So What

The Velvet Underground - Im Gonna Move Right In

NUKED NOURISHMENT

 

I sink my breakfast dishes

and nuke my Sunday lunch.

I'm trying to find depth in

my poem's, to bring them

alive and break free of my

syndrome.  I've watched T.V.

browsed social networks

and read books waiting for

inspiration to jump of the page.

 

But as Wallace Stevens said

' the theory of poetry is the

theory of life'.  Tucking in-

to my nuked lunch knowing

that life is in the ordinariness,

and the magic of space

and time isn’t in a spectacular

landscape sweeping down

to a stunning sea.  Time is

in this nuked nourishment

and space is inside me.

 

 DROP JAW-LENSKY

                       GLOWING EDGES

 

Jamal Khashoggi's body parts 

'found in well’ ( Spiritus Mundi )

 

 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned.

 

They’re all at it, crimes against humanity. Put-in

Bid-en and Bo-Jo and all the O- ant crew anagram

They crawl our skin and turn into one million of them.

In-sects, we live in a world where you can’t trust no-one.

This is the Last resting place of Jamal Khashoggi, well.

 

Barbecued like a cut of meat roasted in the well.

Can you stomach this, all for the few bob in your sky-

Rocket taking you to the outer reaches of humanity.

 

Boys with tea towels on their heads red and white

Mopping up the blood. I watched it and couldn’t believe

a human being could stoop this low. A man who hails religion,

if I atheist was there my head would be chopped off.

 

His last words were ‘I love you Hatise, you are a true

in-tell-ectual journalist. ‘I thought Jamal would do something

good for humanity’, instead he was butchered cleaved up.

Trump said I’m concerned, I don’t like hearing about it, it

Will sort itself out, I do not like it and he walked away.

 

 We are in uncharted territory on the tipping point

Humanity swept under the Persian rug a tapestry of terrible-

Beauty is here. All that’s left is a black stained fingerprint

The killers are tea cozied deep in the tea towel brigade.

 

We are hacked in a hacked world, once Pegasus gets in

To your phone its game over, hasn’t a look in, or has it?

A bag was put over his head bone saw meat, barbeque.

 

Trump, ‘will anyone ever know’, sh-ite dissidents?

Put the tea cozy on, Hatise, broken but proud,

‘the truth always wins’, hope.

                                                              THE RESIDENT 

ISSUE 1.                                                                                                    APRIL 2022

POETRY LIKE SUNSHINE IS FREE

                                            IMAGE BY MARION CLARKE

Nonchalant, no-

Men-clature, uk-rain

Streets have no name.

ROSS WILSON FOTO

SUSAN FARRELL

AMOS GREIG

Hello friends. I had some great news yesterday. My collection QUICKSILVER has been accepted for publication by Lapwing, an independent press in Belfast. I completed the collection two years ago, then shelved it due to faltering confidence and various domestic crises which I won’t go on about here.

I’m hugely delighted by this news, and want to thank Peter Pegnall for reading Quicksilver and supportively putting me in touch with Dennis Greig at Lapwing. Dennis is a courageous publisher who is struggling with cancer. He has been magnificent in his immediate acceptance of the book, as well as the speed with which he has *already* begun work on its publication.

I’ll keep you posted on progress, and post a cover image when that emerges. I love Lapwing’s logo — such a cheery, purposeful, spirited bird.

FOXY WAS ERE