for any service I shall perform it,
ask for any gift and it shall be yours”
said Culhwch the Hero, friend of good men.

“A flock of seagulls has take up residence in my beard
and their fighting and squawking gives me no peace to sleep
therefore I ask you to bring me a comb”.

“I can do that” said the Hero.

“Not so fast young man, not any comb will do for my beard
I require the comb that lies between the ears of Reg
the Red Boar of the Rhondda, who belches fire
and farts clouds of mustard gas”.

“No problem it will be easy for me,
though you think otherwise”.

The Giant then reeled off a list of other fabulous creatures
that needed putting down, including eight dragons,
seven flying Lyons, six huge snakes, five Unicorns
one of them a Cyborg armed with a chain-saw and a giant
evil talking Octopus called Bob.

Each time the Hero replied “No problem,
It will be easy for me though you think otherwise”.

The Giant then demanded a large a number of rare and magical items
Including the Lost Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail
the sword Excalibur and a whole host of singing harps
and other such knickknacks, regarding items of more recent origin
the Giant said “ can you bring me the time travelling bicycle
of H G Wells, the braces of T S Eliot, Ezra Pound’s corduroy trousers,
the eighteen straight whiskeys that killed Dylan Thomas
and the knockers of Jordan, but remember I want them alive
such harsh critics I will kill with my own hands”.

In each case our Hero answered “No problem
it will be easy for me though you think otherwise”.

“Lastly I require that you obtain the Social Conscience
of David Cameron, it will be the glory and pride of my collection”.

“Ah” said the Hero “that will be a problem
according to Boris Johnson it is already lost”.

J.P CHRISTJANSEN

QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

Queen Of the Night,

with long black hair and lips of red
would be waiting in the shadow of guilt
hiding to others seeking the dark mistress
of secret lustful hearts deceiving their wives
resting and expecting child and telling them
“please don’t be late!”
as into the twilight they steal with just-less plans
and I find the shadow where she waits
to take me into her arms for the opening kiss
confirming the whispered promises of the one
who naked under the moon locks me tight
with legs pulling me up inside her womb
where I find my ancient primitive self
shipped of all senses but the spelling one
cast on my loins by the Queen of the Night
who out from the shadow of guilt once stepped
to show me her long black hair and painted red lips
contorted in a smile of irresistible seduction
making me deaf to please of “please don’t be late!”…

words which haunt in the tired moon
and neons shutting down.

David Mac

Do Another Day

Night. Strange blue coming in,
my wild head eating up thoughts,
the clock’s noose around my neck.

And there’s a large number of sheep in this tomb,
about 2 per second,
for hours now.

There’s a thick panic when I discover birdsong:
It’s early it’s late,
It’s morning it’s night.

Perhaps a drink will soften the blow
as the quick hours fall
away into the dawn

Get up and get to work, sad life,
know the poet’s
the lowest paid creature in humanity.

But still, as an alligator caked in cool mud,
eyes flicker
at the thought of the world.

With an alarming sound, I get up,
Into the universe.
I drift into the sun,

where I harden
ripen,
and burn.

Darren Caffrey

Idea for a dream…..Scene 2

would there be a cage between the body – shaken leaves – oddly falling into piles -
structures that make it easier – I can hear the wind through a whistle – I cannot see much

more – and mistakenly begin to run – told – tiresome to a voice – when a mad dog cuts the
silence – foot stopped into heart – looking over – toward the meaning of a sun – on the rise
-one or two are pounding the tarmac – cannot run forever – one more flight in brief – off –
where music keys into - how – and they are coming – the felt of lightening iron – a cast of
oranged beacon – tables turned by a dream – too cold to hear my own – beneath the
gorgeousness – fires – and blood a distinction to remember me –ready by the mouths –
cornered into a V – carried up – and taking nothing – to imagine – bedlam of a beginning –
tell them again what you have seen – and the light falls – by your side

L Montauti

Sleep

The invasion of flesh

awaking in the night

to find someone’s already inside.

No question, no request?

I wake to feel

the push and change.

The atmosphere

screams my shock,

I lie still

wondering if you’re awake too?

Do you even know

the damage you are causing?

This sleepy satisfaction you seek,

is it me you want?

Is this pain worth the virtue

you destroy?

The conversation,

the heart beat you corrupt

The kisses you disease

the promises you broke,

the pain relief

that love promises

occurs only in the

Honeymoon period.

The pain it creates

punishes again and again.

The confusion it portrays

Is implausible to any man.

The abuse of respect

the unexplainable;

the indignity;

the unstoppable;

To wake and feel invasion

to see with eyes open,

to look upon

broken trust.

G David Schwartz

Come Cry In My Arms

Come and cry in my arms
Just be close to me
I need to be close to you
You are all I want to see
If you think you need
Come crying in my arms
Never go away again
Just stay in my arms
I have always loved you
With a touch of respects
Loved you past trust
And sung to my neck
So strep up into my arms
If that’s what you need
And soon or later
We’ll get up to speed
So come and be in my deep thoughts
Let’s make shards ad water bots
And let us sing between
The yellow and the green
And with you in my arms
Life will take on reason
Once again this session

Chris Churchill

This Imperfect Love

What are these words I hear you speak
This story you have layed before me
Please tell me I sleep
For I cannot bare this to be reality

I would tear off my ears, wash my eyes, destroy
all senses if it left me blissfully unaware of this truth.

