Issue 3 – April 2012 – Poetry & Art – ISSN 2048-0709 Featuring the poet David King & artist Beatriz Ledesma
Issue No.3 – April 2012
Publisher IMPpress, Downstream, 55 Broadtown, Wiltshire, England, SN4 7RG • • • • • • • •
website Editor Guest Poet-editor Proofing Guest Artist-editor R&D + Design Delivery Printer
www.IMPpress.co.uk John Richardson David King Friends Beatriz Ledesma the editor Issuu Magcloud
Acknowledgements The Editor gratefully acknowledges the help, support and encouragement of his BlueGate Poets friends and to the editor of the now defunct Ouroborus review which proved an inspiration for this e-zine.
Donations Your gifts of ones, tens or hundreds, in whatever currency, would be wonderful!
Subscriptions There are no paid subscriptions to the IMPress, it is a free online e-zine available from the website. You are also able to download the free digital distribution copy for off-line reading. If you require a printed copy this may be obtained for a small fee via our printers, direct from their website.
Pamphlets & books We also publish poetry pamphlets and books. Visit our website for further information.
Contributions Your poems and art are always welcome, via email, please see our website for submission details.
Cover art Awaiting the call
and featured artwork all courtesy of Beatriz Ledesma
Copyright © reserved to the editor, the contributing poets and artists.
Editorial Welcome to the third edition of the IMPpress. In this edition I am pleased to feature the work of: • David King, a poet from Salisbury and • Beatriz Ledesma the Chicago based artist Visit her website studio at www.ledesmastudio.com for more of her art. In the ekphrasis section of the e-zine David King’s and some of Jay Arr’s poems have been paired with Beatriz’s paintings. In keeping with the open editorial policy Beatriz and David participated in the selection of poems. For this issue I asked the poets to make recordings of their work; I hope this will become the norm for future issues. Regrettably Issuu is unable to publish an e-zine with multiple audio and video links, however you will find the recordings on the website. To indicate that a poem has a recording the contents list has an A or V beside the page number and an audio or YouTube symbol on the page itself. I’d encourage you to the download digital version of the issue and would very much appreciate your feedback via the comments page on our website. Enjoy! John Richardson Editor
the IMPpress
Contents Poet
Artist Beatriz Ledesma
Page 6 7 8V
Poem
& Artwork
Matthew Oates
35 V
Not quite there yet Some things never change this horse In between spaces songlines Breaking into symbols Baxter's crime Baxter diagnosis The tear On Rough Tor Photo3 In the wake of the parade Girl Lacuna Swan For Rose (The other Rose) Girl with hat Storm damage Oxford street The archivist Fisherman Honeysuckle, belladonna Katherine Mansfield Pity The company of curlews Curlews Time-riding I disappear (William) Line Breast Stroke Lost in the Uffizi York, New York New York an incident with a view at Williamsburg bridge 1982 1453 (after the Hagia Sophia – Istanbul) Snow Carcass Dis-assembly (repair for) instructions The Votive Tree The Votive Tree Walking blind
Henri Pearson David R Morgan
36 37 A
What is not their rightful name The Old Dream
Moira Andrew Jay Arr Beatriz Ledesma Jay Arr Beatriz Ledesma
9A
Helen Burke
10 A
Helen Burke
11 A 12
Sue Chadd
13 A
Amy Christmas Dee Levy Rachael Clyne Rozie Oates Rose Drew Helen Burke Claire Dyer Claire Dyer Claire Dyer Dawn Gorman Dawn Gorman Photo-Library Dawn Gorman Geraldine Green Photo-Library Kathryn Hewitt Kathryn Hewitt Andy Hopkins Wendy Klein Wendy Klein Robin Lewis Helen Burke JohnC Mahoney Steve Nash Steve Nash
14 A 15 16 A 17 A 18 A 19 A 20 A 21 A 22 23 24 25 A 26 V 27 V 28 29 30 31 32
Mo Needham Matthew Oates
34 V Rozie Oates
Contents 38 A
Jill Sharp Gina Dunford Adrian Spendlow Ana Maus Richard Thomas Richard Thomas Michael Watts Jane Wilcock
39 40 41 42 43 A
Grace Mutton
Leda plucks a swan Woman plucking a goose See all are equal See all are equal Harbour The Arctic Night terror Jack Frost's army Jack Frost
Featured David King
44
As a Vase would
45
Distant Heart
46
My Darjeeling
Beatriz Ledesma David King Beatriz Ledesma David King
Holding to trust Tunnel to the Moon
Beatriz Ledesma
48
Brief biographies Dee Levy Dee Levy
Reviewer
48 50
& Author
John Richardson Gill Norman
Two pots of tea with steam
Nicholson Baker Jo Carroll
Book 51 52
Foreign correspondent Tony Hillier
Flute Player Buddha
The Anthologist Over the Hill and Far Away
Report 53
Kenya – kidnapped by its kindness
6 Beatriz Ledesma – Not quite there yet
Moira Andrew
Some things never change When night takes hold my father taps me on the shoulder. His fingernails are short, disinfectant-clean – I’d recognise them anywhere, just from the smell. He looks at the new old me, puzzled – no, shocked – at what he sees, after all, he’s fully twenty years my junior and it’s no joke coming across this bus-pass daughter whose dead husband he’s never met. But he’s unchanged, neat RAF-type moustache, stone-blue eyes still deep and clear. Drink? I offer, Thought you’d never ask. I pour two fingers of Bells, top it up with water. He mooches around riffling through books, fingering things, clocks my emails spinning on to the screen. I google 265 Stonelaw Road, zoom in to the garden, mostly decking where Mum once had a washing line. Thought I’d seen it all when those fellows landed on the moon, he says. He opens the back door, shivers in a chill wind, downs the last of his drink. He gazes up at the night sky, every star reassuringly in place. He checks his watch, the very same watch that lives in the top drawer, minus a battery, stilled these many years. Must make a move – your mother will be wondering what’s keeping me. You know what she’s like. I do, still the boss – some things never change
7
Jay Arr
this horse legs like cocked shotguns muzzle like an expensive glove they say does not exist this sinew bone and blood possess another creature found of grace a distillate of speed some strange composite of light out from its gaze bursts full stride moves as though the world is still glows like liquid poured slows slows to stop to linger neck down nose down rub a head on my fence post strip my plums from branches when I come near looks up presents me a black marbled eye holds me still like the band poised mid riff for effect my own chest the drummer hangs mid beat mid thud this horse knows I don’t know if this horse is real or unreal but I do know unlike us inhabits an existence beyond the confines the contours of itself
8 Beatriz Ledesma – In between spaces
Jay Arr
songlines ! out in the night in the vast cobalt deep of the cosmos nothing but dark matter here in this space where I end and you begin is everything that matters in the dreamtime I become a dawn walker waiting for the stars to fade for the first painted streak to dry the sky for the light to make those matters of mist sleepwalk among the trees it’s then I sing land into being that dark surrenders night when heavy matter becomes light becomes matter that will matter !
