Robert Garnham

My Notebook has Finally Run Out of Pages

Since I started ‘performing’ poetry up and around and all over the place, I’ve used the same notebook. It has become a major part of my stage persona because it is the one thing that remains the same whenever I get behind a microphone. And as such, it has become an integral part of my image, and been prodded and cooed over by a wide variety of people from all over the country. Vanessa Kisuule got all unnecessary over it during an Apples and Snakes event in Exeter. Jack Dean held it, almost lovingly, while we shared a drink at a bar in Edinburgh. Other people have held it, stroked it, and even taken photos of it. Indeed, the damn thing has become more well-known and adored than its owner could ever be.

It started life as a weather diary, but I only bought it because I liked the fabric cover and the fact that I could glue poems on to the page. They seemed to stick really well, no matter what kind of glue stick I used. Oh, the hours I would spend cutting out poems and glueing them in! I stuck a label on the front with just the one word – ‘Poems’ – just in case I forgot which notebook they were in. As I advanced through my poetry career, this label became a source of amusement. Of course it’s got poems

The book is filled with corrections and amendments. When a poem was no longer seen as worthy enough to be performed, it would be carefully removed and a new poem placed on the page. Some of the pages were torn because of this. When I took part in a slam in Berlin, I had to write my name in phonetic letters ‘ GARNUM’ written in big letters on the inside cover. Then I had to make the poem German-friendly by removing elements that only English people would know about. Top Gear. Nick Clegg. That sort of thing.

There were stage directions, too, from various performances and productions. Scribbles, question marks and hasty revisions. The Swindon poem was mostly written during the interval while I waited to appear in the final of the Swindon Poetry Slam. (I lost to Tina Sederholm). There’s a funny smell to the cover, having put the book down in a closed shop doorway while doing outside street poetry. And it’s been battered by five years of travel up and down the country to various venues.

And then one day, a stern warning from a fellow performer at an event in Barnstaple. ‘Are there copies of the poems in there?’ ‘No’. ‘Then do you realise that if you lost that book, your career is doomed?’ Touchingly, he added, ‘I’m very worried about this happening’.

Saskia Tomlinson bought some pink zebra print gaffer tape for me and I covered some of the cover with it.

So yes, the book has become an integral part of me. But now it is full up!

I went out searching for a new book the other day and I found one. It’s smaller and more durable but it just isn’t the same. Nevertheless, I have already stuck some new poems in there, and it seems redolent with the promise of a new year, a new me.

The book will continued. It has a buddy now. Someone to share the workload.

To celebrate this fact, here’s one or two of these new poems.

Poem

Prevarication at the counter.

Putting it off and prevarication.

Damn its cold so cold and in here there are

Lazily thrown cushions

In the coffee shop where I now am

When I could have gone into work an hour early.

It’s the coffee shop with the quote on the wall

From jack Kerouac

In the coffee shop where I now am

In the coffee shop where I am now.

Talk about the weather.

Talk about the cold.

Talk about attempts at fashion with scarves

For it’s probably the first truly cold day and

Scarves are still a novelty

In the coffee shop where I now am.

Slyly slyly slyly

They take serviettes from the dispenser

On noses which drip drip drip

And people cough like it’s a

Doctor’s waiting room

Which come to think of it

Could easily be the case as

The Doctor’s is just around the corner

Poem

I put my hopes and dreams

In the washing machine.

Whizzing round on the prewash spin,

A life of lost causes trundling within.

Contentment, opportunity, chance,

Caught in an endless dance.

Life so brilliant, a life of knocks,

Future hopes, and pants and socks,

Winners and duds amid the suds, and

There, tapping on the glass,

A dream that wants to get out

Before it’s cleansed of all that

Residual realistic grime on which

Our personalities are dependent

And define us as human.

Some dreams are too delicate,

And these have to be done by hand.

South Devon kicks ass when it comes to performance poetry!

For a while now I’ve had this thought that the South Devon poetry scene is one of the richest and most vibrant in the county, when you take into consideration the scarcity of the population in most of it, what with all them fields and things.

Torquay is a resort which has, admittedly, seen better days, but even here there are two vibrant performance poetry nights a month. Poetry Island is long established, first under Chris Brooks, and lately under Ian Beech, both of whom have done amazing things to bring big names down to the bay, and now there is a night at the Artizan Gallery, too. Exeter isn’t that far away and there are three regular monthly nights as well as an amazing array of one off events thanks to venues like the Phoenix and the Bike Shed. Plymouth has two regular nights, and even Totnes has events at the Kingsbridge Inn.

But it is the sheer variety of styles and performers which makes the scene so vibrant. It is impossible to come up with a definitive South Devon style, because there are so many different interpretations of what makes spoken word and performance poetry so engaging. Daniel Haynes is droll, funny, serious, human, everything which a Bard should be. Which is good, because he is the currently Bard of Exeter. Tim King is experimental, political, also very human. The most human of all humans is James Turner, who exiles literary excellence and a fantastic understanding of the importance of performance and voice, as did the late and very much missed Rodney Bowsher. Joanna Hatfull is impossible to categorise, fusing theatre and monologue, humor and reality into her poems which never stray too far into surrealism. And then there’s Ian Beech, whose poetry is heartfelt, honest, occasionally ranting, often fierce, always well meaning.

