Journey to the Depth of the Deep-freeze
You’re on the driver’s seat.
I’m only your passenger.
On either side of us fields
of sunflowers caress in a breeze.
You’re wearing your purple shirt
with jeans and jagged eyebrows.
It is quarter to three in the afternoon
on an autumn Sunday; we’re returning
from lunch, wine and chat with friends.
The break in our silence comes
to tell me you want to call it a day.
I watched the sunflowers caress,
mute and childless.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Three Days Before the Train
A doll stares at 80s artex.
Her eyes fixed wide open
like she is looking at
a winning lottery ticket
or she has just been told
her mother is cured of cancer.
She is waiting for you to enter her
bed and wrap your arms around her.
* When we first encountered Will Collins, he was reading creative writing at Winchester Uni. He's now graduated and become a lecturer at the Basingstoke College of Technology but plans to take a Masters in the near future.
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Wednesday, December 31
Will Collins is pondering relationships
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 31 Dec 2008 09:53 AM GMT
Tuesday, December 30
Flash fiction: Terry McKee can't sing but...
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 30 Dec 2008 10:31 AM GMT
I Can’t Sing but That Doesn’t Mean I Don’t Love You
I’m driving down the road, on my way to the market to get something for dinner, singing along with a love song on the radio, even though I know I can’t sing, still that doesn’t stop me from singing. I want to sing in the worst way, always have. Fortunately for the guy in the next lane, my windows are up. “Life isn’t fair,” my mother always said. She was so right! My sisters sing beautifully. “Angels”, she called them. They sound like Leona Lewis, with such incredible range. And they know to dance like her too, as if they’re making love with the wall. Another thing I’d really like to do well, but I’m the queen of klutz. That saying about walking and chewing gum fits me to a T and just forget doing it in stilettos, like Leona. An untied sneaker is my equivalent to running with scissors. It’s incredible when someone opens their mouth and sound so spectacular comes out, especially if she has less than mediocre speaking voice. Looks become unimportant as well, a person can forget all about the face when the singer’s languishing between the music and lyrics, fully entrenched in its meaning, but oh my, if they are pretty. The combination is breath-taking, a sure fire hit. Tone deaf and un-coordinated, I can’t do anything of the things I want to do. Somehow I missed out on the dancing and singing genes and now that’s all I want to do, sing. Love songs, hate songs, rock and roll, folk ballets, any song, just as long as I can sing it. I’ll do anything that proves I have some special talent. Then you touch my arm and laugh, “You can really belt it out.” “It’s for you,” I say, “sorry it’s not very good.” Then I realize I don’t have to be good and just because I can’t sing doesn’t mean I can’t get what I want. You’re still sitting next to me, besides singing is fun. “That doesn’t matter, you’re still my angel,” you tell me and kiss my hand as if I’m royalty. With my best flirty eyes, I ask, “So what do you want for dinner?” * Terry McKee lives in southern Florida, with her husband, three dogs, two horses, numerous lizards and six dragon flies. Monday, December 29
Helen Pletts is remembering her grandfather
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 29 Dec 2008 04:52 PM GMT
In the morning
In the morning, i taste your funeral. Even the radiators' anthem appears unchanged. (Theirs the only music until the first psalm). Downstairs, someone grapples the compartments of breakfast cutlery; we fall between the forks. In the moments prior to your departure the dark coats fold on us; a clouded navy blue, a sentried black. And all the dawns come rushing through the milk spout on the cereal. * Helen Pletts is a regular IS&T contributor and has a new collection coming out in 2009.
IS&T launches chapbook publishing venture
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 29 Dec 2008 12:41 PM GMT
Ink Sweat & Tears has launched a chapbook publishing venture. We were going to call it El Cheapo Chapbooks however somebody has already nabbed that name – but the sentiment remains the same: to publish low cost chapbooks with a minimalist production process that should appeal to the pockets of audiences AND still generate a royalty for the authors.
