After last year's 'Mr Universe' from Eyewear Press I'm now 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.
Pine
Once, at dusk,
from a summer train,
I saw 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
plundering
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.
This poem won the Stonewood Prize in the Aurora Writing Competition, April 2016
Daniel Craig: The Screensaver
If I lose focus, if I drift, 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 press
too hard against my throat.
When water drips
from him the fish swim to his feet, confess
how happily waylaid they are, congeal
in jams of lips & even then, mouth how
the breeding pools upstream are no big deal.
Before my eyes bake pale like theirs I vow
I’ll pound these keys till lines get laid
till 'save' & only 'save' saves me from this bondage.
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.
Pine
Once, at dusk,
from a summer train,
I saw 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
plundering
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.
This poem won the Stonewood Prize in the Aurora Writing Competition, April 2016
Daniel Craig: The Screensaver
If I lose focus, if I drift, 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 press
too hard against my throat.
When water drips
from him the fish swim to his feet, confess
how happily waylaid they are, congeal
in jams of lips & even then, mouth how
the breeding pools upstream are no big deal.
Before my eyes bake pale like theirs I vow
I’ll pound these keys till lines get laid
till 'save' & only 'save' saves me from this bondage.
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 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.
Do not for heaven's sake look back.
Not until the hair on one's own head unEinsteins,
not until your own hair jolly well lies flat & decent.
Not until several hours have passed like barges, long winter barges full of salt.
Weeks.
Years, even.
An earlier version of 'Men Are Rarely...' was published in The Interpreter's House (issue 34, Feb '07).
Monolingual
Queueing queueing queueing at this check-in desk
all these moonymoany britishfuckers
are mono-fucking-lingual! Gatwick-bound?
We do hope your ticket's single. Because,
old chap, though we legions of profligate
babblers, heathen bunglers can go private
in multitudinous linguistic jungles,
we can also see through your every word.
Your holy gift has become your come-uppance.
What? Nowhere to hide? We don't give a tuppence!
Bon voyage! Buon viaggio! Rehlat sapida!
Soon you'll be swaddled in aeroplanes home:
glass babies.
White hot from the womb. The sun
slants through them
midwives wipe them
like vases.
An earlier version of this was published in Chroma, issue 3 (Autumn ‘05). It was also selected as Poem Of The Week at www.poetrymagazines.org.uk , a site run by The National Poetry Library, (Nov ‘08).
Sonnet While Reading Miroslav Holub in the Genito-Urinary Clinic Waiting Room
Live, alive-ho! These bugs! These bugs! Alive!
They've leapt between us since we flapped in slime,
jump ship, like pirates, to the brink of Time.
We're hit. We take in water. They survive.
& here we wait for test results, pretend
to read. You: Sailing. Me: Holub's Selected
which permeates my bones till I'm infected.
Do all our scissoring haunches cut along uncharted coasts toward The End?
If you weren't such a bloke I'd hold your hand
uncurl it, break it open like a tight
wet waterlily bulb, there to find - stowed -
the toxic larvae of angels. I'd wind
the world's clocks back to that barbaric night.
I'd pluck them off your palm. I'd flick them overboard.
A version of the above poem was published in The Poetry of Sex, ed. Sophie Hannah, 2014.
Queueing queueing queueing at this check-in desk
all these moonymoany britishfuckers
are mono-fucking-lingual! Gatwick-bound?
We do hope your ticket's single. Because,
old chap, though we legions of profligate
babblers, heathen bunglers can go private
in multitudinous linguistic jungles,
we can also see through your every word.
Your holy gift has become your come-uppance.
What? Nowhere to hide? We don't give a tuppence!
Bon voyage! Buon viaggio! Rehlat sapida!
Soon you'll be swaddled in aeroplanes home:
glass babies.
White hot from the womb. The sun
slants through them
midwives wipe them
like vases.
An earlier version of this was published in Chroma, issue 3 (Autumn ‘05). It was also selected as Poem Of The Week at www.poetrymagazines.org.uk , a site run by The National Poetry Library, (Nov ‘08).
Sonnet While Reading Miroslav Holub in the Genito-Urinary Clinic Waiting Room
Live, alive-ho! These bugs! These bugs! Alive!
They've leapt between us since we flapped in slime,
jump ship, like pirates, to the brink of Time.
We're hit. We take in water. They survive.
& here we wait for test results, pretend
to read. You: Sailing. Me: Holub's Selected
which permeates my bones till I'm infected.
Do all our scissoring haunches cut along uncharted coasts toward The End?
If you weren't such a bloke I'd hold your hand
uncurl it, break it open like a tight
wet waterlily bulb, there to find - stowed -
the toxic larvae of angels. I'd wind
the world's clocks back to that barbaric night.
I'd pluck them off your palm. I'd flick them overboard.
A version of the above poem was published in The Poetry of Sex, ed. Sophie Hannah, 2014.