Add to this people like Jackie Juno, Ziggy Abd El Malak, Chris Brooks, Gavin McGrory, Morwenna Griffiths, Solomon Doornails . . .

So what flavor is there to this excellent scene? Are there any common traits? Most of the performers have developed parallel and each event serves to drive each participant on to find deeper modes of poetic expression and audience engagement. Yet there seems to be a willingness to perfect this individualism in a way that may not be the case somewhere like Bristol or London, where a similar style dominates. The rhythms are different from one poet to the next. You might get the excellent Marc Woodward with his fast paced calm delivery, followed by the enthusiasm of Chris Brooks, and then the calm, slow, assured delivery of Dan Haynes.

There’s a great thing going on down here in South Devon at the moment and it makes me glad to be a part of it. And now some of us are starting to get recognition from further afield, strange parts of the country who can only be intrigued by the creativity and art which seems so normal. When I first started performing at Poetry Island, Chris Brooks would end each evening with an appeal for performers. Yet now there are so many that there is a strict rota and waiting list! And that has got to be a very good thing.

For no reason whatsoever, here’s a couple of new poems.

Poem

You said you’d do a magic trick.
Is this your card?, you asked.
Or is this your card?
Or this?
And then you reached into my pocket
And you announced,
This, this is your card!
And then you looked at it and saw
That it was my one day megarider bus ticket
And a tiny tear formed
In the corner of your eye.
In any case,
I hadn’t even picked a card.

It’s ok to be funny at a poetry night, usually.

There’s so much variety in performance poetry and spoken word. Some times it seems that the emphasis is on poetry which gives a message or aims for a certain effect, and there’s nothing wrong with this. Some of my best friends in poetry are superb creators of serious, ethereal poetry which grabs the heart and takes your breath away with beauty. I love this kind if work, and I’m deeply jealous that I’ve never excelled at it.

And then there’s that Bristol style, of well intentioned poetry with a conscience, a hint of hyperbole, and three rhymes per line. Again, this is a fantastic form. Most slam winners I’ve seen over the years practice this method, and why not? The effects are beautiful, if a little wearying if everyone’s at it.

And then we come to the funny poets. I suppose this is my area. Often it feels like the poets who make people laugh are not regarded as highly, especially at nights where the emphasis is on page poetry. Such works are seen as light, throwaway, perhaps not even memorable. Again, this is not the case at every poetry night.

On Thursday night I went to Bang Said the Gun in London. It’s my favourite night of poetry, mostly because of the excellent atmosphere. Humorous poets are welcomed and cheered and the audience is genuinely appreciative. Some if my favourite poets are regulars here, such as the brilliant Rob Auton, and the often hilarious Martin Galton. Indeed, both performed new poems which were a mix of funny and heartfelt, and often with a serious twist, such as Rob Auton’s poem about eating meat in heaven, or Martin’s poem about giving a conker to his mum.

Maybe this is the key, this hint of the honest which keeps a comic poem memorable. But then, aren’t all poems, no matter how funny, tinged with an honesty and a hint of truth? My poem ‘Fozzie’ is about rejection and dashed hopes. ‘The First Time’ is about debunking the sexual myth. ‘Camp Cat’ is about stereotyping. ‘Moon Simon’ is just silly.

So next time I sit down to write a funny poem I shall be looking for the depth beneath the surface, the honesty which hides behind every faked witticism. Because we are all living our lives and trying to be human.

And here’s a poem about geese.

Poem

Lately I’ve been obsessed with geese.
Geesey geese.
Fleecy geese.
Call the police.
His name is Rhys.
He might come from Greece
He probably comes from Newton Abbot.
He’s obsessed with geese.
It’s me.

Geese in the undergrowth
Geese in the kitchen
Geese in the photocopying room
Geese in the kitchen
Geese in the potting shed
Geese in the kitchen
My aunt just freaked out
Because of all the
Geese in the kitchen.

Geesey geesey goosey goose
I don’t know. Give us proof.
Geesey geesey goosey goose
Gets my emotions on the loose
Geesey geesey goosey goose
Eight hundred of them crammed into a small
Commuter train
Geese on the line
No wonder I was late getting in to Basingstoke.

I met a goose named Graham
I asked Graham the goose what it was like
Being a goose.
He said it was great.

My colleague Tina is an amateur zoologist.
I told her how much I liked geese.
I pushed back a strand of hair from her face,
Tenderly.
She grabbed hold of my wrist and said,
‘Try that again, Jimmy,
And I’m going to human resources’.
My name isn’t Jimmy.

