A Gemini Thing
 

It’s a Gemini thing
My secret world
Opposites attract yin and yang
Angel devil lecher priest
Each made more by the other’s being
Hooded serpent fur and fangs writhe
In deadly dance knowing no other way
No mercy for second place
Hungry pack snorting steam claws pawing
Frozen ground the smell of fresh blood
Circling the wounded prey and then
The kill
Cruel nature’s way
But one can’t exist without the other
It’s a Gemini thing my secret world
And I think I like it


• Jim Carson is an architect and aspiring poet and composer living in Atlanta.

THIS COUPLE


who, ten years ago,
were so well known
in local circles –
both feared a little,
sniggered at only
behind their backs:
we were very young –
this couple pass us
in a fashionable
restaurant. They’ve

eaten early and,
as we arrive,
are on their way out,
him with his stick, her
her own grandmother.
We don’t recognise
them till they’ve gone.
“But they knew us!”
you say. “You should’ve
seen them look!”



• Nigel Pickard's first collection Making Sense was published by Shoestring (2003), his first novel, One, by Bookcase (2005).

ANNIVERSARY




she peeled off
the price

which he
had forgotten

to do and  
cut

the red roses
free

of their cellophane
but  

adding them
stem

by stem
to her

crystal vase
together with

the contents of the
sachet

attached

which promised to keep

them fresh


she wondered




how long



they could last



• Mandy Pannett runs an arts cafe, supports two local writing groups and enjoys giving readings and running writing workshops. She has two poetry collections from Oversteps Books – Bee Purple and Frost Hollow.

                                   diminishing values

in a world of diminishing values, indistinct goals and flexible boundries
   it is becoming more difficult to find one single nightmare to commit
     to utterly in the mauve miasma of pseudo-nightmares and pastel
             hued marshmallow dreams. I want a proper nightmare
                    throbbing with scarlet promise and tangerine
                        risk. Some otherwhere I can escape to
                            casting aside all my prejudices
                                and petty expectations.
                                    Would that be
                                        heaven
                                            or
                                            h
                                            e
                                            l
                                            l
 
                                    John Irvine


• John Irvine is a regular IS&T contributor and this should look like a martina glass – should

LOVERS


This is the vacuum of the day
night takes the light
and you with your superior tugging strength
take the duvet away
with your extra lung capacity
breathe all my air
Please turn down your heartbeats
you are ruining my silence
upsetting my sleep
and your dreams are infringing on my dreams
Keep to your own side
you're giving me claustophobia
your elbows are weird
they have four sharp bones on them
you're bruising my ribs
your snoring's out of tune
It's upsetting the regularity of my breathing
you'll bring on my angina
WHAT NOW!
No, I don't feel like it.
I don't want a cheese sandwich.
You have one if you want one
and don't keep asking me things
can't you see
I'm asleep!



• Geoff Stevens is a regular contributor to IS&T – see R/H side-bar for details of his latest collection.

Sweet Nothings

You are nothing
I am less
Let's admit it
We're a mess


Why one is childish rather than pretentious

Because quite enough other people
Already do
Pretentious
So well
And so regularly


Weirdo

Oh, all of us are weirdos
It’s odd that, but it’s true
And the more you call me ‘weirdo’
The less hope there is for you


• Rachel Fox is a regular IS&T contributor and her new collection More about the Song is sitting in my in-tray waiting to be reviewed.

Regular IS&T contributor Geoff Stevens has a new collection out – see cover illustration. You can get copies direct from him (price £6-50 + 70p p&p) from 25 Griffiths Road, West Bromwich B71 2EH.

Bottle Bank
 
 
A lean trousered scrabble;
Pressed aside the green-breast-curve, toe-tipped
Arched form a-gape reaching,
Visage-crimson-cold.
A jagged white slit creases the cheek;
And the human bright-blue-eye
Echoes love lost, the pricelessness of heart;
Scattered, like the glass shards
You hopelessly filter. Your stick twists
But it won't stretch, nor grasp without prehensile
Tendency, the bottle's neck.
 