Beatriz Ledesma – Breaking into Symbols 9
Helen Burke
Baxter’s Crime Baxter, the dog, is being dragged down the lane. Again. I feel sorry for Baxter, in fact, most days – I feel a bit like him. Pulled this way and that. Someone behind me with a lead that I can’t see. Baxter has no idea what his crime is. (Nor have I). Just that he is a dog who takes his time perhaps. He investigates. Sniffs too long in all the wrong places. I can never hear the words – just that she is shouting. Snapping and Snarling. I imagine the teeth are bared – the hackles grissly and raised. But Baxter I feel is undeterred. He will go on being Baxter. He will go on, going on. There is no cure for being free of mind and will. Baxter, my friend, my alter ego. Baxter – I love you. Go on – being, Baxter. (Run amok – remain a dog with pluck.) You bark at your side of the wall. And I will bark – at mine.
10
Helen Burke
Diagnosis I have been diagnosed with life. I have terminal Life. And round here that’s a ball-breaking offence. Round here there are cannibals waiting on every street corner. I try and look like them, as I pass On me way for the milk or 20 Regal – But they seem to sniff me out. Its what they’re good at. I try hiding this Life under a plain brown wrapper. It doesn’t work. The Light in my Head keeps turning On and staying On. They grab me – shake me by the wrists till I drop the Book I’ve borrowed from the Woman At The Big House. The one with real gravel, not nicked either. They use flick knives and cigarettes. They want to leave a scar. I use the Book to Beat them off, run like a maniac up the Street That gets longer and longer and longer with each heartbeat. Now, years later, walking up the Street (by chance and not design) I feel all my bones turn to ice at the corner. There is a scar after all. And I wonder – Was the Book worth it ?
11
Sue Chadd
On Rough Tor After the ascent of Little Ro Tor, we sit on soft dry turf, sheep-nibbled to the bone. Flecks of mica catch the sun. From here, the processional way carves itself through ancient fields, stone hut circles, granite slabs, like a path of giant cinders. Cirrus clouds fleck the blue with high altitude ice crystals: ravens wheel, croaking their hoarse song. We stare at a small pile of stones: a cairn for all climbers? Under my breath I mutter a prayer for my ankles and knees. Moving haphazardly towards the summit, we choose our own path around grey boulders piled up in stacks like bodies of butchered narwhals storm-washed on an ancient shore. We make for the logan rock, hands not resisting the urge to start it into motion. Resting again, against warm flank of whale, olive lichen rough against my hand, the only sounds: wind, bumble bees and buzzards. We gaze at the carnage below; a tumbled jumbled landscape of broken bodies, elephant seal, walrus, turtle, sinking into tawny sedge. Sun catches the edge of Dymond’s memorial, to the south all Cornwall glitters before us, a white haze rising, wraith-like from the coast.
12
Amy Christmas
In The Wake Of The Parade She found it hard to explain that she began life as a sketch, but when she walked off the page there were trails that came after. Trails like smoke, like the jets of ink through water that the octopus leaves. They followed her close, flowing behind her and caught up in her hair, and she tried covering her tracks by joining a parade. Safety in numbers, you'll find in a parade, but later she wouldn't recall the reason for their celebration, couldn't sketch out the route they took through the city. Flowing with bodies: the streets full of music and wine and trails of the barium wands that the children waved and twirled and wrote on the night with and chased after. The crowd moved in one body, with one beating heart and one singing voice, and after she abandoned the parade she could still feel the dull drum of their rhythm on hers, the pattern of chords like a musical sketch that found the places she was trailing and left trails of their own, knotting themselves into the tendrils where she was still flowing. Sewn-up and stitched-up against the trailing and flowing, this tourniquet of a girl changed direction again, and after making sure she was leaving no footprints to follow, no trails in the dirt that had been churned by the parade, began walking to the horizon with the memory of the sketch still firm in her mind. The sketch that had bound her to the artist that drew her, the pens that had made her and the page that contained her. And as she walked alongside the river that was flowing in the opposite direction to the way she was going, the sketch kept her moving and breathing and sane and soon after the lights and the noise of the parade had receded into silence without any trails, she forgot all her danger and her own set of trails. In the dark as she walked the tourniquet had come loose, the spell of the parade unraveling fast. And soon she was flowing, bleeding without knowing, and after she noticed it was already too late. Too late to escape from the sketch. In the wake of the parade laid the girl made from trails of ink from a sketch that she'd tried to escape. The dawn came up on her as she lay there flowing back into a book that was closed up on her after.
Dee Levy - Girl
13
Rachael Clyne
Lacuna The land appears and evaporates like short term memory. Across the Levels - silence. A mythic fog conjures itself briefly into the weighty body and outstretched neck of a single swan a regal barque sailing the floating world into a formless future.