All is quiet in the common goose mountains.
A rustle and a bustle in the gathering foliage.
All is quiet in the common goose mountains
Shifting and a cracking in the dense rhododendrons
All is quiet in the common goose mountains
A crack and a flap and they fly up in the atmosphere
All is quiet in the common goose mountains
v-shape wing-span fly fly goosey geese

Bump ba-dump honk
Bump ba-bump bump
Honk honk bump ba-dump
Is the sound of a goose
Falling down the stairs.

How come the logo for Universal Pictures
Just shows planet Earth?

I watched a documentary last night
About corn flakes.
It’s on again next week.
It’s a cereal.

The switchboard put me through with
Barely a crackle.
Such a smooth operator.

A friend works in hot air balloons.
He’s very concerned about
The rate of inflation.

A lady walked into the newsagent and asked,
‘Have you got my Psychic News?’

Several of us in a room
Asked to offer the name of our favourite geese.
I was too afraid to stick my neck out.

Geese in the gift shop
Geese in the kitchen
Geese in the locker room
Geese in the kitchen
Geese in the Great Hall
Geese in the kitchen
Of Pembroke Castle.

There once was a man from Nice
Who like me had a passion for geese.
Such a feathered delight
To watch them take flight
He filmed them and put them on Youtube
And linked it to Facebook
Where it was liked by his niece.

And my neighbours forever banging on the walls
Banging banging banging on the walls
Because at two in the morning
There’s nothing more daunting
Than the ferocious honk honk honking
Of eight hundred geese in the throes of an
Orgiastic goose mating frenzy
Bang bang bang
Honking honking honking
And one of them’s got hiccups
Each honk followed by a hick
Each hick followed by a honk
Honking and hicking
Hicking and honking
Honk hick honk hick honk hick
Banging on the walls
Bang bang bang
Hick honk hick honk hick honk
And me in the middle shouting
Yes, yes, yes!
This is what life is about
You can keep your soap operas and your alcohol
You can keep your Ant and Dec
For I am a man proud of his bearing
And I have geese!
But that doesn’t stop my neighbour
Banging on the walls.

And then first thing this morning
I got an email from my landlord
Restricting me to just the one goose
Who I chose just now, he’s called John.

On saying ‘Thanks’ at the end of a poetry performance

Hello, today I thought I’d talk about what it is we say when a poem has finished.

I’ve been to many gigs all over the place and it’s true that the nature of these events is defined by the sort of poetry thats performed there. It’s not uncommon, at a page poetry event where poems are ‘read’ rather than performed, that there should be no clapping at the end. People sit there in a respectful silence. And that’s ok. That’s the culture that these events have created for themselves. And in any case, the poems are usually about the seasons or wildflowers or ennui.

Performance poetry nights are a different beast entirely. They are hipper, more energetic, more like entertainment than poems about agriculture and hedges, and the audience becomes a part of the whole performance. That’s why it’s often somewhat disconcerting when a poet finishes a poem and says absolutely nothing. The audience doesn’t know what to do.

We’ve probably all seen it. The poet stands there, having finished their poem, and there’s no acknowledgement whatsoever from the audience. And then they say something awkward like, ‘That’s it’. Or ‘That’s the end’. And then there’s a bit of muted clapping.

The vast majority of performance poets build up a rhythm as they go along and the final words, usually, ‘Thanks’, or sometimes ‘Cheers’, if the poet is a bit blokey, signals to the audience that their wait is over and that they are free to cheer, clap, whoop or should ‘Yeah!’. It becomes a part of the performance. And it helps the evening flow along.

But are there alternatives? Do people get tired of the same old ‘Thanks’? The wonderful local poet Simon Blades built a whole routine around this and would signal that a poem had finished wins lavish arm gesture which was both funny and a humorous aspect of his act. Every now and then I do something similar. Perhaps I might blow on a harmonica or whistle or something. But the essence is just the same. I’m telling the audience that the poem has finished and,if they’re not clapping already, the audience should damn well clap now.

Another aspect is the comedic acknowledgement that the poem has finished and that the next one is starting already. I’ve done this a few times. I’ve signaled that the poem had ended by announcing that ‘This next poem is called . . .’. In such cases I’m sacrificing potential applause for a comedic response. Hopefully laughter. It doesn’t always work but it’s very nice when it does.

So that’s what I’ve been thinking about, anyway. The acknowledgement that a poem has finished is part of the act. Unless the poet doesn’t want applause, and that’s fine. They might purposefully build themselves a reputation as a serious page poet, and the audience might be glad of an opportunity not to clap. Deadly silence at the end of a poem is a response in itself. It’s just a little embarrassing when the poet has read something that they hoped would elicit applause. The audience probably still likes them just the same, it’s just that they never got the chance to show it.

Anyway. That’s the end of today’s lecture. Next week we shall be discussing clearing throats on stage.

http://youtu.be/EkMmsv4OjqM

Voidism : And Why I Don’t Want To Know Who Mytho Geography Is

A few years ago I came up with a philosophy, or rather, a method of living which I called ‘voidism’.