 
 
• Helen Pletts was born in the UK but has lived in Prague in the Czech Republic for the last four years. She says "My experience of living here has provided me with most of the inspiration for my current writing. The man I wrote the poem about is still alive, although he seems to always be drunk. He leans in to the bottle bank to get the bottles that may not have smashed on their way down – tries to retrieve them with his stick – then takes them to the supermarket for the returns money. I thought he would perish the winter I first saw him doing this - either from falling in head first, or from the extreme cold – minus 20+ on some days (winter 2005) so I gave him some money – this was right at the point I looked closely into his eyes and realised that he was struggling with something else maybe – the something else that had driven him to trying to drink himself to death. His eyes were the most incredible blue. I couldn't get home fast enough to write the poem."

Ralf


Diving from left to right and zig zagging across the floor sparks shot from his heels, Ralf had never felt so alive, as he flicked the prosthetic limbs that had neatly been attached by feather boa technology towards the centre of the dance floor everyone spread out.  

Eager to witness his slick new moves and be a part of the new scene (that would no doubt be talked about in every post office and abandoned telephone box for decades to come) the two legged trend setters set about making a circular spherical shape of neon lights and flashing shoes.  Zip zap zoom ra, the lights spun and glistened like they were spinning just for him, the music rose like petrol prices and the chanting began.  Ralf was king tonight, as he double flipped, back kicked and somersaulted he felt the floor move beneath his plastic toes so fast that he knew evidence would later need to be provided by the insecurity guards. 

Then just as he was about to break into his signature move the collar was strapped around his neck and his eyes drifted to the stick being thrown at a great angle into a sky of street lamps.  They would have to wait until tomorrow for the next dance frenzy.



• Abbie Clark is a purveyor of the bizarre, a radio presenting activist and a consumer of chai latte

Date Night


No snow    no rain    no way
Nowhere
Just pain
Bound by agony, to the couch of eternity
From humble beginnings come humiliating ends
A horrifying conclusion that can’t be stopped
Wanting to leave
But not able to – too scared
Having to leave and not wanting to – too nervous
Too/too    scared/nervous
Cabin fever developing into hermit
(w/out crabs)
Into a full blown battle
Terminal anti-social agoraphobia
“You can’t make me leave!!”
“You’re not the boss of me!!”
I scream as the men in pretty white coats
Take me out for a night on the town



• Leigh Pierce describes himself as "a poet who types with brass knuckles, a head full of port & lungs full of cigar smoke".

unfinished manuscripts (neglecting her needs)


I got a bunch of hahahas in my underwear drawer
next to a copy of Poetry For Fools and a
half-smoked joint... I take them out
and rattle them in the streets like neon chains
advertising This New Time To Be Getting Along
With People We Secretly Hate...
I call them dream-star-solar-henrymiller-
magic-sex-revolution-mirror-bells-of-luck...
but my girl, well, she calls them
stinky ball-sacks filled
with what's left of my heart
and O my armpits cradle them now
like tiny silver violins and,
as I sweat-drip these words, they play to you so sadly
it would break your heart if I were to tell you what,
if anything, all of this means.



• Bobby Parker is 25, 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.  

the hole in the universe


today i read in the newspaper
that scientists have discovered
6 billion trillion miles of emptiness
out in space & how they are puzzled
by the whole thing
while i sit with a cigarette in hand
looking up at the dark sky
sending my meek smoke signals
up into the blackness
smiling, unbaffled by their new finding
knowing all along god was out there somewhere
& now it is late august
all i hear are crickets & the box fan
& i am pleased by this too
these surrounding sounds void of language
these god-like chips of meaningless waves



• Rob Plath is from New York and studied under Allen Ginsberg for two years in the mid 1990s.  I is currently contributing editor to d/e/a/d/b/e/a/t press and poetry editor of The Whirligig and has a new chapbook on its was from the Tainted Coffee Press.

Here's some news about two of I&T's regular contributors – Padrika Tarrant and Gwilym Williams.

