JOHN
John
who was a man
who would bet
on anything
and had a
staunch hatred
of anything German
as his father
was a victim
of world war two
died just days
before
England beat Germany
5 – 1 at football
it's a dead cert
he would have
hated to know
he'd missed that
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
NEVER FOREVER
the days
when we thought
– everything
is forever
until it isn't –
have long gone
now much older
and wiser
we realise
that
– nothing
is forever
even if it is –
* Colin Cross lives in Norwich and is a regular IS&T contributor
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Friday, October 24
Colin Cross says its a dead cert never is forever
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 24 Oct 2008 07:32 PM BST
Thursday, October 23
Two short cuts by Abbie Clark
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 23 Oct 2008 11:17 AM BST
Short vinegar
My vinegar is balsamic My neighbour is Islamic It’s a mixed leaf world I’m an eclectically cultural girl ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Time to invest Tinged green by the cheap imitation jewellery she understood that it was time to stop making necklaces from brussel sprouts. * Abbie Clark is a purveyor of the bizarre, a radio presenting activist and a consumer of chai latte. Wednesday, October 22
Pat Jourdan's listening to the fisherman's wife
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 22 Oct 2008 11:05 AM BST
The Fisherman's Wife Speaks
There's not a silver dish left in all this town. The fish have vanished now, all boats sliding into scrap. We see closed shipyards, clanking empty chains on documentaries on TV. Trawlermen congregate outside the bookies casting about trying to net horses. The harbour's edge crumbles into the sea; we are embarrassed, don't walk there any more. Your father has fierce rows down at the dole, his muscles deteriorating into loose flab, his oilskins left hanging on the backdoor peg. Thumbed tide-tables lose their relevance, the sea is left to lap and smash as it wants – we stay indoors muttering. Instead of Wednesday's shoals of fish we live on tinned sardines from Portugal eked out with chips and mushy peas kidding us it's still the old times. There's not one silver dish left in all this town. Dance to tha' daddy now. Dance for me. * Pat Jourdan's latest collection is The Cast Iron Shore from Erbacce Press. Trained as an artist in Liverpool, she has spent many years in Ireland Tuesday, October 21
Two works by Nigel Pickard
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 21 Oct 2008 09:48 AM BST
We've a choice of styles for you today – verse poetry and a prose poem – enjoy...
YOU’VE PROBABLY SAID something funny: that’s your usual way. She’s thrown her head back and laughed. You like her because she’s not afraid to do this. You like her because she laughs at your jokes, your asides: she’d be next to you to get those, and give them back herself, she’d always be next to you. You’re both bright, unlined; just the creases of laughter around your mouths, your eyes; and light in whorls on the wall behind. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ RETAIL PARK Another Sunday, and traffic’s beached up. Stores cliff the tides, their chattering shores, the day breathing fire in our familiar faces, prodding us under our ribs. There’s fag ends scattering the tarmac like crabs’ legs, and families keen to bury each other. The temperature gets even higher: we lean into it like a brick wall. Some kids splash in a small forecourt of shadows, Olympic with ice-cream. We buy a fridge, to live inside. Stores cliff the tides, their chattering shores. Men with metal detectors mourn. The sky breaks, like teeth. * Nigel Pickard is a regular IS&T contributor. His first collection Making Sense was published by Shoestring (2003) and his first novel One was published by Bookcase (2005). Monday, October 20
New prose by Bobby Parker
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 20 Oct 2008 08:31 AM BST
Spinner’s End (fragments of disappointment, alienation, babbling and resolve) There were no cakes in the tin, but it was a very pretty tin decorated with rainbows melting into the electric image of people laughing in their adult world... And it was all a con. We wanted something sweet, and the tin was so pretty; however we couldn’t know for certain that it was empty... just had to reach inside for ourselves, feel around with itchy fingers, hope for a crumb, a chocolate chip... A heartfelt letter from the cake tin maker explaining everything . . . (I want to feel the way I did when I was young, when cakes were dreams!) I’ll sell my soul to the way you all move around, press your lips and bodies together, make sounds with your mouths and expect others to do the same, earn enough money to be able to sleep without that sensation of falling through the mattress, waste love on those who that do not deserve it, stay friends with people out of habit and not because they are particularly