It started on a trip to Plymouth. Arriving back at the railway station to catch the train home to Paignton, I passed through a tunnel to get to the proper platform only to become aware of a door leading off the tunnel. I knew that it was probably a staff store area or some other vacant part of the station infrastructure, but a part of me still wanted to have a quick look and see what it was.

I didn’t. Indeed, quite the opposite, I made a conscious effort not to even look in the direction of the door, and to carry on walking through the tunnel. And it was only when I reached the platform and got on my train that I decided that this was just emblematic of the way I live my life.

There are areas of the world, geographic, intellectual of otherwise, which I want to keep distant from myself not so that I feel perpetually ignorant of such issues or places, but because I want them to maintain a certain level of mystique. Yes,I can make educated guesses as to what they exist for or are like to visit, but it don’t actually want to find out. I create a void over a certain subject or place so that they will always maintain their mystery, and a better version of them can exist in my imagination, probably better than the actual place themselves.

Another example of this is the German city of Koblenz. I once passed by on the motorway during a thunderstorm, half asleep on a coach heading south. And as the thunder and the lightning lit the sky, the city of Koblenz appeared as a collection of lights in the distance. I made various guesses as to what the city might contain,and what it might be to live in or visit Koblenz, while simultaneously deciding that I would never go there. Never, ever. As a result I have a huge interest in the city of Koblenz without even doing a Google search about the place. It seems nice.

The same happened in Canada, crossing the great prairies past the city of Regina in Saskatchewan. I saw it as a collection of lights on the horizon and I have decided that I should never go there.

A few years ago I became Facebook friends with a mysterious fellow by the name Mytho Geography. I had no idea who he was, as he hid behind his alias, but we have chatted and made jolly small talk by way of status updates and comments and the occasional message, and all the time I was distinctly aware that here was another void, a person I would have so much fun guessing about that I would never want to meet him. The version I had of Mytho Geography was of an intellectual figure, a wanderer, someone seeing the world through new eyes yet pointing out what we knew all along. I decided that one of my voids should forever mask him.

Alas, it was not to be, as Facebook decreed that all aliases should be unmasked, and Mytho Geography became Phil Smith. And worse still, I would then see him in the flesh for the first time at the launch of the Broadsheet Magazine, for which he has written an excellent introduction. A void has been lost, and with it, all the romance and adventure of the imagination.

I have never really publicised voidism. There are two main reasons. The first is that people might think I’m quite mad, the second is that I am aware how such a philosophy of purposeful ignorance might be used for negative means, by people using stereotypes and a lack of imagination to justify their own narrow mindedness. The aim of voidism is to bring magic and mystery back to a life in small doses, not to give up on intellectual inquiry all together.

I see myself as a scholar, a man who likes to get to the root of most issues, but these areas of mystery sustain me and keep me enthusiastic about the world. It’s like reading such writers as Borges or Juan Goytisolo, revelling in the journey without totally getting it. It’s like conceptual art. It’s the not knowing which gives such things their magic.

On a completely different note, here’s a poem about wine.

Poem

I put down my glass of wine.
The border of Devon and Somserset
Went right through it.
Shimmery non existent man made
Political boundary
Dissecting my merlot,
Which knows neither the gruff side burned
Yokelism of Somerset
Or the soft Devonian burr
Of the barn-weary milk maid.
I nudged my friend Jeff
To tell him this
And he spilled his lager
Right on the same county line.
And then two workmen
From competing councils arrived
To clean it up.
Their fingers, momentarily, fumbling
Together
Like mating octopuses.

September Poem A Day Week Four

EVERYDAY MIRACLES

It shouldn’t work, but it does.
You rev up the engines, then
Punch into the absolute,
Up, up above the weather,
Grey wings reflecting the sky and
Changing colour as
Cloud gives way to blue.

So much else, of course.
Roar and throb and movement,
The vehement sublimity,
Thereafter, of modern comforts,
As if in denial
Of the speed rush.

Lift, and areas of low pressure,
Aerodynamics and power!

This makes mavericks of us all,
Provides a little thunder for our hearts.
A fantastic for the tethered,
Pushing the bounds of natural behaviour
On science or else pride,
Expedience, frivolity, design,
Making monsters from tin
And gods of us all.

SEEING THE FULLER PICTURE

The past I see as a time
Barely black and white,
Sepia weather and bare wires,
Slapdash undertakings,

Things not yet properly
Thought out, considered,
Where all the dreams were
Of rocketships

And a certain sense of
Military bearing still predominated,
Upright non-existent, no
Grievance procedures.

What little neon there was
Smudged in the rain, possibly
Against all tenets of health and /
Or safety, things were bad

For you then, a pervasive
Throb beneath the surface, no
Deviance, the absolute, how
On earth did love ever flourish?

In forty years it’s quite
Conceivable that people will look
Back on this life now similarly.
I stand dark expose light here.

UNFORTUNATE GHOULS

Ghosts,
They only come out
In the rain.