• Padrika Tarrant's collection of short fiction – Broken Things –  has been long-listed for the Frank O'Connor prize for short fiction.  There is dedicated blog at http://saltfrankoconnorprize.blogspot.com/ – and you can also find some of Padrika's material, including podcasts at http://saltfrankoconnorprize.blogspot.com/2008/05/play-coffinwood-7.html

• And Gwilym Williams (last heard of sitting on top of a mountain in the Alps to avoid the Euro 2008 soccer crowds) has his first collection out. Called Genteel Messages (approx 60 pages) you can buy it online via Paypal for £5.25 + £1.00 p&p from the Poetry Monthly press at www.poetrymonthly.com/page46.html – we've included a copy of the cover artwork, Gwilym's into to the collection, and one of the poems.





In the Park


On the grass someone is sleeping;
I think it’s a woman.
I think she’s asleep
under that green plastic sheet
directly in front of that bench
by the drinking fountain; supermarket
bags arranged on the seat.

But I don’t want to wake her and ask her.

No doubt they contain the usual things;
old magazines, broken biros, newspaper,
a curl of orange peel, two or three cans
of beer, a scattering of bent or broken
cigarettes, smelly clothes, tangled string;-
you know the sort of thing.

Nearby a man and some children play;
wrestling on a heap of bouncy blocks.

Another man is pushing a bike away.



• from Genteel Messages by Gwilym Williams

You need to be following current affairs in the UK at the moment to appreciate this visual pun. In particular, the resignation from Parliament of Tory MP David Davies, who is now casting himself as an unlikely successor John Hampden (look him up on Wikipedia) as a champion of traditional liberties and fundamental freedoms dating back until Magna Carta.



• Christopher Major is a regular contributor to IS&T

Dining Out


“Do you want me to call an ambulance?”  The chubby manager of the all you can eat restaurant is seated on the floor next to Peter, the elderly patron, who’s barely had time to settle at the table waiting with his wife, Clara, while their two nieces have gone to the food bar.

“Yes,” Clara nods her head.  Clara’s white hair sits in a bun on top of her head, tears welling up in her eyes.  The manager and one of the girls who work the room at lunchtime, clearing tables and fetching drinks along with bread and butter, laid Peter gently on the ground when he bent over the table and uttered an “Oh, my,” Clara looking helpless.

It’s the thing Clara has worried about most in her life.  “What’ll I do without Peter?”  Now, sitting on her chair while the manager and the wait staff try to make sure Peter doesn’t die on the premises, she thinks the worst is happening.

Clara smiles when the manager, now arranging towels under Peter’s head looks up and says, “His eyes are open.”

“How do you feel?” she asks and Peter‘s eye lids flutter, the first sign of movement since he‘s been on the floor.

People at surrounding tables only stop eating for a second at the start of the commotion.  Now, they resume eating and the trek from table to steam tables.  No one wants to feel cheated.  It isn’t the first time this has happened at the buffet.

“Everyone in there is so old,” Peter complained when the girls suggested taking their aunt and uncle to the restaurant.

“It’ll do you good to get out of the house.”  Clara encouraged him, dressing in her favorite purple dress, something she only wears on special occasions.  “We need to do more outside the house,” she said, putting the final touches on her hair.  Peter says she looks nice, but he’s always said that no matter what she’s wearing.

Clara stares at Peter’s black leather round toed shoes pointing towards the ceiling, white socks showing between the bottom of his cotton trousers and shoe tops.  She should have insisted he wear dark socks, but they’d been running late and she didn’t want to keep the girls waiting. 

“I like these socks,” he told her when she spotted them. 

“Your slacks are too short,” she said, “that’s why I can see your socks.”

“I like ‘em,” he said, ending the discussion.

The girls arrive back at the table, unaware anything is wrong till they’re standing next to Clara and Peter, their plates filled with fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans. 

“The ambulance is on it’s way,” one of the cooks announces and the manager shows a visible sign of relief.

“You’ll be okay,” the manager tells Peter and Clara pats Peter’s shoulder.  The nieces huddle around the couple, their food forgotten on the table.

