Since the pamphlet 'Mr Universe' from Eyewear Press I've been working on my first full collection. Below are a few poems which have already appeared in print, or online, or have had success in competitions.
Quayside
Abdullah, fifteen, a Pashtun,
who'd have an AK47
ink-hammered the length of his forearm
if it wasn't haram,
is trying to get online.
He sits in the gutter, knees to chin.
A Greek Orthodox priest passes by on the other side.
He sits in the gutter, knees to chin.
A tourist in a yellow bikini passes by on the other side.
For a signal he grips his phone against the sky.
On it are photos of his parents,
a barbecue in warm fields of wild rhubarb last June,
an address in Nottingham.
What's that trickling down his arm? Sweat? Goatsmilk? Seawater?
Yes, Driver. I'll do that thing for you.
Yes, Driver. I'll stay alive.
On the quayside, as he waits for the ferry to Piraeus, he thinks:
this phone is all I own.
& my eyes
& my name
though his eyes -
after all the long, dark days & long, dark nights
in the lorries from Kabul, & then the boat -
have become like stones
& his name breaks
into breadcrumbs
in his throat.
('Quayside' was published in the anthology In Transit: Poems Of Travel, edited by Sarah Jackson and Tim Youngs)
Pine
Once, at dusk, from a summer train
I saw a burning Ford Capri
at the edge of a peach fuzzed cornfield
two boys
running away from it
laughing.
In winter I saw that same car in a costume of snow
sinking
as if with the joy's weight.
I found out this: there's no such thing as sin.
Take last night, here in Festalemps:
a white hair of lightning clove a pine
clean in two.
I held the man I'd stolen, as he held me. Equal thunder. Equal thievery.
We were each other's hot money.
We were each other's. In wads.
Then we smelt black smouldering. Flesh.
Not us.
The pine.
This morning we walked to where it had split & burnt.
Ants were making chains of themselves
sneaking off
with little lamps of resin.
Since then it's been little lamps of resin
walking out of his nostrils,
little lamps of resin
walking out of his ears & lips,
little lamps of resin
walking out of every hole
in his lit body.
'Pine' won the Stonewood Prize in the Aurora Writing Competition, April 2016
Screensaver
(my screensaver being the scene from the film Casino Royale in which Daniel Craig, playing James Bond, emerges from the sea, just as Ursula Andress, playing Honey Ryder, had done in Dr No, & just as the goddess Venus, playing herself, had done in Botticelli's Birth of Venus).
Just when words lose focus - slow - grow tired -
he rises like a Christ newly baptised
in sky blue trunks, reminding me desire
will always lie in wait & be disguised
as men with healing hands & cute-cruel lips
& arms I’d die for if they ever pressed
too hard against my throat.
When water drips
from him the fish swim to his feet, confess
how happily waylaid they are, congeal
in crushes of scales, mouth how a breeding pool
upstream is no big deal.
Before my eyes
become baked pearls like theirs, I’ll pound these keys.
I'll pound these keys till words get saved, get laid -
till I am reawakened - struck - remade.
A version of this poem won 1st prize in the National Poetry Society's Stanza members' competition in 2008 and was published in Poetry News (winter 'o8/'09). It was also chosen as 'Poem of the Month' on the National Poetry Society's website (Nov 'o8) and selected as 'Poem of the Week' at www.bookake.com. It was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem by Judith Palmer, editor of Poetry Review. This poem is also in the Penguin Poetry of Sex, edited by Sophie Hannah and published in hardback in 2014, paperback in 2015. A review of that book, quoting this poem, with a photo of Daniel Craig as Bond in Casino Royale, was on p3 of the Observer newspaper on Sunday October 4th 2014.
Quayside
Abdullah, fifteen, a Pashtun,
who'd have an AK47
ink-hammered the length of his forearm
if it wasn't haram,
is trying to get online.
He sits in the gutter, knees to chin.
A Greek Orthodox priest passes by on the other side.
He sits in the gutter, knees to chin.
A tourist in a yellow bikini passes by on the other side.
For a signal he grips his phone against the sky.
On it are photos of his parents,
a barbecue in warm fields of wild rhubarb last June,
an address in Nottingham.