Motorists see them
In the place
Where the mist
Settles over the thicket.

The scrub,
The wasteland,
The void between
Road and town.

The hanging wires.
The reservoirs.

The ghosts are too enamoured
With their own disappearance
To do any serious haunting.
They hang around as if
Looking for something.

On days of steady drizzle
The ghosts shelter
Under imaginary steel
Where the drip drip drips
From jutted metal.

The jutted metal itself
Is also a ghost.
Don’t tell them.
They don’t know yet.

Unfortunate ghouls,
They will disappear,
Just like they always
Wanted to,
When the rain intensifies.

Everybody has appointments,
Business to attend with,
Even ghosts.

GONE

Such ease in erasure.
A split second
Forgiveness
Of misdemeanours.
The past as
Unblemished
As the future.
The present,
Fragile and vacant.

KATIJAH

Beef and mustard crisps
And ill-advised attempts at
Teaching me chess.
Katijah.
That’s all we ever did.

I’d show you the countryside.
You’d never seen stinging nettles.
We kissed once
Katijah.
That’s all we ever did.

You were Californian,
Your brother was a surfer,
Suddenly washed up in the Surrey suburbs.
Katijah.
Think of all we never did.

Your beauty was obvious
And so exotic in our
Commuter-town nothing.
I felt lucky and perplexed.
Katijah.
That’s all I ever felt.

Your dad was a player in Hollywood.
Your aunt was married to a film star.
Your brother was a surfer.
I liked him.
Katijah.
I liked your brother a lot.

You phoned me one day
To talk about our ‘relationship’.
It all sounded so grown-up.
Katijah.
Talk.
That’s all we ever did.

History has excised you from me
And you’re back in CA, Silicon Valley.
I saw you on a website,
Businesswoman of the year.
Katijah.
One day I might send you an email.

ITS ONLY ANOTHER WASTER

You make it very hard
For me to feel euphoric.
You hide your poison
In the sweetest places.
You say I’m
Self-obsessed.

You’re right,
In so many ways.
The weight of living
Is merely the anticipation
Of nervousness.
We don’t see the gradual steps,
Mostly leading down.

You took me to a very
Dark place
And then held my hand
As if I’d always been there
And you were merely visiting.

IN DEFENCE

It always rained during football.
Typical, you might think, yet,
In thrall to a splurdge of various
Teenage chemicals, I didn’t care.

Because Darren was there
And Paul was there.
They always put me in defence.
They didn’t seem to care if I
Let in an opposing player.
They already knew.
They knew before I did.

I was so lucky, really!

The school field was near
Heathrow’s runway, so actually hearing
Simple commands from team captains
Was quite impossible at times.

There were one or two idiots.
Mostly ill-informed, quite possibly.
I’ve seen them lately on Facebook.
They seem almost human.
It’s a different world, now.

It was the whole
Shower ritual
I particularly enjoyed.

Richard would let me
Touch his legs.
I mean, I’d touch them
And he’d not moan or anything.
It’s nice that he was so
Generous with his legs.
He’s married with kids, now.

Once, all my team-mates pretended
That I was a superstar,
Let me take the ball and
They fell about, feigning
That I’d tackled them,
Leaving the goal open,
The goalie having long since dived
Out the way.
I kicked the ball with all my might.
It went about two foot.

September Poem A Day Week Three

Split second

The clammy no-nonsense
Of the Sunday fall.
The moment it’s realised
That existence is merely a postponement
Of the fantastic.

How could it happen to me?
(And disbelief, of course.)

Surfaces are covered by panelling
In order to disguise the workings.

Axminster

The sallow flames
Of a late evening sun
Illumine as if in majesty
The cow shed
Crenulated in dip trough shadow
The corrugated roof
Of the barn
Caressing the chrome
Of a combine harvester
Parked slyly by the pig sty.
Fiendish yokels whisper
From the shrubbery.
There’s a plaintive mooing.
The air smells of pollen and
Jasmine, cowpats and dairy milk.
The cobbled yard plays havoc
With my high heels and I get mud
On the hem of my dress
As I sashay towards the chicken coop
With a porn mag.

Monochrome Glitterball

You let me in to your grey world
And asked me to stay forever.
That’s nice, I said, ignoring the greyness.
Because you were there, of course!
But then there was a glitch,
A malfunction of things,
And you just kind of wandered off.
Well, thanks for that!

I now try to have my own fun
In a black and white existence,
Like a party every now and then
With a monochrome glitterball
And a CD of static.
You’d laugh, honestly, you would.

I get on well in my polar landscape.
Last night I categorised the world and found
Ever so many shades of grey,
And just for one moment,
A hint of beige.
The last time I saw you
You told me that there were many other colours.
Too many to choose from
In this big wide world.

I shall try and pull myself together.
I’ve got a bus to catch.

There are no vampires .
There are no pterodactyls.
You can’t fly a kite
Because there’s no wind
And the fog sets in.
There aren’t any crows
Because even crows are too colourful
And slugs are too majestic.