14 Rozie Oates - Swan
Rose Drew
For Rose (The Other Rose) But when will it stop hurting she asks: always the first serious question not to involve flowers service urn versus box. Clear pure eyes so often paired with smooth calm brow but eyes now damp, hollow papery skin thin and dry despair gathers her brow to furrows. It’s a low tide I finally say, that wave by wave gently moves the shoreline back, until you look up and think: Ah. The tide. Or high tide: water that laps sudden cold across toes, arising imperceptibly as growing grass, as rising moon. Or, I add (analogies in full bloom) It’s that headache— the one that lasts for days. After a while you think, Oh. It’s gone. I wonder when it went away. Only the absence once complete, registers She knows, clever well-traveled woman, she knows But intellect isn’t heart reason does nothing for lonely rage measured plans will never kiss you passionately good night.
Helen Burke – Girl with hat
15
Claire Dyer
Storm damage ! ! This, this is the face I have salvaged from clay and heartbeats; it is weathered by wishes and sky. Today it is unexpectedly certain in the quiet left by the wild of the west winds which tried with their howls and heat to unhinge its bones, cast its skin to the seas. Now the clouds are woven, the air palpable. Now is birdsong, and I survey the wrecks left by trees and tides and lift this, this face I have sculpted from riddles, from fiction; lift it high to the sun.
16
Claire Dyer
Oxford Street 51°30′26″N!0°7′39″W!
! ! The screen flickers with solar-wind static. Outside is matter; dark, immense, soundless. She’s in the flood of others; random, similar, strangely familiar. I pick her from this height, the grain of her, follow the weave she makes in steps; the stop to stare at something on her right that must astonish, is bright and behind glass. She’s carrying what they call shopping but is wounded, grave. I know this in the finger I was given as I touch the speck of her. The screen flickers with solar-wind static, the echo of matter, the immense and soundless dark. I ready myself for travel, the bleed into her mind, the need to understand.
17
Claire Dyer
The archivist ! ! Over the apple pie and cream at Dad’s eightieth, my aunt whispered, You must, she said, write names on the back of photographs. I smiled at her, took a bite of pie; it crumbled confetti-crumble on my tongue. I knew everyone there; watched their faces dip and glide, heard their burble; thought about long lake-side afternoons, midges tambourining the air; thought about caravans and the plink of rain on canvas, chicken soup, the happiness of toast; about now and the silences that hang like treacle between us. And they fell onto my lap in a movement like muscle: the tableaux, the daguerreotypes – all that sepia and starch; the Kodak Instamatic 33 I had as a child – pictures of phantoms, people I barely remember. And now there are uploads, postings on Facebook, the digital re-mastering; I can archive, bequeath, file, but will never know who these people really are.
18
Dawn Gorman
Fisherman On the rocks, close to the sea, gazing out, day and night at the island, is a memorial cross. Here, a fisherman stood with his rod, a son, a brother, a father, out for a night’s innocuous pleasure, some time for him, some time to think, be calm, steady himself. Then the big wave, lost balance, pull on the rod, everything together, everything quickly, and the fall, sharp rocks soft skin the nowhere-to-catch-hold-of flash-of-the-past everything and nothing street light water moon water mother the sea inside the rush the push. The black. The bait box still on the rock.
19
Dawn Gorman
Honeysuckle, belladonna It is two years since I trimmed this length of hedge. I hold the cutter close to the old level, and watch a metre of spindly growth pause, then topple. When I cut it last I was thinking about Katherine Mansfield. I had not remembered that until now, but suddenly, standing in this precise spot, looking in the same direction, doing the same job, she is here, as though a hologram has been released from a freshly-cut stem. Katherine. And Floryan. That was it. Perfectly poised words in another language. Ich kann ohne Dich nicht leben… weil ich Dich liebe – und diese Liebe – das ist jetzt mein Leben.* That, and the poison in the well. This time, as I work my way along the hedge, my thoughts will be of you, your kisses and lies winding through the privet like honeysuckle, belladonna, time capsules to rediscover long after you’ve gone.
* “I cannot live without you, because I love you, and this love is now my life.” Words written to Katherine Mansfield by Floryan Sobieniowski, Polish critic and translator, from whom she may have contracted gonorrhea.
20
Dawn Gorman
Pity Small black hen, red comb, skids in the back of the battered yellow minibus; on the torn seats are three tourists, a large Tunisian woman with baby, her daughter, son, the driver. At the first stop, the boy, about five, is the one to hold the flapping bird by its legs in the dusty street. The panic in his hands is nothing beside the hard stare he uses to deftly bat back my pity through the smeared window.
21
Geraldine Green
The company of curlews Each day I enjoy, if work permits, the company of curlews, over wintering on the sands. Six white herons have landed among reeds off Bardsea beach where once I paddled, reedless, as a child, happy amongst mud and channels. Yesterday a large settlement of pintails hunkered in the swerve of rivered gulleys. My companion Roy, settles with me into the rhythm of Bardsea, home and tides.
22
Kathryn Hewitt
Time-riding Riding the hours again. Coasting from one to the next, re-fueling every half, much more than really needed. Over-spilling ashtray, each one a five minute filler, markers on a numberless clock. Endless peeks through curtained glass, veiling the blackness outside. Time waits not for me but me for it. Weary and flat, like the grey dawn that eventually comes.
23
Kathryn Hewitt
I Disappear Pour me over the rocks again. I'll seep down through the cracks and disappear, spread myself thinly amongst the grit and pool in tiny hollows to leave a hint of what was. My sediment will stay for a while, 'til the afternoon sun burns and I will fade away like an early morn' dream. Forgotten.
24
Andy Hopkins
(William)Line On this canal, on this protractor bend, we arc a line: Line’s life; birth; work; death. Line lived out of doors, between horizons: parallels parenthesise warm, sepia fields. You may think ‘Between this and this is a small life, he walked to work, he worked, he walked from work.’ But oak roots spell his name and larks sing it; his boot beat treads time with the season, still; he husbanded as well as he knew to know so his musk lingers as the tang of threshed corn. Question is (floating away on this hired barge and Line’s breadth spins on our bending left), is: is any space – the years, a sound, a name, or the hole they put him in - big enough to contain a man?