interesting or you care how they feel... I’ll sell my soul to the way you pray and laugh and scratch your heads at the stars, the way you look in mirrors at your bodies and wonder what a little muscle could do, the way you talk to people you don’t really like because it would be rude not to, and the way you bury your dead and bring them flowers instead of apologies, and OH MAN I’ll sell my soul to the way you think and breathe mass media manipulation if it means the girl who wants to marry me won’t mind blowing bubbles in the wind and the occasional giggling fit at the way you all look so funny with your serious faces ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Sentimental Crap, what? It was my turn to walk old Frank home. The snow outside had been falling steadily, tremendously, for most of the night. A white world untouched. Three o’clock in the morning, pub lock-in, everybody drunk and high and singing along to The Boxer by Simon & Garfunkel. It was warm in The Comberton Arms. Cosy. Old Frank smiled into his ale and nodded to the door, ‘Come on, we’ll sing The Old Rugged Cross...’ The old swine! The old crook everybody loved! I rolled a cigarette. Slapped my face a few times to the bemusement of hardened drinkers. John mopped the bar with a filthy little cloth, his eyes rolling and streaked with red. Kath pulled up her top and her middle-aged breasts bulged out of her stained bra like massive marshmallows. What a night! Winter 1999... seven days until my birthday, eight days until a whole new century. Hang on, Frank, hang on! We shuffled out the door and he hooked his frail arm round mine. I wanted to tell him how much he reminded me of a dickens character, with his crumpled hat, crumpled coat, crumpled eyes, crumpled ways! But when we saw that snow outside we gasped, and the air froze our lungs, and it felt good and clean and the closest thing to being pure. Not a footprint out there. No tyres had ploughed the roads. It crunched under our feet. Heaven! Heaven! And we didn’t say a word. We crossed the road. Staggered past the shops and the church that looked wonderfully eerie among the falling flakes and wind-blow-howl so cold. The booze seemed to have rushed from out the top of our heads and into the wink and shine of crystal stars... we didn’t say a word... his arm hooked round mine... his little shuffled steps slippered with layers of fluffy snow... we were sober, I could tell; by the time we approached the gate to his little bungalow our steps had become steady, even professional; we could’ve walked up a mountain and hugged a frozen cloud, or brushed the brilliant inky dark with our eyebrows! He unhooked his arm from mine and opened the wooden gate. At the same time, we both looked back from where we came, the cosy lights of The Comberton Arms that seemed, now, so very sad... our footprints in the white, white, white... what are we here for? What am I going to become? How did you get here, Frank? How did you find your way to such a magnificent age? But, still, we did not speak... he leaned his weight, light as a paper bag filled with feathers and tissues and cigar smoke, and he looked around: the wonderfully eerie church, the snow, the snow, Heaven!... our footprints... the sad, yet cosy lights... freezing air in our lungs like the breath of the beginning and the end – Old Frank looked at me with shining eyes, wise eyes, ‘Don’t grow old, Bob. Don’t ever become old like me.’ But there was a hint of a smile. He tottered up to his front door and didn’t turn back to see me biting my lip. I lurched around and sang The Old Rugged Cross, suddenly drunker than ever, and the cosy, sad lights of The Comberton Arms disappeared in a world of white, world of age, world of wonder... * Bobby Parker lives in Kidderminster (England) has poems published/accepted in/by Agenda, Obsessed With Pipework, Fire, Iota, Rain Dog, Cauldron, The Coffee House, Curlew, Krax, Weyfarers, Purple Patch and Urban District Writers. Sunday, October 19
New haiga by Charles Christian
by
Charles Christian
on Sun 19 Oct 2008 12:24 PM BST
 * IS&T editor Charles Christian likes to keep his postings to a minimum but with the UK currently enjoying a St Martin's Summer (Oh, look it up) here's a seasonal haiga. Saturday, October 18
Two poems by Karen Kelsay
by
Charles Christian
on Sat 18 Oct 2008 07:23 PM BST
I Believe