When a diner spots the ambulance, the manager and the cook help Peter back onto the chair.  Clara hovers close by while Peter’s vitals are checked and then he’s lifted onto the gurney.  Clara is grateful not one of them referred to Peter as “old timer.”

“We’ll follow you to the hospital,” one of the girls says.  Clara, glad for the company, even though they’ll miss their lunch.

“We’ll have to do this again soon,” Peter quips as he’s rolled out to the ambulance on his way to the emergency room.

“Not exactly and not too soon,” Clara replies, adding “we need to get you some new clothes.”  And then they are on their way without the sirens.


• Janet Yung lives and writes in St. Louis.  Her short fiction has appeared in Writers On The River and online in Foliate Oak, Terrain and Flashquake.

SOBER OR MISSED
 

the first two people
I spoke to in the pub
tonight
were so drunk
that when they spoke
they spat all over me
 
the third person
was either sober
or missed
 
 
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 
  
QUIET MAN
 

ninety per cent
of what
most people say
is bollocks
 
I just say
the ten per cent
that isn't
 
 
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  
WISHING AND HOPING
 

standing
in the kitchen
dying
for a drink
holding
a bottle of water
wishing
I was Jesus



• Colin Cross lives in Norwich and is a regular IS&T contributor

This was the sixth Doctor’s surgery he was visiting that week.  Harold had long ago resigned himself to the fact he had a problem.  That he savoured the pleasure of sitting around, observing the infirm.  Usually after a couple of hours of avoiding the receptionist’s gaze, they would approach him and the game was up.  This surgery had a male receptionist.  Harold stared at the TV watching a sexual health promo with disdain.  Contrived, he thought, compared to the others he had seen.

"Harold".  He jumped as the receptionist called his name, ever so soft, maybe even a little sympathetic.   "It’s time to go now".

On the footpath outside Harold made up his mind, again, to stop this.  After all, he couldn’t possibly track down all his former patients.  Yet two years after being struck off he still hadn’t kicked the habit of trying.



• Tola Ositelu was born in South-East London, 1981 to Nigerian and Ghanaian parents. She studied law at university and is currently a trainee solicitor within a local government organisation in North London.  Away from the day job she can be found organising, hosting and singing at live music events, seeing as much of the world as her annual leave will allow her, trying to make her mark in the world of music and literary freelance journalism, watching plays and attending various musical and literary events across London. www.tolitasmusings.blogspot.com

Guilt
 

just before sleep –
picture it –
stabbing something to black.
 
a needle –
pressed between –
tongue and palate.


• Marguerite O'Callaghan is a 25 year-old writer who recently moved to Norwich from Cork and is just finishing a Diploma in Creative Writing at UEA.

Ferryboats

by Martina Thomson
Hearing Eye Publications, 2008, Pamphlet Series No. 54 www.torriano.org
ISBN:  978-1-905082-36-0, £3.00, 32pp

Reviewed by Ken Head

The publication reading for this volume of twenty-nine poems took place at the Torriano Meeting House in London on 9th March and until then I had never heard of Martina Thomson.  Not unusual with poets, given how little exposure they receive in the mainstream media and on the shelves of the major bookshop chains.  Without the lifeline of small presses, open mic events and, increasingly, online publication, even the best of the new would probably either never achieve publication at all or simply pass us by unnoticed, which is why series such as Hearing Eye’s pamphlets, published at a good price and an impressive level of quality,  are so valuable.

Martina Thomson was born in Berlin, of Austrian parents, came to England as a child and is now a potter living and working in London’s Camden Town.  Ferryboats is her first published volume of poetry, although a prose work, On Art And Therapy, was published by Virago in 1997 (See www.fabooks.com for more.)