25
Wendy Klein
Breast Stroke The longer you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it gets. V. Nabokov
You are swimming farther out than before,
though my head is full of other watchings; the flailing of your arms a distant blur, the frisson that precedes your returnings. My feet braced hard against the scorch of sand I’d squint at your shape on the horizon; the arch of your back, sleek head, a wild hand; a rare aquatic mammal or Neptune. But now it is you who’s stuck on the shore watching me flail away from your sight-line -unlike Stevie’s swimmer, not waving or drowning. Adrift in the passage of time, you wait for verse and tide and do your best; knowing I will brush your hand from my breast.
26
Wendy Klein
Lost in the Uffizi All corridors the same, rooms leading to rooms where crucifixes line up against the walls, and I cannot find my way out despite advice I fail to understand from uniformed guards, freshly-starched in Italian. Mi sono perso, I cry; turn to run when the face of a crumpled Methuselah grins up at me from a wheelchair, inched forward by his wife or his nurse, who sighs, shuffles, moves on as she will, forever. Mi sono perso, I moan as hunger pokes its skinny fingers down my throat, brushes my uvula with its knuckles, squeezes the base of my tongue, makes me gag as Portia rears up, prepares to swallow burning coals to prove her fidelity, as Venus rises from her natal shell, eyes dreamy, unfocused, a little bored, but staying out of the way to let the Bible rush past, scene by troubled scene: The Nativity, The Temple, The Last Supper -- someone in the crowd always a little distant -- the preoccupation of the bystander -- the guides guide -- per favore, signor, signorina, mi sono perso. The tourists strive to keep up in too many tongues; Pollailolo’s virtues speak out for my ears only. Temperance instructs me in the art of moderation, but admits she favours abstinence, while Charity complains of meanness. Faith whispers words too quiet to hear, frowns at Fortitude who cradles a weapon, braced to kill or chastise. In panic I pass the singing donkey again; a cow who smiles; another Infant grinning precociously; the portrait by Perugino, of a youth with eyes of liquid charcoal that follow me; his too-red mouth demanding kisses. I long to be ambling through cobbled alleyways, buttressed between Gothic towers – unseasonal rain and thunder beating down around my head – mi sono perso, veramente perso; if I knew how to pray, I think I would.
27
Robin Lewis
York, New York I took one picture of my friend when we went to New York. She is on a boat and we are heading over to Liberty Island, and it is a sunny day and in the background you can see two towers standing tall and she is smiling.
28 Helen Burke - New York
John C Mahoney
an incident with a view of the Williamsburg Bridge, 1982 i. your drunken goodbyes hang so sweet in the air filling the space with a desperate needy embrace ii. i stand before you with no defenses and nothing i could possibly say except what do i know about love iii. i walk you out into the East Village night to see about hailing a cab sun peeking over the bridge iv. everything seems to be coming apart i wonder when i surrendered to you what do i know about pain v. i wave goodbye to the back of your head and turn back to look at a pink, foamy sunrise
29
Steve Nash
1453 (after the Hagia Sophia – Istanbul) All that’s surface isn’t marble. There, giddy with history, we swept footprints of dust over the stone. Step after step to the adhan. The sonorous moans soundtracked the changed constellation. Gold gilt. Pearl domes. Of the gunman our news said nothing. We watched under the eye of the Sophia, as if for a deer to startle from cover, while a seagull-squall betrayed the Bosphorus behind us.
30
Steve Nash
Snow Today the streets are blank pages as though the storyteller misplaced both the inkwell and the tale. The path leading down from the house has faded, fallen from its bones below a threshold of deafness. The silver, winter chains of light sketch vague outlines of what hides, unable to speak, beneath. The day shrinks to something small and sinister. You begin to despair through the unreadable fog at your feet. And then you see the first December footprints glittering like a narrative in the snow.
31
Mo Needham
Carcass Dis-Assembly (repair for) Instructions 說 You need will: the provided special tool, a small, Phillips bladed screwdriver, a light hammer or plastic mullet and a clean clothe. Recommended it is that you use two people when weight lifting heavy. --------------------------------------------------------------------
32
Step 1: Removal the eight, outer, head-crossed screws (the cover should stay in place if horizontal kept) Step 2: Gently tap around the edges the cover of. USE TAPS SOFT! Excessive impact will cause damages! Fluid should seep to start from the hedges of the cover, this is normality as the seal begins to parting. Wipe up the fluid in excess using clean clothe; the fluid should be read in color. Step 3: Gently prising of the cover away from the carcass. Easiest it is usually starting lower at the end, near of the originate connector depression. Step 4: Removal the cover fully and carefully aside it set. Step 5: You are need to separating the restrain ribs, these that cover and protect of the pump. With the connector depression on it’s bottom when above looking, the pump is now that the on right, beneath restrain ribs one to four number. Strong grip using gradually pull of the restrain ribs apart. YOU SHOULD NOW BE PUMP ABLE TO SEE THE. Step 6: Check working if pump is still. Whilst believe you is broken does not mean stopped has, or that cannot be again mended. Step 7: Look closely for the phrases have that braking caused, they should be recognise easy, typically: 'I'm leaving you', 'I not love in you any more' and 'I am affair having in somewhere from work'.
Mo Needham
Step 8: Using the provided special tool remove attempt damaging phrases, but NOTED: you may have to pipes remove some of to gain full most access. Step 9: In order of reverse reassemble. Step 10: Your carcass need will booting fresh, for use loving phrases, FOR EXAMPLEs: 'You beautiful are ', 'Sorry I am ' and 'Love I you'. Step 11: If, you are completing Steps 1 to 10, pump is broken still, contact our Costumer Services Deportment. In the event the carcass fixed cannot be, DISPOSE PLEASE OF CAREFULLY.