I shall try and pull myself together,
I’ve got a taxi waiting downstairs.

I saw you in the sepia.
I saw you in the murk.
I saw you in the absolute
Wrapped up against the snow.
I saw you in the perpetual.
I saw you in the gloom.
I saw you in the confluence
Looming and insistent.
But when I looked again
There were cardboard cut-outs everywhere,
Meaningless shapes
Deceiving
Optical illusions
Memories of the time we bought hats together
Memories of the time we built a shed
Memories of the times we spent at stations waiting for non-existent trains
Memories of the time we learned Japanese by accident.
Dance with me one more time.
Dance with me in the gloom.
A lame comedy tango
In the black and white disco
Under the monochrome glitterball
Dance with me one more time
Feel the coldness in the rhythm
Grin and smile and stay a while
Dance with me one more time!

And so you’re off now, you say,
To get some colour in your cheeks.

Re-drafted

At the last moment
There were unexpected guests.

It’s always pleasant to accommodate
One of your peers.

Their sudden appearance meant
Re-calculations, but procedures

Were maintained, and perhaps it
Helped to neutralise the bias

Towards youth, you know,
Experience over impetuosity.

Further back, an empty seat was
Occupied, a last minute inconvenience,

Baby held in arms to free up space.
A comfort for both, quite possibly.

The deadheader where the observer would have been,
Might conceivably have had some input

More likely too busy with his own concerns,
Tinny rain on metal roof.

A Path across the Island

There’s a path across the island.
It stops at a lake
Of dreams and sunbeams.
I was so vain here.
Proffering what little prowess I had,
In my youthfulness, acrobatic
Tricks for the camera capturing
Nonsense and moments
And a me who never was.

There’s a path across the island.
It forms amid the rhododendrons.
A thicket so endless
And so convoluted and so fierce
With its accidental areas of dreaming,
Purposefully suffocating,
Vehemently intense.
This is fun, you said to me,
Let’s not get dehydrated.

There’s a path across the island.
At night, you might see ghosts,
Spectres of shadows,
Howling at hands quivering
In a place beyond all comprehension,
Fusing and melting with
Those who were less fortunate.

There’s a path across the island.
It’s someone else’s infrastructure,
With all its secret places,
Lying down and listening to the princes.
For some the summer
Will never be repeated.
For some it will never happen.

Home

Where I grew up
There were dark places,
Urban and haggard.
The whole world felt
Tired.
Everybody seemed to have
A secret.

I can’t quite put my
Finger on what
Seemed an ache
But only later became
A burn.

Everything was mechanic
Or else polluted
And the sharp winter mornings
Were split with jet roar
As if we
Didn’t exist.

Now I am older
And far away
And I long for the city,
Forgetting
That it probably

Unserviceability

We override
That which we don’t trust.
How can I take you
Seriously
If all of your indications
Might be wrong?

You lied to me once
And whatever follows,
Whether the truth or not,
Can be justifiably discounted.

You were the cause
Of my delay.
You were my only
Malfunction.

Sometimes,
That which we rely on
Has always been
Working against us.

Pulse

Okay.
Draw an imaginary line.
(I forgot to mention
That this will only work
In winter
When there are no
Leaves on the trees).
Draw an imaginary line,
From the top of Knowle Hill
(On private land now,
Belonging to Wentworth Golf Course,
On which I’d wander
As a child),
Draw an imaginary line
From the top of the hill
To the blinking light on top
Of Canary Wharf.

The line does not move
And if pulled tight enough,
Nor will it bounce in
The still air.

Let me tightrope walk now
From one end of the city
To the other,
Right over all of it,
Including the airport,
Waving at tourists.
Like I said,
This can only be done in winter
When there are no
Leaves on the trees.

On breakneck hill I fog breath,
The sharp wharf beacon pulse
Visible even here.

September Poem A Day Week Two

Omnibus edition of the poems I’ve been writing this month!

Strident

Strident bright white,
You seemed to frown across the sky
With shadows cast flank, down,
The glasses jingling together in my
Uncle’s drinks cabinet.

On frosty mornings,
My teeth would ache
And you’d howl and scratch at the too-bright,
And the sun would hurt my eyes.

You’d sometimes leave black trails
And I thought there would never be any progress
Beyond the immediate.

Did I ever tell you what it was like
To live in an abatement zone?
Things suddenly become very quiet.

And that can be off-putting, when
The forthright and the obvious
Become even more so.

Keys

Propelled, some say,
By anger as much as fuel.

Adherence to principles,
As much as weather patterns.

A blazing row followed
By the rhino kick.

Ear split whine,
Juddering graffiti.

Easily the pantomime villain,
Easily angered, so they say.

The bypass you found was
Not the one you needed.

Deep Stall

And then there’s the tendency
To deep stall.

At the aviation museum
In a hollowed-out fuselage,
An old man showed me a parachute.
We lost a prototype, he says.