The collection begins with Glaze Test, a short poem, fourteen lines written in couplets, about the response to “glaze and flame” of “The contours of three brushstrokes / on my test piece”, before moving to draw a parallel between the lines of her brush on clay and those “ever-shifting versions” which she finds in nature, in “the line a hill draws / in the sky ... ever-shifting versions / as I walk towards it – ”.  “So many goes”, she adds, “at touch / and demarcation”, the thoughtful conclusion of an artist and a poet for whom representing reality is an infinitely varied and complex task.

Meditative concentration on the relationship between the concrete and the imagined is a quality found throughout the collection and is used skilfully in a variety of ways.  In Silver Spoon, for example, “the small silver spoon / in the palm of my hand / my fingers across it / my thumb in its hollow –” leads to a dream of yesterday, the memory of her mother serving coffee “in the blue room / among her friends” and asking, “Ein Mokka?”.  It is difficult not to grasp what this suggests about what was lost in the family migration from Germany all those years ago.

“Yesterday dreaming” is perhaps a useful shorthand for a number of the poems in this collection.  Tristanstrasse, for example, remembers her first home, the milk-cart rattling over cobblestones, “the high, clear sound of Hübner’s bell”, but recalls at the same time a more sinister reality, which doesn’t need explaining, of “black boots ... in the street / ... the dog ... poisoned”.  

In the moving Elegy for C. L. R., which is placed among the concluding poems, we read of “His fingers ... / like the strings of an instrument, / when he raises them / the air makes music. / His words are agile creatures / that ferret out distinctions, ... / that span distances.” and remember Shakespeare’s Prospero, his power to transform, undoubtedly this poet’s gift also. 


• Ken Head's poetry weblog is at www.listeningforlight.blogspot.com and he'll appreciate your dropping in to browse and maybe leave a comment if you're passing.

With the Euro 2008 football (or soccer for our American readers) about to get underway, what better than a football poem by Gwilym Williams...


Just over the bar?
 

On the box and the bottle
their words are like the words of poets
– more powerful though less profound.
 
Those shirted logos speak
and millions gawp and gulp
– and take another sponsored swig.
 
Do we dare to hope
that brighter goals
may soon be on the way?


• Gwilym Williams is a regular IS&T contributor and living in 'mittel Europ' – he is going to be in the thick of things football-wise.

Miss Thailand


He’s in love with another

who’s hot and spicy
and bears ripe mango
for him to taste

Her water embraces his tanned body
her palms give him shade
when he laps her coconut milk

In her he’s got the freedom
to roam and be rich

Every 90 days he leaves her
to cross the border
but she always welcomes him back
like I would

Because he’s not in love with another girl
he’s in love with another country.



• Louise was born in Sweden on a cold winter's day in 1982. When she was old enough she escaped to England and ended up in Brighton which inspired her to write a novel. It's called Punkindustriell hårdrockare med attityd and was published in Sweden last year. She's also active, going by the stage name of Lou Ice, as a performance poet.  www.louisehalvardsson.com

Dumping my Dead Uncle's Clothes
                  

As I dump my dead uncle's clothes in the Goodwill box the cold crawls over me and the orange tones of shopping-center arc-lamps feel brazen and fiery on my flesh, the way the glances of mourners must have felt to my uncle as he lay face-up in a suit worn only four times in life.
            Dumping clothes bagged in plastic is cruel as hefting bundled meat.  Only when death exposes the bone can we see each other wholly naked, devoid of the cant of Freud and other sex-mongers, and determine if the forms we lived by were sufficient to sustain us against the grief prescribed by the sacred books we've devoutly avoided reading.
            Beyond the highway, down a slope of leafless oak and hickory, the river waddles to its fate in curves as clumsy as the handwriting of a child.  My uncle fished there twenty years before I was born, his big face sunburned and innocent, the war so distant no one could hear the next crop of soldiers being born.
            The bags of clothes drop into the box like kittens into a pond.  The silence they instantly absorb is permanent.  The death of my uncle is now his dearest possession, the arc lamps brave as torches in a catacomb.  The cars in the parking lot glow like the shells of extinct insects in a glass museum case.