You loved me once upon a time you loved me. Now you have lost that love but I have lost, not just your love. I have lost you
33
Matthew Oates
The Votive Tree Post-consumer waste hangs from a naked tree, Cornered within a station forecourt yard In Swindon, where wintered shadows lie, And plastic bags are carried on the breeze, Escaped from Iceland stores, or Somerfield, To eddy aimlessly inside whirling time, Till caught on branches, twigs and sprays, To be recycled here, as mindlessness, In Swindon, where lifeless waste hangs stupefied, As people scurry by, upon the same-self wind, Inside the time of air-born plastic bags, Spiritually removed from lives they somehow live, To flotsam-drift in station forecourt space, Till crucified upon some hapless Judas tree.
34
Votive Tree - Rozie Oates
Matthew Oates
Walking Blind The forest closes round me. Lost, in a deepening world of shadows, Where dark meets dark And reels its way to darkness, Black-green, blue-black on black – July trees, fused on midnight sky, In tones at one within the hour. A glow-worm dimly lights a way, And ghosting moths, so vague, Turn deftly into firefly hosts To light a lightless world. Then lighten our darkness. And dissipate these shadows, That we may walk the unseen path That leads into the dawn.
35
Henri Pearson
What Is Not Their Rightful Name Those monumental megaliths in ancient times that have the ritual meaning of jack all, while the lazy orthostats, lying on their sides for once, protect the chambered tombs of the living. A tribe on an unknown island, in a murky corner of the south pacific, in which brother is the word for enemy, and you fight him when you come of age, sister is the name for lover and you have her when the time is right, and then mother means absolutely nothing. Father being a mild acquaintance. There’s credit in knowing that the name I gave my poem was Excellent, and the name you gave it was Terrible. I called the mountain a mountain; when I asked a native what it was he called it god.
36
David R Morgan
The Old Dream Stars mingled with smoke, smell of burning meat. Dogs barking, saliva silvering the sky, children crying in the night. Whenever I walk out I see you there. Doing what? I say. Doing what? The hill stands above you like an older brother. Moonrise. And still I have not finished with you. The sky is flooded with moonlight. And still we have not spoken our last words.
37
Jill Sharp
Leda plucks a swan Old now, the body that enchanted him grown coarse, how could he know her? Yet she knows him, this creature, even with fallen wings, eyes empty of desire. Not hers. She’s spent a lifetime finding what he stole from her, doing it like he did, without her chance to touch him, or raise her eyes to his. That’s why, holding him in her lap, she takes her hand to him and in a storm of whiteness scatters his power of flight.
38 Gina Dunford - Woman plucking a goose
Adrian Spendlow
Ana Maus
39
Richard Thomas
Harbour The drizzle tickles our fresh faces, the walkway wobbles at a sudden jump, and as the boats tip side-on to sea, I make a finger full of oil leaving slimy steps fingerprinted and chase you like the foam of waves chase the night, soft and sleek, bubbles to the sky, and in this moment the rain that comes upon our faces like cold drool and old slobber goes unnoticed as our counterparts trace and align one another's, and I think that like these boats that would like to find the water everyday, I'd like to find your rising light that makes my face glow
in every rain.
40
Richard Thomas
The Arctic Our boat sits politely in the stillness Of an Arctic afternoon. The netting In a tattered mound, is lined with a new frost, Crystallised by our crisp and skeletal Backdrop. We bludgeoning men feel bare, stripped Of the hefty coats that had us pinned down In maritime killing: weak silver flusters Struggling for a breath, our bullish way Of pounding them. But today’s easy, With empty minds and a glacial scope, mountains Whose peaks are lost in a cooling mist Blanketing the sky with alabaster Arctic, icy and angelic, flowing, White; a baby drawing thin, tender
Breaths in her fresh, uncreased christening gown.
41
Michael Watts
Night terror The Toms around here carry on like Drunken gangs, upsetting bin lids And bottles, fighting over females And fish heads, I am shaken by their madness As they weave, hissing and spraying Amongst the shadows. The moon brings out the worst in them: When bulbs are cooling And toilets suck away A final piss I listen, as they scream Like burning witches. Unsettled, I step into my slippers And stand at the window. There is nothing, Only rows of unlit terraces And alleyways and dull cars And the throat-slashing sense Of something shocking About to happen, As I crawl back into bed And wait.
42
Jane Wilcock
Jack Frost’s Army They come from the Himalayas, From the Russian Steppes, The Norwegian pine forests ……. running, running, running. Faster than sound, Colder than glass, Harder than rock, Over the pond Onto the steps, Up to the windows, To bush, twig and grass. The garden quivers, Clamps the bud to bark, The insect to leaf ….. leaf glues tight to leaf, to leaf, to grief. Ponds pull their icy shutters over, Send the newts and fish To the depths …. they’re here! Frost strikes: sucks the life From shoot and root, Spears the branch With crystal daggers. Runs amok with pointed feet And sharp white arrows, Like Atilla the Hun …… they smother, colour, cover. The morning curtains swish, And kids warm noses Steam the windows. The brown and black of winter Now silver and grey ..…. daggers in the day. Outside, the grass is brittle as toast, The seed heads frozen. The starving bird pierced through songless chest. Silent, they wait to ambush your fingers, Slip icy sheets from under your feet. Pull tears from your eyes.... icy cries under frosty skies. Only in sun Will they slip, slip, slip, Drip away. Watch Out! Jack Frost’s army’s about!
Grace Mutton – Jack Frost
43
Featured poet – David King
As a vase would I will hold you as a vase would that stood on one point to balance flowers in trust until their life was gone. I will guard you as a wolf might stand sentry against moon hunters for its young. And I will comfort you as snow does soften all it coats with hushed brilliance, smoothing even dark hills with white grace.
44 Featured artist – Beatriz Ledesma
Featured poet – David King
Distant heart When I first saw you, all the gravity around me fell away, the space above my head became a tunnel to the moon and in my distant heart, a Parisian fire engine at full panic. Then of course there was the riddle of your smile. Did a mouse run across your lips? Or else perhaps you looked at me and recalled the punch line from an old joke.