It’s all to do with turbulence
And the design of the T-tail.
The angle of attack.
The aspect of its nose.

And the parachute?, I asked.

We never needed to deploy it
On the second prototype.
We didn’t push her
Like we did with the first.

And then I understood that the parachute
Was not for the pilot,
But for the whole craft itself!

It would have given them a fighting chance
To improve the attitude of the vehicle, he said,
And I was left with preposterous images
And the thought that the parachute
Must have been very big indeed.

The old plane smelled of oil and damp
The old man smelled of lunch time wines.
He was an enthusiast.

There’s corrosion everywhere, I thought,
And technology becomes obsolete.

You wont be lonely

Dark places are everywhere.
They crawl right in on every soul.
You can stumble all your life
But you wont be lonely.

You held up your hand in front of your face.
You tried to stop the moment before it happened.
It’s hard to think that light exists.
You held up your hand in front of your face.

Dark places in between the light.
The black ever so invisible around the sun.
On the hottest day you can still be haunted
But you wont be lonely.

What’s torn from life is physical
And love is its own memorial.
What you fear most are just elongated shadows
Of the people who stop you from stumbling.

When you are in the darkest place
You are much better off
Being able to look out and see the light
If only you turn around.

Void

Those who waited
For their businessmen
Their lovers
Their Belgians
Are probably still waiting now.

A void opened up
In a suburban town.
A void opened up.

It cannot be comprehended.
See you later. Don’t forget
Your umbrella. You’ll need it.
It’s raining.

Mundane artifice
And nonchalant procedures.
An act of secular communal prayer,
Faith in science.

It cannot be comprehended,
And those who waited then
Are still waiting now.

The world

It helps to talk.
I will always listen.
The world is too big and too good
For the bad things to linger for long.

Tell me what is on your mind.
Tell me what pains your soul.
Tell me with honesty, spill it all out,
Learn to let go.

Things go well and things go bad.
And people are happy or sad.
Tell me what is on your mind.
I’ve seen more of life than you think.

What insulates a generation
Empowers the next.
I’ve seen some crazy things in my life
But I never let go of the truth.

I like it when you share with me.
I hate it when you keep it all in.
The world is too big and too good
To ever let go of the truth.
Split second

The clammy no-nonsense
Of the Sunday fall.
The moment it’s realised
That existence is merely a postponement
Of the fantastic.

How could it happen to me?
(And disbelief, of course.)

Surfaces are covered by panelling
In order to disguise the workings.

September Poem A Day Week One

Ms. Lucy Wellington

Crikey!
I’m a hefty queen.
I’m seldom obscene.
You wouldn’t believe
The things that I’ve seen.

As I shuffle and prance
In a kind of slow dance
The movement of my fat ripples,
Puts people in a trance.

My hand gestures are floppy.
The way I eat is quite sloppy.
I entered a drag contest and
Renamed myself ‘Poppy’.

It’s so good to be free.
But this isn’t about me.
There is a certain barrier
Which only I can see,

Erected, I believe, somewhat erroneously
Across the divide between generations
That even in the glitter and the
Lasers and the dry ice there are

Frozen moments and a real hint
Of the inertia which dwelt
In the places where I lived a happy
Childhood, ostensibly.

Some stains wont wash out.
Layers of artifice become permanent.
In the summer heat it’s history groans
And the river kicks up a hell of a stink.

I’d sashay down the High Street
If I could, but there are market stalls,
It’s such a drag, high heels
On cobblestones, heat wave.

It’s a drab little town
Where everything’s brown
Living by the motto
‘What goes up must come down’.

Gravity

He’d seen the outback, the jungle,
The cold northern tundra.
She stayed at home,
And once she’d seen ball lightning.

When he came home from abroad
She waited with his twin brother
At Brize Norton, with binoculars,
And she was almost arrested for spying.

(During the war his mother
Had let a fire’s embers burn
After dark, and she too was
Almost arrested for spying).

They visited his brother
A rainy Sunday, taking the bypass,
Spent the afternoon eating sandwiches,
It all seemed so very urban and
Suburban and faintly old fashioned.
It all seemed right.
It all seemed normal.

Pouring rain on the drive home.
Inexplicable traffic, perhaps
There might have been an accident,
More likely roadworks.
Where are the emergency vehicles?

The ghost of a place
Or else its spirit,
The endless and the ending,
The moments beyond.

He’d seen the world, she’d seen
Ball lightning,
And in the driving rain
They both witnessed,
Inches apart in their seats
The miles between them become
Meaningless, gravity.

Procedures

A man with a quick temper
A man with righteous anger
Never served anyone well.

You draw in the darkness,
It feeds on the obvious.
There are extenuating circumstances.
You might hurt someone.

If the procedures a re
Ever so slightly out of sync,
It’s rumoured that you always
Blame others.

And this makes your counterparts
Too afraid to question your judgement.
That’s the rumour, any how.

Yet I feel for you and I
Believe that there has been an injustice.
It’s all so simple to blame
The man who appears as if he can take it.

