Awakening of an Urban Witch
Cast from Shadowland; yet clinging still
to trailing fingers of kindred wraiths
my harbinger spirit seeks respite
in Hades’ neon hallways
then flounders in its silent search
as useless sleep lets loose her grip
and that bastard nocturnal thrush
drags me from bed; winging me awake
its happy beak; singing as I dance
a Grimaldi pantomime; me
now a pyjama’d clown
of the darkest hour
Later through the misty steam of cocoa
A grimalkin cat thaws from my heart
blood dripping from her fangs
Screeching the nightingale to silence
Dawn breaks over a bloody cenotaph
Nae, a Babel tower of twigs
* Mo Blake says... "I am currently working on a novel and also write short stories and poetry. I am one of the founding members of Read Raw Limited and a selection of my prose and poetry can be viewed at www.readrawltd.co.uk"
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Tuesday, June 30
Mo Blake's woken a witch
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 30 Jun 2009 05:29 PM BST
Monday, June 29
New prose poem - Sonia Jarema is taking a trip
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 29 Jun 2009 04:40 PM BST
TRIP
You shine like a glazed clay bowl in the sun. The door slides shut behind you – leaning down towards me you say hello. I’m not as good as my fellow passengers at avoiding eye contact. Hello I reply. The seat between us littered with papers giving me space from you. Intense eyes and urgent mouth telling me I have a green aura, that I am very psychic. Can I see your hand. I offer it to you and nearly catch the eyes, of the woman opposite, widening. Producing a pen you trace my head, life, destiny and heart lines and circle the mounds of Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and Venus. The silver lines don’t show up well so each line is then retraced in black. My hand is magical, mysterious - its lines singing. You ask for paper and write three things on three pieces which you then tightly screw into my hand. They predict my later answers which you planted in my head. Being able to rummage in another’s head is sometimes useful but also dangerous. I do not deviate from my trip and arrive at my friend’s birthday party with a tattooed hand and a light heart. * Sonia Jarema describes herself as an allotmenteer living on the edge of London. Sunday, June 28
Hannah Silva performing this coming week
by
Charles Christian
on Sun 28 Jun 2009 04:00 PM BST
IS&T contributor has sent out an invitation to her final MFA theatre practice performance on 2nd July, 7 pm, Roborough Studio, Streatham Campus, Exeter University....
Panopticon - written, composed & performed by Hannah Silva BEING A BRITISH CITIZEN IS A MEANINGFUL & CELEBRATORY EVENT NOT A BUREAUCRATIC EXPERIENCE! 'Panopticon' is a darkly humorous interrogation of identity, isolation, language and belonging. In a multimedia installation/performance, Hannah Silva, 'one of the most ambitious and entertaining poets in the country' (The Times) investigates what it is to be British. Hannah Silva is a writer, theatre director and performer based in Plymouth. She has shown theatre works in Japan, Germany, Holland and the UK. She was awarded the 2007 Torbay Artsbase Literature Award and currently holds a place as a playwright on the Arvon/Jerwood mentoring scheme. www.hannahsilva.co.uk
Two tankas by Anne Brooke
by
Charles Christian
on Sun 28 Jun 2009 10:00 AM BST
Tanka 1
During these hard times a tall man catches ducklings as they fall like stars towards the unmoving road. Small lives not yet forgotten. Tanka 2 The moorhen's green toes smooth the grass with each long step. They should not belong to such a small scrap of bird but to something far greater. * Anne Brooke is having a bird-obsessed few days but hopes to fly away from it all before she actually grows feathers. Her current roost is www.annebrooke.com The first tanka relates to this story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8058221.stm Saturday, June 27
Ink Sweat editor on tours
by
Charles Christian
on Sat 27 Jun 2009 04:00 PM BST
If you caught Ink Sweat & Tears editor Charles Christian doing his surprise stand-up performance in London recently and want to hear more, then make a date for the Buxton Fringe Festival in July. Starting a three day run on Sunday 12th, Christian is performing his new one man storytelling show The Boy with the Bomb beneath his Bed at the Underground Venues beneath the Old Hall Hotel in Buxton town centre. Don’t worry, each show only lasts for 60 minutes!
