Tuesday 18 June 2013

Life

The germ of existence,
the span of breath,
the joyride of being,
the counterpoint of death,
the whirligig of consciousness,
the drive of animation,
the inkblot swell of sentience,
the blast of creation.

I'm afraid of the compound of sun-sleep,
especially in the blanketed public green
when all skin-stretched silhouettes are absent.
I get the juddering spine-wrench.

I do not want to see a twice-born form,
this is what gives me the sharp skin prickles,
I would much prefer some flame scorched yeast
and Huw Edwards' nightly knowledge.

I revel in the breath of false causation,
I am the spinning third rock's nadir,
I will not pass under erect tree stairways,
but fill my pocket with a fur orbed scut.

I will not shy from Duncan's Ultimatum,
un clock bound, un map bound.
Name your pin pierced long and latitudinal patch.
A resilient cord-fall, merely paints me with apathy's gloss.

The germ of existence,
the span of breath,
the joyride of being,
the counterpoint of death,
the whirligig of consciousness,
the drive of animation,
the inkblot swell of sentience,
the blast of creation.

So when the auteur yells cut,
I look around the Extra-filled set
and know that I can grasp my sport-fuelled days.

Sometimes living out those sleep-screened films
is much more complicated than the script,
when what you want is the Superman circumnavigation
in a glorious, soaring, polymer globe.

John Canfield

Life?

The spark, the spark, oh the spark,
the spark, the spark, oh the spark.

I am unmanned by the realm of bats
especially when I’m out of hats
and I am on my Todd.

And when I get delirium tremens
through an overdose of gin and lemons
I dread the sight of yet more spirits
especially ones with moaning habits
I would rather eat welsh rabbit
and watch Britain’s Got Talent.

I tend to be a gullible man
Check my star sign in the Sun
Never walk under climbing trees
Keep the stories of Beatrix P.

But in the daylight I am brave
will dive down to the deepest cave
attempt a drowning man to save
attend while sober a midnight rave.

The spark, the spark, oh the spark,
the spark, the spark, oh the spark.

So at the end of everything
It’s not a lonely bell I ring
Life can make you want to sing, best to join a choir.

Living out your midnight visions
only feeds your superstitions
why not join the latest craze
see all the world in eighty days.

John Grant

Shadow Song

fear the loping tongue of the moonlizard
that tapers the green desert’s tailored footpaths

in a tsunami of synapse and nerve

you will meet your skinless mother
skulking in the parlour

she offers her stale palms
upturned on a tea-tray
soaked in the blue glow
of the evening’s small explosions

you don’t trust the world to be reasonable

you don’t trust the runged arch of accident
reaching high windows
or the soft absence of cloud
tucked shyly in your pocket

sometimes the cold lick of tide
touches your ankles
sending a quiet tremor of shingle
into consciousness

you think of expanding gas
the rhythmic click of matchbreath
snapping shut
on the redeye of an unstoppable reptile

Debbie Potts

Oh Sacred Beat

 Oh beat.
oh sacred beat.
oh beat of the sacred beat.

I shiver in the shadows
where mist men drift
and hide and bide
their tick tock wait
for one mistake.

oh beat.
oh sacred beat.

Why should I pretend to be at home
in this place, this face
of plastic skin
and doctored bone?
I barely know
myself .

oh beat.
oh sacred beat.

shut up. listen.
this isn’t the work of children.
I’ll keep my blue coins wide 
and darting side to side
toeing the tips
of my walking fingers.
no lurking,
won’t linger
in any one place.
this turtled race
is not for the blood-pump weak
but only those who seek
to keep

the beat.
oh sacred beat.
oh beat of the sacred beat. 

Mike Redican

The Projection Room


The projection room oh the
room of lustrous marionettes oh the
earth-mind of the wandering light oh the
projection room.

I’m afraid of the water’s echoing rhyme,
especially in the splishsplash shallows of the shoals of my youth
when there’s no-one else around,
I get the ripple of the shirt-haunch.

I don’t want to see the ripple of hollow sheets -
of all the cavorters of projection rooms, it is the one I fear most.
I’d rather have a plank of this vanquisher of belly-void
and watch the death of days on my dancemaker of light.

I am the superstitious bamboo of unborn children,
I’m the worst in the forest of known trees.
Never walk under slant struts of the heavenly clamber,
I keep the bud of the cotton-jack.

I’ll take you up on the prompt of the breacher -
any frame-frozen room,
name the room, I’ll be there,
brazen on the spittle-rope of vertigo

The projection room oh the
room of lustrous marionettes oh the
earth-mind of the wandering light oh the
projection room.

So after the indices of encyclopedias have been read out
I know I’m not the only one.
The projection room can whirl with carnival-glee
if you want it enough.

At certain indices, living out your cloud-projections
isn’t as easy as it seems.
You want to fly around the labyrinth of rooms
in a beautiful thought-bubble. 

Joe Turrent
O diminishing cloud-cradle of vanishing happiness
I am restless to repeat you
but I’m scared, so bloody scared of the
star-stubbled mugger of clearsightedness,
most of all when
stumbling through the grass-bark dance alone
the trees are shaking their hips
and I can’t even see their rustling fingernails.
Then I shiver like the colours of countries in the wind
as if up through the roots have come
unshredded archives of souls.
O if only a charred dough-corpse were in my hand
and the song-sweet voice of Bruce in my ears
I might fight my fear. 

George Maude