Poem of demons

There are many demons.
Not all of them are bad.
Some of them are fluffy
And they tickle.
Some of them dance and
Sing little tunes.
Some are mere capers,
Foibles, shenanigans.
Some of them blink because
The sun is too bright.
Some of them just whisper
One word over and over,
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Some of them patter you on the chest
And make you feel ever so good
And fill you with butterflies and love.
But they are demons
Nonetheless.

Memorial

For the memorial.
For the deprived.

For peace in a world of noise.

For the actual.
For the inexplicable.
For what some would call the inevitable.

For the sheer bad luck of it.
For the sublime.
For the storms that blow in occasionally
From the south west.

For the stark
For the strange
For the sightseers and
The morbid and
The curious and
The lame.

For the sense of it.
For the consequences.
For the wounds which heal but never do.

Indian Father

You recovered well from your meeting with the Ambassador.
It must have been a shock
But the fellow was awfully rude!
Whenever you stumble
You get patched up in no time.

It’s nice that these little things
Can be so easily forgotten!

There will always be unfortunate ghouls.

You were as handsome and as worthy as your brothers and sisters.
Many of them suffered minor spills
Yet managed to fulfil their lucrative careers.
On the most part you always found someone
To keep you level.
You looked like a bandit, wearing a mask.

I see you in old photographs.
In some of them you look distinguished.
In most of them you are waving your flag,
British born and bred!
It’s hard not to think of what happened next.
You responded to the
Lightest touch.

And ghouls emerged from the rain.

West London Rain

When I was a kid I loved it when it rained
Because it meant I didn’t have to go out
And run around the playground.
When I got older the feeling remained
That a wet day was a special day.

We lived in a house on a hill overlooking
The whole of west London.
The motorway sodium lights would kind of
Smear through the rain
And I’d feel ever so safe and cosy with
My writing pad and the radio tuned to distant city jazz.

My parents were not keen on extreme weather.
They were outdoor people,
Dad with motorbikes,
And Mum with her incessant gardening.
Everything was happy, though once
They saw something in the murk.
I reiterate, everything was happy.

When it rained it rained, and when it thundered,
Mum said that the storm was following the river
And wouldn’t harm us
And Grandad spent most of the time in his corrugated shed,
Inventing,
With the rain pummelling tinny on the rusting rusting roof,
And later on I’d invent with words in much the same manner,
Mostly when it was raining, finding my own rhythms.

Only now I’m old enough to understand
That when storm fronts move in,
And the clouds lower,
Bad things can sometimes happen.

Which Performance Poet Are You? Take this quiz! You just have to look at what happens next!

OK, the title of this post was misleading. I just thought I’d mess with ya. It’s just my blog. That’s all it is.

So it’s been a mammoth of a week full of exciting things. The highs and lows of performance poetry. On Tuesday I performed in Exeter at the Bike Shed with All Of Our Poets Are Musos. I really enjoyed the variety and mix of music and spoken word, even if I did have to look up what a ‘muso’ was. The highlight of the night for me was the wonderful Chee, who makes me laugh somewhat uncontrollably with her excellent and funny songs. She’s amazing and I think I’m developing a non-sexual crush on her. My own set was accepted with laughter and hilarity, which is kind of what I wanted. And afterwards, she leaned across to me while the next person was performing, and she whispered, ‘You had sex with an octopus’.

On Thursday I hosted my last ever Poetry Island. It’s been an amazing three years, but I knew that I couldn’t do it forever. The nights are fun and brilliant and euphoric, but there’s so much organisation goes in to the promoting and administrative side, and then I get incredibly nervous before hosting. I have to lie down on the floor of my flat and stare at the ceiling. I’ve never really told anyone about this nervous side of me before, but it becomes almost crippling. Ian Beech will be taking over, he’s a great chap and has an encyclopedic knowledge of performance poetry, as well as many contacts. The nights will be amazing under his control.

It was an emotional night, full of good humour. I did the dance for the last ever time. We put the poets in the cinema because there were so many people wanting to come in and watch, and it was great to listen to their reactions from the other room! I will certainly miss hosting, but I wont miss all the other things that go around being a host and promoter.

On Friday night, Tim King and I drove out to Salisbury to appear on the main stage at the Rest Festival. We got lost. Then we hit a kerb. Then we almost hit a rock. Then we got stuck in a traffic jam. Then we got stopped by the police. We finally arrived with about ten minutes to spare, to find the act before us was an amazing band, and when it was announced that the music had stopped for the night and that next up were two poets, the crowd kind of drifted away. Quite quickly. Nevertheless, we performed very well, even if we did scamper away as quick as we could! Got back to Tim’s house in Exeter at three in the morning. We had cheese on toast and red wine.

So that’s been my week. Oh yes, and I did that dreaded ice bucket challenge thing. The results were too embarrassing to broadcast, but if you want the video I can always send it. It was cold. Obviously. And I was not very manly.