Wullie Purcell says he loves you
by
Charles Christian
on Sat 27 Jun 2009 11:00 AM BST
So say I love you - Anon
To say I love you Anonymously To say I care Anonymously To give a gift to show affection Anonymously So foolish. So unrequited So Anonymous So Unknown Be upfront Shout it loud Be bold Be known. But it’s not that easy All the time Sometimes it can’t be said Upfront And must remain a secret So it’s good that way To have a day When you can say I Love You Anonymously * Wullie Purcell... "Ex-fireman and IT guy is a writer of both prose and poetry and doesn’t tie himself to any one discipline, writing anything that takes his fancy. I am is also a director of Read Raw Ltd and we have a site through which we hope to promote creative writing in Scotland." www.readrawltd.co.uk Friday, June 26
Stephen Williams remembers two hot summer nights
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 26 Jun 2009 01:00 PM BST
INDENTIONS
On my rooftop city stretching beyond. Sound of shadows in late night. You're pressing into me tease and tug. Posing your breasts, flinging out your arms. Gravel on your bare back. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ NIGHT FRINGE We sit with our sticks stirring the lake, tired of being irritable... Telling old stories of when the sky was blue, the water drinkable, women skinny-dipping within our serenity. Now we wait for the last bite on the line pulling us under... Other men taking our places, not noticing the bubbling water. * Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to write, listen to his music, and dance late into the night. Based in California, his poetry had appeared in many publications – Night Fringe has previously appeared in Sage Trail Poetry Magazine and Drunk and Lonely Men.) Thursday, June 25
Fiona Glass is picking her way through a concrete jungle
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 25 Jun 2009 12:39 PM BST
Concrete Jungle
Clutch and thrust of the concrete jungle reminds me of you. Roots clutch at the soil, fingers of men buried alive, gasping their last into the thick brown earth. Stems thrust lightwards like cocks of men at play, criss-crossing, bobbing, stretching towards their life. Leaves clutch the sky, stitched to the heavens, your fingers in my hair. Your body a brown arrow as you dive, diamond drops capturing the light and holding it to ransom on your skin. You laugh, the sound echoing down the waterfall, smashed on the rocks below. It could so easily be you; I peer uneasily. You eel past my legs underwater, skin brushing skin, and you laugh again. Your voice as tantalising as your touch, promising more. Your teeth startling piano keys against your black moustache, but the piano does not make such sweet music as your voice. You emerge, a salmon leaping for the land, scattering the diamonds which wither, releasing their pent-up sun back to the sun. The sun warms your brown naked body as you lie, head pillowed on my chest, my heart speaking to your ear. Sudden flash of blue amongst the twisted shadows of fig trees: a jay scolds from a twig. Like sun on moving water they come out of the forest: a cerulean pillar of butterflies. Five, six, a dozen, their wings reflecting the reflection of the sky. They settle on your torso, painting it with light: cornflowers in coffee, blue eyes in a brown face. You raise your hand to brush them away. I catch it, bring it to my head. Your fingers take root in my hair. We are complete. * Fiona Glass writes darkly humorous fiction from a pointy house in Birmingham (the original one in the UK). You can find her work online at www.fiona-glass.com Fiona adds that this piece was inspired by the surrealist gardens at Las Posas, Xilitla, Mexico, which were designed and built by the English surrealist and patron Edward James in the early 20th century. Wednesday, June 24
Ian Hunter is wary of an unexploded poem
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 24 Jun 2009 06:16 PM BST
DANGER UNEXPLODED POEM
Of course, we shouldn’t have gone, but there was the lure of abandoned buildings. Barricades. Signs which said DANGER UXP. Unexploded poem, I explained to the others. Three of us ran the shadows down. Peeking into the smouldering crater to see the pulsing star of invention. Colours, ideas, and images, rhymes and reason, comparisons and truths, all residing in a crackling ball of energy Which died before us. Pulse slowing. Colours merging into bright red, then collapsing to black. Hearts in our mouths, we ran. Trying to get away before the unexploded poem exploded Now Pauline seems snooty, aloof. Always talking in short, clipped sentences that end in a surprising haiku moment. While Joey stands below yet another bedroom window. Using sonnets to praise the beauty inside, until the latest court order moves him on. And as if cursed or under a spell, I find that I can speak in rhyme. Just by touching this shrapnel, without fail, every, single, time. * Ian Hunter is a director of the Scottish writer’s collective known as Read Raw. His poems have appeared in various places in the UK, the USA and Canada.
Back on Twitter
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 24 Jun 2009 07:54 AM BST
Charles
Christian says... Yes, I know it was
only last month I said 'sod Twitter, it is completely pointless' but
now I'm back – at the request of
some of my digital nomad friends who say that actually it is a useful
way to
keep in touch if you live a peripatetic 24/7 lifestyle – although
admittedly this is using the technology as more of a group SMS texting
facility. I can be found at @ChristianUncut – and this time I'm going to try to concentrate on quality rather than quantity.
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