• William Doreski says "My stuff has appeared in a bunch of magazines and several shabby books, most recently Another Ice Age (AA Publishers, 2007)."
 

wormwood, earth and honey

by Catherine Edmunds
(85 pages, Paperback, Circaidy Gregory Press, 2008, ISBN: 978-1-906451-04-2)

Reviewed for IS&T by John Irvine

Catherine Edmunds’ new book of verse wormwood, earth and honey recently released by and available directly from Circaidy Gregory Press, could not have got off to a better start for me. The cover art, her own creation, is my kind of art: bold brush strokes, visual texture and rich colours. In fact, the cover art has an almost ethereal marine feel to it.

 I am familiar with Catherine’s work, and have been fortunate enough to read it on many occasions. There is, though, a vast difference between reading the odd offering and reviewing an entire volume. Firstly, I chose poems at random from throughout the book, reading to set within my mind a ‘feel’ for the collection. Then I took it quietly and slowly, as the exceptional poetry herein deserves to be taken. What a smorgasbord of sensations I encountered:

• whimsy:
Eric was fashionably dressed
in bumptious cumulo nimbus

• enigma:
a cave beneath a jasmine tree, full of secrets
dying leaves, wormcasts, earth and honey

• deviousness:
whereupon it (the wind)
transmogrified into a golden retriever

• and glorious madness:
Erik laughed with the sound of thistles
waggled antennae and smirked at Mavis

Catherine is no superficial poet awash with jolly statements that cannot possibly be misinterpreted. She is a thinker’s poet, a writer whose words very often conceal and beguile, and whose meanings frequently wear the camouflage of allegory and metaphor. If you want the most from her poetry, you will have to think about it. This is not a book for skimming during a free moment in the lavatory. Even her humour requires careful attention.

She is a compelling storyteller, weaving complex and sometimes lyrical tales with surprisingly few words. There’s no waste with this poet. Every word, every line break, every nuance is calculated for maximum effect. The lady handles drama, sentiment, nonsense and humour with equal aplomb. Catherine is what every seriously talented poet must be: a gimlet-eyed observer.

She is also versatile. Not content with just the contemporary style of free verse, she is equally at home with the sonnet (a particular favourite of mine,) haiku/senryu and a plethora of other styles and fancies. Pernickety paragons of punctuation will be disappointed. There isn’t a lot of it. For me, though, the lack of it gives Catherine’s work a sense of immediacy and sometimes restlessness that I like very much indeed.

 So… if stolen hedgehogs, unrequited love, heroic prunes, things called Eric, romantic mittens, unhappy penguins, myth and legend and assorted other unforgettable characters are your meat and spuds, then this book is for you. But make no mistake: this book is not just about fun and games. There is a very serious underbelly throughout this book. Sometimes angry, sometimes hopeless, sometimes just plain glorious. It’s all in there:

• Anger:
his foot’s kicked a twelve inch monkey wrench
he picks it up, nods once to the car
then goes to look for his mother

• Hopelessness:
it’s not a police matter
they’re just bruises
they’ll heal

• Glory:
as clouds gather
walk with me in colour

A favourite piece? Well, I think I’d have to confess and say that ‘grandfather’s beard’ took my fancy. Perhaps not the most deeply meaningful of Catherine’s offerings, but it is dry and wry enough to purse my mouth… with laughter. Or maybe ‘The Ballad of Shane and Mavis.’ Or perhaps even…

To sum up: this delightfully complex volume of poetry will please any reader who likes to take their time, ponder a lot and gaze at the heavens, but someone who also has a sense of the ridiculous. If I had one regret it would be that Catherine didn’t see fit to sprinkle a number of her wonderful drawings throughout the book. I give this book my Supreme Golden Syrup Pudding Award… I read it twice before lunch, and now I’m off back for thirds.

Here is one her poems from the collection


bike
 

he sat on his motorbike
garish, resplendent,
in periwig, surcoat and pantaloons
 
he waited
we waited
they waited
all waited
for the fish underneath him to ripen
 
and when it did
the fumes exuded
took him to Tajikistan
(and back)
and then all the way to France


• Catherine Edmunds