Featured artist – Beatriz Ledesma
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Featured poet – David King
My Darjeeling Every time I brew a pot of tea, I think of you, your leaves swirling in my boiling water, with the promise of uplifting calm that only tea can bring. When I put you to my lips, your heat streams into me, scalds, quenches, all at once. And when I come to throw the leaves away, I think of all the steam we’ll share another day.
46 Featured artist – Beatriz Ledesma
Brief biographies Moira Andrew, born and educated in Scotland. Ex-part-time university tutor in Creative Writing at the University of Glamorgan. Author of books for primary teachers and a children's poet. Four poetry collections for adults, the most recent 'Firebird' from IDP. Her website is: www.moiraandrew.com
Jay Arr
is a founder member of Swindon’s BlueGate Poets. He has given readings, workshops and managed poetry cafes for several years. IMPpress has published one collection and two pamphlets of his poetry. His alter ego, John Richardson designs websites and has just published the third edition of a becoming-well-regarded e-zine.
Helen Burke has been writing poetry for 35 years; she now also writes plays, short stories, comedy sketches and does painting and visual art. Her work has been widely published and anthologised and she has won a number of competitions such as the Manchester International , the Norwich , the Suffolk , the Yorkshire prize, the Southport Comedy, the Devon and Dorset and many others. Her new collection launched this year “The Ruby Slippers” is available on Amazon and Kindle and her second collection “And God Said Let There be Chocolate “ is just out – available from Helen.
Sue Chadd is a poet, creative writing tutor and storyteller who is committed to working in Wiltshire's Library Service. She enjoys going out and about with her camera, studying the landscape and it's flora and fauna.
Amy Christmas is studying for her PhD in Literature at York St John University, where she also teaches creative writing as part of the Converge programme. Her work has been published in Aesthetica, The Cadaverine, and an anthology of new surrealist fiction in the US (Raw Dog Screaming Press). She hates Beluga whales. Her website is: http://sleepwalkingincircles.blogspot.com
Rachael Clyne
lives in Glastonbury, where she works as a psychotherapist. She has written and performed poetry for many years, having been a professional actor in her youth. Her poetry collection; She Who Walks With Stones and Sings (PSAvalon) is available on Amazon. York poet Rose Drew has been named No. nine in the Top Twenty Best Individual Collections of 2011 with her book Temporary Safety. Rose, who is widely published and who has won a number of awards for her work including the 2010 Malton Poetry Competition, is in demand for readings throughout England and North America. Her material is drawn from Motherhood, politics, death and above all, life, and she also draws from her experience as a Physical Anthropologist. Rose can be seen on TV looking into the lives of historical characters such as the Mary Rose Sailors, Amy Robarts, Captain Kidd and Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. See her website: http://www.yorkspokenword.org.uk/html/your_hosts.html
Gina Dunford says, “I have always been in awe of the natural world, fascinated by colour, mesmerised by stories and inspired by art. These elements have unavoidably led me to where I am now. I love the printing process and the layering of colours and images. Spontaneity, mark making, and looseness of line are my trademarks. My printing inks are water based, so dry quickly, forcing me to work in a loose and gestural style. I also love my antique gourd-engraving tool, given to me as a gift by one of my Peruvian teachers.”
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Brief biographies
Claire Dyer writes poetry and fiction and works part-time for an HR research forum in London. She is widely published and, as a Brickwork Poet, has performed conversations in poetry on set themes at venues around the UK. She has an MA in Victorian Literature & Culture from the university of Reading. Her website is: www.clairedyeronlyconnect.co.uk
Dawn Gorman is a journalist and poet. Her first poetry collection, Looking For Gods, was published shortly after she completed her MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Her work most recently appeared in the ecospiritual anthology Soul of the Earth. She co-runs Words & Ears, a monthly open mic poetry event in Bradford on Avon. Her website is: www.dawngorman.co.uk
Geraldine Green’s poetry draws upon her experience of growing up in an Irish Catholic, working class family in the North west of England and the tensions that created of placement/displacement. She also writes in response to her frequent travels to North America where she regularly performs her poetry. She’s a Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing, Cumbria University, is a Freelance Creative Writing tutor and mentor, Adult Education tutor, organises poetry readings, is an Associate Editor of the online magazine Poetry Bay.
Kathryn Hewitt has been writing for around 3 years as a way of helping her deal with personal issues. She has found this to be a very cathartic experience and has continued to write ever since. Kathryn finds inspiration from personal experience and draws a great deal from her observations of the natural world and surroundings. Her website is:
http://www.writeoutloud.net/profiles/kathhewitt
Andy Hopkins lives and works in Cumbria, England. His first chapbook, Dark Horse Pictures, was published by Selkirk Lapwing Press in 2007; it was republished as a free e-book in 2010 by Philistine Press, who have also published a second chapbook: It Will Always Be. Like This: which can be downloaded or read online at http://www.philistinepress.com/it_will_always_be_54.html.
David King lives in Salisbury and began to write poetry 6 years ago while studying creative writing at Winchester University. He has been most influenced by Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes and Billy Collins. He reads at Salisbury Poetry Cafe where he aims to offer work that is accessible but intriguing.
48 Dee Levy – Flute Player
Brief biographies Born in the U.S.A, Wendy Klein came to Britain in 1971. A retired psychotherapist, her work is published in many magazines and anthologies. Her first collection, Cuba in the Blood was published by Cinnamon Press in 2009, a second collection is promised from Cinnamon in early 2013. Her website is: www.wendyklein.co.uk
Beatriz E Ledesma is a Message Symbolist painter, educator, & psychotherapist and was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has been exiled in USA since 1981 making Chicago her home base in 1982. Beatriz is interested in the manifestation of the unconscious upon the creative process using its symbolic, spiritual and surreal language as a point of departure. Her web site is: www.ledesmastudio.com
Dee Levy has had a lot of fun making art with many community projects in the UK and Ireland. While travelling through India during the nineties she resolved to study art and made this a reality in the 2011 graduating with a BA(hons) in Fine Art from Bath University. As a student she exhibited locally and at Greenham Arts, Newbury. Her work is currently on exhibition at The Post Modern Gallery and No9 Gallery, Theatre Square, Swindon.