Yes, we did say royalties. This is not a vanity publishing operation nor one of those hocus-pocus pamphlet competitions, where the entry fees of canon fodder competitors subsidise the producing of the winning pamphlet. Instead, we are operating on a commercial basis, evaluating the content of submissions, publishing chapbooks, selling them online – and paying their authors a royalty. Typically, a 40-page chapbook will sell for £3.50 – which equates to a royalty of 20% (or 70p) for every copy sold. Authors will automatically receive 4 free copies of their chapbook however (because the reality of poetry publishing is most copies are shifted at readings and performances) authors will also be able to buy bulk copies of their chapbooks at a cost price of £2.00 + p&p. This, incidentally, is not a pre-requisite – and in fact there are no fees, hidden costs or charges that we will suddenly spring upon an author. (We will also automatically produce a digital version of the chapbook, which authors can publish on their own websites.) Currently we have an e-commerce facility linked to this site (see the Chap Book Shop graphic & link in the right-hand column) which lets you buy online via PayPal (and credit card) however from New Year we will also have titles listed on Amazon. And, as with all Ink Sweat & Tears ventures, we are doing this without any public funding or subsidies. Saturday, December 27
John Irvine's lost his sheep
by
Charles Christian
on Sat 27 Dec 2008 11:03 AM GMT
John Irvine says "This isn't exactly a haiga but rather a limerick set into a photo I took not far from where I live..."
 Friday, December 26
Kate Pottinger is walking the woods
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 26 Dec 2008 11:04 AM GMT
Deep Woodlanders
I do not see the ancient men I feel their eyes upon me in the undergrowth where foxes bark at night behind the trunks of trees half blackened by the rain. The birds are silent here but hidden in the canopy they watch the fusion of the present and the past. Sensing movement I turn round to see the tangled ropes which gently swing in glutinous, grey light where bodies thin as air and dry as dust have nudged them passing through and I would like to know if they see flesh and bone and footprints on the muddy track and in another thousand years from now, if I, as thin as air and dry as dust, will peer from undergrowth where foxes bark at night, and watch the flesh and bone and footprints on the ancient, muddy track. * Kate Pottinger is one of the co-founders of an arts cafe set up by one of IS&T's regular contributors Mandy Pannett and says this poem "rather came out of nowhere one damp afternoon in November when I was walking my dog in the woods." She adds "I have been working on a novel for the last ten plus years and finished the final draft earlier this year amidst great celebrations and sighs of relief from those who had seen me through the very lengthy labour to the birth! Now the question is, what do I do with it?" Thursday, December 25
Two haibun for Christmas
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 25 Dec 2008 10:29 AM GMT
Well I don't expect anyone else to be working today, so here are a couple of haibun for the Christmas holiday season that I finished recently...
TWO HAIBUN FOR THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS by Charles Christian Shimmering in gold, two little angels – halos askew – frolic on a petrol station forecourt. It must be school nativity play time again. That, or the start of the Second Coming. deer moving cautiously in my garden – their bones remember the wolves ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Caught in the car headlights, an old man and his chubby dog out walking on a snowy Boxing Day afternoon. Over his shoulder, the old man carries a log. For the rest of the drive home, I keep a look out for King Wenceslas and his page. raucous cries in a twilit sky – rooks heading home to roost Wednesday, December 24
Sonia Jarema has one last present to unwrap
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 24 Dec 2008 05:17 PM GMT
The Last Present
Before he died He bought and wrapped This present It sits in my cupboard The snowmen have Waved many summers Away now And still I can not Bring myself To unwrap This last present. She told me this And I did not laugh Did not entice Her to unwrap But wished that I too had A last present To cherish And not unwrap Two decades later I reached into The cupboard That holds Only memories And found Eighteen years Left unwrapped And started To peep Till two years dropped And now I pull At the paper Of the sixteen. And wonder If one day I wish I hadn’t. * Sonia Jarema says "I am an allotmenteer living on the edge of London, finally letting the air get to my writing." Tuesday, December 23
IS&T publisher's person blog goes online
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 23 Dec 2008 06:55 PM GMT
It has been a very long time coming – and been through a number of false starts – but Ink Sweat & Tears publisher Charles Christian has finally got his own personal blog up and running. The blog
– which you can access via either www.wordsandvision.com or
www.charles-christian.com – is designed to highlight his
writing (the 'words' bit), his photography and digital haiga (the
'vision' bit) and his live literature/spoken word performance
activities.
If you click on the main category headings, you will see a set of sub categories (verse poetry, prose poetry etc) encompassing the different genre he's worked/working in. The 'stuff you need to know' section is for all the stuff that doesn't fit into one of those neat categories – and includes general info about the blog, news, events, plus biography. And, 'the Digital Slow Lane' – which is also this blog's subtitle – is designed to hold an ongoing series of semi-autobiographical, mini-monologues and annecdotes about Christian – and life – as he finally comes out of the closet to recognise his inner geek. |
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