What's that trickling down his arm? Sweat? Goatsmilk? Seawater?
Yes, Driver. I'll do that thing for you.
Yes, Driver. I'll stay alive.
On the quayside, as he waits for the ferry to Piraeus, he thinks:
this phone is all I own.
& my eyes
& my name
though his eyes -
after all the long, dark days & long, dark nights
in the lorries from Kabul, & then the boat -
have become like stones
& his name breaks
into breadcrumbs
in his throat.
('Quayside' was published in the anthology In Transit: Poems Of Travel, edited by Sarah Jackson and Tim Youngs)
Pine
Once, at dusk, from a summer train
I saw a burning Ford Capri
at the edge of a peach fuzzed cornfield
two boys
running away from it
laughing.
In winter I saw that same car in a costume of snow
sinking
as if with the joy's weight.
I found out this: there's no such thing as sin.
Take last night, here in Festalemps:
a white hair of lightning clove a pine
clean in two.
I held the man I'd stolen, as he held me. Equal thunder. Equal thievery.
We were each other's hot money.
We were each other's. In wads.
Then we smelt black smouldering. Flesh.
Not us.
The pine.
This morning we walked to where it had split & burnt.
Ants were making chains of themselves
sneaking off
with little lamps of resin.
Since then it's been little lamps of resin
walking out of his nostrils,
little lamps of resin
walking out of his ears & lips,
little lamps of resin
walking out of every hole
in his lit body.
'Pine' won the Stonewood Prize in the Aurora Writing Competition, April 2016
Screensaver
(my screensaver being the scene from the film Casino Royale in which Daniel Craig, playing James Bond, emerges from the sea, just as Ursula Andress, playing Honey Ryder, had done in Dr No, & just as the goddess Venus, playing herself, had done in Botticelli's Birth of Venus).
Just when words lose focus - slow - grow tired -
he rises like a Christ newly baptised
in sky blue trunks, reminding me desire
will always lie in wait & be disguised
as men with healing hands & cute-cruel lips
& arms I’d die for if they ever pressed
too hard against my throat.
When water drips
from him the fish swim to his feet, confess
how happily waylaid they are, congeal
in crushes of scales, mouth how a breeding pool
upstream is no big deal.
Before my eyes
become baked pearls like theirs, I’ll pound these keys.
I'll pound these keys till words get saved, get laid -
till I am reawakened - struck - remade.
A version of this poem won 1st prize in the National Poetry Society's Stanza members' competition in 2008 and was published in Poetry News (winter 'o8/'09). It was also chosen as 'Poem of the Month' on the National Poetry Society's website (Nov 'o8) and selected as 'Poem of the Week' at www.bookake.com. It was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem by Judith Palmer, editor of Poetry Review. This poem is also in the Penguin Poetry of Sex, edited by Sophie Hannah and published in hardback in 2014, paperback in 2015. A review of that book, quoting this poem, with a photo of Daniel Craig as Bond in Casino Royale, was on p3 of the Observer newspaper on Sunday October 4th 2014.
Men Are Rarely Killed Outright By Electric Shock
God-awful business. But ol' chap, here's the thing:
pull the victim clear by the coat tail, if dry.
One's belt, or braces, can be slipped round his leg, or arm, to pull him away.
One can also protect oneself by standing on dry wood, or dry, folded newspaper,
or a dry mackintosh.
Two or three firm slaps with the flat of the hand between the shoulders
is sure to bring the patient's tongue forward.
But be aware that he may not speak.
Not for several hours. Not, perhaps, for days.
Weeks, even.
On no account touch him if one thinks one's own spine may become an earthing rod.
Should one deem it necessary one may walk away.
One must do the decent thing. One must not look back.
Not until the hair on one's own head unEinsteins,
not until it jolly well lies flat.
Not until several weeks have passed
like long winter barges full of salt.
Months.
Years, even.
An earlier version of 'Men Are Rarely...' was published in The Interpreter's House (issue 34, Feb '07). I used to peform this in a 1950's BBC accent. The title comes from a very old Health And Safety poster which I found at the back of a filing cabinet in the FE College where I work.