This truth which haunted my dreams, and would have plagued my thoughts if I had known
it was to become an eventuality.

There is nowhere to hide, no open arms to run into, as the man whome I entrusted,
whome unleashed this terrible fate, is not there,
as he has polluted this imperfect love and now a stranger stands before me, for the man
I once knew is gone.

I hold many questions, to which I could not hear the answers, for the thought, which
excludes elaboration is painfull enough.

It is no longer a nightmare, for it is now an intoxicating memory, a wound cut so deep
into my very soul.
To which I cannot nuture with my hands, I hold no anesthetic, and I prey time will
bring back my sanity.

Scott Laudati

From Here to LA

we drove from here to LA

in total silence

because Ace Enders,

said we should.

of course he talked,

for hours

actually he just screamed

and he did it for hours,

into a cell phone

as he paced around the trailer

in the parking lot of every gas station

from here to LA

he wrote his best songs at his worst.

after the phone calls

with his soul mate,

the women never understand

the artist,

but if she didn’t tear him apart

he never would’ve written those songs

and I wouldn’t have fallen asleep each night

listening to him finger the guitar strings

and singing about the love he would see

when we finally sold enough merch

to fly her

from here to LA

his hair grew long

(he was the converse wearing allstar)

he grew out his beard

(mad whiskers on a mad dog)

somewhere between Wind Gap and Winnemucca

we became a tribe,

and Ace

wore the feathered headdress.

it was never spoken of,

never decided,

but he was the man for that place

and time,

and the other bands knew it too.

we weren’t the headliners

and we didn’t draw the biggest crowds,

but the other bands hushed

when Ace walked into the room,

we all knew we were treading

with a real songwriter.

but HE DIDN’T KNOW IT,

would never accept it,

and I watched him go mad

trying to write

The Book of Love,

and recite it every night

to the girl on the cell phone.

in every parking lot

every gas station

every motel

from here to LA

half the band watched

the karate kid on repeat,

the rest of us read road novels

and listened to Wilco,

but not Ace!

he just stared

and occasionally would jump up and scream

until his face got hot and red

and then he’d quiet down

and start staring again.

in portland

Ace and I jockeyed across the city

to find a post office.

the mental institution had just run our of funds

and all the crazies were living on the streets,

one grabbed Ace’s shirt

and like a zoo animal does when you catch it staring at you,

he looked right into Ace’s soul,

and said, “I know what you did.”

I knew

that he knew

whatever it was,

no matter how nuts the bum was,

that he really knew

what Ace had done,

even if I didn’t know Ace had ever done anything.

Ace asked me if I though the bum knew what he did.

I didn’t ask what he had done, but said that the bum probably did,

but Ace liked attention,

and asked everyone this question

from there to LA

they called him a mad genius

they called him a crazy artist

they called him a possessed songwriter

I’m not really sure of any of those things,

because it took a woman to make him crazy

and a country to drive him insane,

but on monday most people still have to get up and

go to work.

I do know that all it takes to make a beautiful brain crumble,

is a woman

pushing the ‘ignore’ button

on the other end of the cell phone.

and it can happen in less time

then it takes,

to drive from here to LA

Publications

Review of The Given in

http://www.handandstar.co.uk/

It's the ezine of Penned in the Margins, run by Tom Chivers.
Read the early fictional poems of Rene Van Valckenborch at
http://adirondackreview.homestead.com/VanValckenborch.html
Follow his fictional twitter trickle at
http://twitter.com/VanValckenborch

www.parra-art.com

http://parra-art.com/images/stories/92ndFusion.pdf

REM magazine

http://remmagazine.net/

Nutshell Magazine

http://www.nutshellmagazine.com/

A C Evans

Twilight of The Avant Garde

http://ac-cygnusx.blogspot.com/

Selby’s List

http://www.selbyslist.com/

Small Press Scene

http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/

Pages

http://www.robertsheppard.blogspot.com/

Reality Street

http://www.realitystreet.co.uk/

Neon Highway Poetry Magazine is edited by Jane Marsh and Alice Lenkiewicz. Neon Highway was set up in 2002 as a non- profit making little poetry/arts magazine

Neon Highway (ISSN: 1476-9867)

Avant-garde

Literary journal

PUBLISHES:

POETRY and ART

Neon Highway is available bi-annually, with 2 issues costing £5.50, or a single Issue available at £3.00. Order your next issue by sending a cheque made out to Alice Lenkiewicz at 37, Grinshill Close, Liverpool, L8 8LD

Submissions

We prefer to receive work by snail-mail. Sometimes email is useful if your work format is 'experimental' or you have images and of course if you are abroad. For these reasons, email submissions will be accepted. On a general level, email submissions will only be read if we have time to, as we prefer to receive your works in the post. Please do not forget to enclose a sae for returns and replies.

Alice Lenkiewicz

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