A WOMAN FOR ALL SEASONS (EXCEPT ONE)
Visiting the past you gave birth to Christ
had John the Baptist's head brought to you
submitted Samson's hair to a Number One cut
bared your breasts in Minoa
seduced Mark Anthony in Memphis
stepped in to kiss Nelson on the deck of The Victory
and committed suicide with Hitler.
So why can't you think of anything to do
when you are with me?
• Bromwich-based poet Geoff Stevens is a regular contributor to IS&T
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Wednesday, October 10
New poem by Geoff Stevens
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 10 Oct 2007 06:56 PM BST
Monday, October 8
Leisure - Nature - Morning by Richard Wink
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 08 Oct 2007 03:52 PM BST
Leisure
It was pleasant to be out of work by choice no longer a slave one giant leap out the corporate door thing is time soon takes hold and strangles your will the television becomes your friend who never talks back and the bed your lazy lover ***** Nature The wood pigeon all girth without grace struggles with the bird feeder pecking peanuts knocking seed to the ground opportunistic sparrows sit under the bird table taking advantage of the food that falls from above Not many people bother to feed the birds so most gardens round our way are lush green lawns full of cats mess ***** Morning I walk by the Tijuana brass band bites my ears nine hours float by in a washed out factory then back I go to my dingy apartment an image of a woman with a fat belly confronts me on the sofa I sit for three hours watching violence and disorder on screen outside I hear nothing but screeching tyres from the boy racers who hope that speed will get them laid it did in my day but we talked about speed in a different way. At night i'm naked with no aggression I sleep until the letterbox wakes me red letters reminding me about the things i haven't paid for • Richard Wink is a poet based in Norwich, England. His work has featured here, there and everywhere. Saturday, October 6
Haiga by CarrieAnn Thunell
by
Charles Christian
on Sat 06 Oct 2007 05:58 PM BST
 • CarrieAnn Thunell is a regular contributor of haiga to IS&T – she describes herself as "an ecology and peace activist, backpacker, nature photographer, artist, poet, and amateur landscape artist/gardener." Friday, October 5
Mark Leech goes base jumping and has the dereliction blues
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 05 Oct 2007 02:45 PM BST
The Base Jumper Prevaricates
Glistening pods of life moving on roads like piss riddling sunrise: I dare earth's concrete palm to swat me, falling. I will surge up, hurling fat slugs of down back at God's eye. Now the shell is smashed, and I am the first drop out. Improvements I got the nostalgia for dereliction blues ...Ed Pope The city was much as we had left it, still full of brightly coloured delicacies and old, tall houses, whose gloom increased with the distance. It was the roads that had changed, sticky with new tops and distinguished only by painted guide lines. We were soon lost, looking for the postbox with the narrow mouth, the fence strangling among dock leaves. Healed, rippling under our feet like muscles the roads unfurled, and the city skated on them, its dishes gracefully raised for presentation and assessment. We learned to sleepwalk, call on friends in odd languages; we dreamed the city lights floating under us, flares held just out of water. Sometimes we stumbled over daylight and from a bar, the ice melting, watched new roads seep along the walls of buildings under restoration. The city shone like a pebble we'd stoop for on a hot afternoon, at the foot of an empire's last milestone. • Mark Leech does not base jump but has a pamphlet coming out – London Water – from Flarestack Publishing quite soon. He lives in Oxford. www.myspace.com/markleechpoetry Mark adds... "Ed Pope is a singer/songwriter/poet/performance artist based in Oxford. He's a fixture on the alternative (he wouldn't approve of me calling it that) scene, and the song I took the line from mourns the gentrification of all the crumbling buildings in the city and suburbs." Wednesday, October 3
Two prose poems by Mike Estabrook
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 03 Oct 2007 10:29 AM BST
Hot Air Balloons
Fall has begun, crisp out there and even though it is warm as a robin’s nest it feels like the beginning of fall that impending feeling hanging poised in the air like a fleet of hot air balloons motionless in the sky. I took in the hoses and the wheelbarrow and mowed the lawn and cut a couple logs for firewood, and wondered how much longer the flowers would linger before giving up their colors to the long dark winter. Interior of the Living Room of the Rookwood Inn In the rustic Victorian living room of the Rookwood Inn, among the antique bookshelves stuffed with musty crumbling books, lacy curtains, dusty plants, and French-patterned furniture, my wife is explaining to Amy, another of the guests (a pretty mother of four with frizzy hair and long legs), about our sightseeing yesterday in nearby Amherst, when Amy responds, “Oh, I know Emily Dickinson, she’s the one who wrote all those novels about little women and the such,” and I’m so astounded I almost fall off my chair. • Mike Estabrook lives in New England and says of himself "I'm the marketing communications manager for a tiny division of a gigantic company, and man, going into an office every day can be excruciating. I should’ve stayed on Northfield Avenue instead where I belong and learned to fix cars like my Daddy did." Monday, October 1
Two pieces by Ivor Murrell
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 01 Oct 2007 07:24 PM BST
All for thirty Yuan
Crossing Tian Na Men fluttering midnight kites soar above the rickshaw Who flies kites at night? Somewhere on the darkened square dreams tug on taut strings At a funeral of the previous generation (For Jamie and Rupert, with confidence! February 11th 2000) Passing time before the funeral watching strangers weigh their flesh against the sloping street. Age balanced by effort. Seen through the bay window of a former grocery in which the faded gentry had thickened their outstanding ledgers, a grey haired man slipped past, last seen in youth, and in each pane the image blurred from boy to man man to boy and back again, six lifetimes in an instant. A speed to mock the act of killing time. Later, watching our sons at the funeral I found myself unsettled not by death, but by change in life. They stand confident and at ease, and I note with pleasure the focus is with them, this is their time, they have its measure. Only by their tenure do I recognise my loss and sense the gentle terror of my new position just this side of the balance. • Ivor Murrell retired last year to coastal Suffolk with his wife, after running the trade association for the UK malting industry, He was previously one of the last floor maltsters in the country. The Beijing double haiku was written in 1993. |
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