Mrs. Allen, why did you tell us second-graders that our guardian angels wouldn’t follow us into a liquor store? I spent hours wondering how to get M&M’s from the corner market, where Baileys and Smirnoff bottles loomed like Satanic shadows over the register. Huddled with my friend on the curb, we could see the candy close to the door – Of course one earthquake, and we’d be on our own. My father scoffed at religion – we let him go in for us. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Perfume Your name was almost forgotten, smudged from my memory – until yesterday, when I overheard some women saying they liked you, and you were still available. Funny, thirty minutes later, I saw you waiting there, as if you knew I was coming. Certainly, with all those women pressing around you, I found myself growing more attentive. What would they say if they knew that long ago you were once mine? That I tossed you away? Your body looks more attractive that ever. I let you touch my wrist, just once more, before I leave. Then, slowly, I remember what it was about you that I hated: that clingy overpowering way of yours; how you nauseated me by the end of each day – You, horrid perfume. * Karen Kelsay grew up in Southern California, and loves writing poetry about the sea. At the same time, she has written narrative, romantic, and fairy-theme poems that were created with other backgrounds and foreign lands in mind. Her first book – Collected Poems by Karen Kelsay – was published in June 2008, and a chapbook titled A Fist of Roots is scheduled to be published by Puddinghouse Press later this year. Friday, October 17
Gwilym Williams considers the finest view in England
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 17 Oct 2008 08:40 AM BST
Pendle Hill
‘…finest view in all of England’ – Queen Mary from Downham Church Before the Church the Queen proclaimed: ‘the finest view in all of England’ - meaning the royal view from there towards the imposing hill known thereabouts as Mistress Pendle. The Queen observed the track hard athwart the slanting summit, angled down the northern flank - the track the Pendle Witches took to their final day of judgement. The Queen imagined the sorry scene - the party picking its way along that lonely hillside track down to the chattering duck-filled stream below where yokels and toffs had collected to see for themselves this latest catch. Mistress Pendle oft drifts in and out of view through fogs and drizzles but on this glorious day in local history bathed in royal lawn and party blue and straw hat sunshine the prospect was much more than fine. * Gwilym Williams is a regular IS&T contributor. The Queen Mary referred to in this poem is the one who was married to King George V and had the ocean liner named after her – not 'Bloody' Mary Tudor who had people burned at the stake in the 16th century. Gwilym adds "There's a plaque on the wall by the entrance to the church with the quotation and date of the royal visit etc. inscribed thereon. Downham is really a nice spot. They made a famous film there once. Whistle Down the Wind with Hayley Mills. I was about 13 at the time and I think I was in love with her!" Thursday, October 16
Two haibun by Jeff Winke
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 16 Oct 2008 09:30 AM BST
It’s that KWISH…
… sound of the truck’s air brakes backing up snug to the loading dock’s battered pads in the middle of the night. windshield rain smell of hot drip coffee from the thermos ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ The Sign As They Likely Dashed At 2am it is a curious but welcome sight – seeing the neon OPEN lit up like that. It doesn’t make sense, but life has been very nonsensical as of late. Still, I slow the car down to a sloppy pace as the windshield wipers furiously slap the pelting rain and try to peer in the massive plate-glass window with hopes of seeing life. For a glimmer, I see someone in there, but it’s nothing more than a faceless shadow being obliterated by a flicker of lightning. No such luck. Definitely closed. Somebody forgot to turn off the sign as they likely dashed out the door with an aluminum-foil wrapped hot beef, rutabaga and potato pasty and styro-bowl of tomato-rice soup in a thick brown-paper bag. I can almost see the wedge of paper napkins, hastily grabbed, sitting on top of their late evening carry-home meal. insomnia man-in-the-moon and me * Jeffrey Winke is a haiku/ haibun poet and public relations counselor. Recent publications include That Smirking Face, a haiku-art broadside collaboration with Matt Cipov (Milwaukee: Distant Thunder Press, 2008) and PR Idea Book: 50 Proven Tools That Really Work (Denver: Outskirts Press, 2006). www.jeffwinke.com Wednesday, October 15
New podcast by Ken Head
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 15 Oct 2008 05:55 PM BST
Here's our latest poetry podcast recording, courtesy of PoetCasting.co.uk. The poem – Winter Collection – is by regular IS&T contributor Ken Head and taken from his new digital chapbook published by Snakeskin.
* Instructions: To access this podcast: click on the paperclip, this will reveal an MP3 file attachment, click on this and a new browser page will open up with a familiar audio player plugin control panel (play, pause, rewind etc - these my vary depending upon the type of software you have on your system). Play the file as many times as you like – or even download it to your desktop. Then, when you have finished, click the 'back' button on your browser to return to the Ink Sweat & Tears site.  1 Attachments |
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