Robin Lewis Robin Lewis is a writer and poet from York and has worked in the media, in newspapers, radio, and (very briefly) television. After a bad car accident, he has become a recovering poet, and has been published in the magazines Aesthetica and Inclement and selfpublished with an anthology called A Convenient Place To Start. Robin enjoys working on his blog – (convenientplacetostart.blogspot.com). He also plays cricket and football whenever he can, and has the misfortune to follow Tottenham Hotspur. Since being diagnosed with scleroderma, John Mahoney has given up his criminal trial practice as a public defender. His are poems have been written over a long winter of pain. Ana Dinsdale, aka Ana Maus, is studying for a foundation art degree; University of Hull. She is a children's illustrator and exhibits at Artlink, Hull with completed Jake Attree master-classes, experienced in print-making, batik, watercolor. She says, “I am passionate about the arts and enjoy a wonderful collaboration with Adrian Spendlow.” Commissions: maushaus3@hotmail.com
David R. Morgan teaches 11-19 year olds in Luton, and lives in Bedfordshire . David has been an arts worker and literature officer, organizer of book festivals and writer-inresidence for education authorities, Littlehay Prison and Fairfield Psychiatric Hospital (which was the subject of a Channel 4 film, Out of Our Minds). He has had two plays screened on ITV and over 200 hundred poems published in national and international poetry magazines
Steve Nash is based in York and is the current poetry editor of Open Wide Magazine and Indigo Rising UK. He has been anthologised by Stairwell Books, and Carillon amongst others, and is also featured in the Grist Anthology of the best poetry of 2012.
Mo Needham
started his poetry studies in Swindon at the Bluegate plant in 2010. He was a successful engineer but will always be Apprentice Poet (No 3). All his stories and poems, warts and all, are published on his website www.Original-Short-Stories.co.uk, it is called The Adventures of a Strange Mind, he thinks that says it all.
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Brief biographies Matthew Oates a naturalist and ecologist with the National Trust, covering inter alia the aesthetic and poetic approaches to Nature. An author and broadcaster, he is a recognised authority on butterflies. Poetry is calling him Home. Euphrosyne ‘Rozie’ Oates is an aspiring photographic artist and illustrator from Cirencester, Gloucestershire, who recently achieved very high grades in Art and Photography A levels. See www.flickr.com/photos/69310539@N02/sets/
Henri Pearson is a student studying Archaeology at Newcastle University, who has been writing poems for around two years. He has had a poem published on the online publication 'Snakeskin' and been mention in writer's forum magazine. His ambition is to become a writer.
Jill Sharp works as an associate lecturer with the Open University – the best work in the world, teaching adults who are returning to study, and eager to learn. She also enjoys running a local life writing group. Jill is a member of Swindon’s BlueGate Poets.
Adrian Spendlow
is a writer, poet and storyteller. He often writes in collaboration, whether it be, with children, in galleries or on stage at a Viking Rock Festival. He says that, “Working with the art of Ana Maus is a joy: a continuing dialogue, which is impossible to predict as new directions constantly inspire.” His website is: http://www.adrianspendlow.co.uk
Richard Thomas, poet, editor of Symmetry Pebbles, holds a diploma in Creative Writing, studying for a degree in English Literature and Language, poetry forthcoming/published in Orbis, Fire, Weyfarers, Neon Highway, The Coffeehouse, Notes from the Gean, Carousel SW, The Oddrot, Reflections, Venus in Scorpio and more. His website is: www.richardchristopherthomas.co.uk Mike Watts as born in an area of Kingston-Upon-Hull better known for its ‘downs’ than its ‘ups’, which hasn’t stopped him from becoming one of the leading, and most admired writers in the land once ruled by the great British poet, Philip Larkin. Delivering lines observed through an eye which is notably humane, Witty and sharp. He is also the co-founder and cohost of ‘Write to Speak’, which is Yorkshire’s only Theatre based spoken word/poetry event. His first anthology – Coming to a street near you has just been released by Night Publishing.
Jane Wilcock
is based in the Northwest, Much of her poetry is about nature. She is the author of a poetry performance show for children which has been performed at the Edinburgh Fringe. Jane has published and exhibited occasional poems and is a script writer with a penchant for old people and comedy!
50 Dee Levy - Buddha
Book reviews Details • • • • • •
Paperback: 308 pages Publisher: Pocket Books (5 Aug 2010) Language English ISBN-10: 1847397824 ISBN-13: 978-1847397829 Product Dimensions: 13 x 2.3 x 19.5 cm
Review by John Richardson It’s not often that I re-read a novel; maybe once a year and always after a gap of a decade or so. I regularly re-read poetry books because for me it’s not unusual for poems to change and keep on changing with each reading. So when I tell you that I’m about to re-read the novel, The Anthologist by Nicolson Baker, having just finished a first reading and fully expect my re-reading of it to change, you’ll begin to appreciate that it’s not your run of the mill novel. Novel it is in both senses of the word because when I tell you it’s: • • • • • • •
a love story, a poetry book about poetry, with music (actual notated music), a diary, an extended gossip column about the America’s great, good and not so good poets of the twentieth century, an instructional text on the craft of poetry and a polemic on a new interpretation of iambic pentameter
you’ll begin understand why I assert that run of the mill it isn’t. Nicholson Baker is the author of several ‘unusual’ novels. I had previously read his Vox. His work is not without recognition. Double Fold won the 2002 National Book Critics award, and Human Smoke was a New York Times and Los Angels Times best seller. All of which should tell you that he is an American and not unexpectedly The Anthologist is almost exclusively devoted to American poets and poetry. The book is an enjoyable read, easily passing my first test of a good novel. It’s well written, so gets another tick. It’s also entertaining, informative, funny, lucid, argumentative, thought provoking, revealing and unusual; so gains a much higher than average star rating. The list of poets informed on and gossiped about is very long. And as far as I can check, and I checked several, the facts and gossip(!) are all correct. The hero and narrator is having a hard time writing the introduction to a new anthology because his career is floundering, his girlfriend has recently left him and he is preoccupied with great poets who have suffered worse than he has. He’d like to reveal the mysteries of meter and rhyme to his readers but he’s not sure he’s the man for the job. What unfolds is a wholly entertaining and beguiling love story about people and poetry. When you buy it here and (re)read it, look out for the mouse. I’m tempted to tell you what happens to him … but I won’t.
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Book reviews Details ISBN Copyright Edition Publisher Published Language Pages Binding Interior Ink Weight Dimensions Availability
9781471069420 Jo Carroll (Standard) First Jo Carroll 26 January 2012 English 239 Perfect-bound Paperback Black & white 0.42 kg (cm) 14.81 w x 20.98 h paperback Amazon & Lulu e-book Kindle
There must be something between the retirement party and buying a zimmer frame. Jo Carroll decided this was the time to revive her teenage dreams and go round the world. So she packed her rucksack, a round-the-world ticket, and a notebook. Not prepared, then, for being marooned on a beach in Australia with the tide rising and nothing but cliffs behind her; nor negotiating with a gunman who wanted to marry her in Lucknow. Let’s not think about the snakes and leeches in the jungles of Malaysia. But could anything have prepared her for the drama that brought her home? Nor the kindness of strangers who kept her safe at that moment when she was least able to do it for herself.
REVIEW by Gill Norman Jo Carroll writes as a determined, gutsy and compassionate woman who decided to seize the day and take herself travelling the world alone after years working with damaged children. She leaves the safety of Wiltshire UK and discovers places are far apart as Christchurch New Zealand, Pondicherry and Malaka and many points in between. Many baby boomers are travelling but few have Jo's humour, determination and insight coupled with an amazing ability to write her experiences and take you there! This vivid and exciting book is a page turner right to the end when "stuff happens" and she has to face her own and other peoples limitations. A great read full of quirky observations, characters and experiences which may even inspire the more faint hearted of us on our own travels
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Kenya – kidnapped by its kindness Retired Swindon Community Worker, Poet, and IMPpress foreign correspondent, Tony Hillier, writes from Kenya, enthusing about how a holiday in Kenya is both safe and enjoyable. This is my fourth visit to Kenya in the last year. I am sitting in a secure and spacious rented holiday flat on the Indian Ocean near Mombasa. The nightwatchman (askari), on duty all night, has just gone home. Made myself a cup of tea with highly drinkable milk and packed away the comfort of, and exotic nature of, my mosquito net. If I didn’t want to experience different cultures, (same beautiful, fallible human beings), then I would have stayed in Swindon. The recent killing and kidnapping of British tourists and other aid workers, is devastating for those directly involved. My visit, as the British Government advises, keeps me hundreds of miles away from the Somalian border. It is as simple as that. Sadly, people are murdered in Swindon each year. The Indian Ocean in Kenya is an outstanding holiday destination. The people are extremely friendly and the climate and scenery just right for a relaxing and stimulating holiday. The choice is yours. You can stay in the indulgence of the tourist hotels with their swimming pools, entertainment, mountains of food and access to clean exotic beaches. You can ‘play’ all day and all night or snooze, read or natter to fellow holiday makers or the Kenyan staff. You are spoilt for choice. I have tasted that life and it suits a purpose. On most of my visits I have enjoyed mixing with local people in a nearby small town Mtwapa. My flat is on a moderately busy thoroughfare – indeed as I write I can hear the clack and clang of the wheel-attached metal plates that signal that another hand-pulled water cart is passing by. That familiar sound is one of the signature tunes of Mtwapa. Others would include : the chunter of the motorbike taxis (piki-piki), the call of the mini-bus conductor “Bamburi. Bamburi. Bamburi”, the “Jambo!” smiling greeting of shopkeepers, bar staff and passers by. A local hotel with fan, fridge, mosquito net, pool and security will set you back between £8-£12 a night plus food (say £5 a day to eat well). This flat costs £80 a month all in (food on top). Return flights to Mombasa, depending upon the season, are around £450. All in all, a snip, for such an enthralling change from Swindon. Yesterday, I shopped in the local, kiosk-cupboard shops in the lane. Tomatoes, onions, rice, cooking oil, stock cubes and dania (green herb leaf). It was a joy and a piece of cake. For the equivalent of about £3 (300 Kenyan shillings) I had enough and to spare. These ingredients made a meal the mixed beans bought yesterday for 75 pence. Sorted on the food front. The day before, I had eaten in a Mombasa restaurant for 110 Kenyan shillings (I have the receipt in front of me as I write). One Matala 80 and one cup of tea 30. Fresh, tasty, filling and nutritious. What more could anyone want. It was a pudding of mashed potatoes mixed with peas, tasty spinach (skumawiki) and a light herby sauce. Umm.
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Oh. I forgot to say. When shopping in the lane yesterday, I needed to walk a few hundred metres to another shop. I asked if I might leave my shopping behind the counter to collect on my return.” Of course, Mzungu (term for a white person), of course, no trouble”.
I can spend all day laughing and joking or talking politics or idle chatter with local Kenyan residents who are out on the sunny street: their life stories are humbling. I can play pool in any of the numerous bars or dance the night away until the earliest of hours. Mtwapa is known as ‘the city that never sleeps’. Of course, as a ‘rich’ tourist, if one is careless and not use money belts and continually flail around with cameras and iPhones, then, you might have them stolen. It is common sense. The same does happen in Swindon. Drinks in nightclubs need watching and one has to decide how to respond to advances from sex workers. The same applies in Swindon – use common sense according to location and time of day. To me, it is very stimulating to experience daily life in this fascinating country. There are key social and political issues that need addressing – as there are in the U.K. e.g. a living wage, fair working conditions, education for change not compliance, effective democratic government – but that is another story. I invite you to come to Kenya now. You will have the holiday of a lifetime that you will be set to repeat many times as you fall under Kenya’s spell. Yes. I have been kidnapped in Kenya – kidnapped by its kindness. 18 October 2011
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