Poetry: Verbatim Poetry

The good folks of Verbatim Poetry have published another wee thing that I found recently. You can find it over here. Particularly suited to those of you who are connoisseurs of first date banter.

Poetry: Poetry Digest

Poetry Digest 4
Originally uploaded by SgtRock333

Ovens were manned. Cakes were baked. Words were read. Hurrah!

On digital afterlives

The NYT article by Rob Walker, on what happens to our digital... (I was going to say 'ephemera', but considering the subject, that's not right) stuff after we die, is a must. It's been a long time since I've read something where I was highlighting and annotating the text with abandon.

And a hats off as well for David Eagleman, neuroscientist, writer, and businessman too, who has founded a firm which is grappling with how to solve some of these issues.

Go read.

Poetry: A cake-filled reminder

that you can come and eat me, and my words.

I'll be reading at the launch of the new edition of Poetry Digest, which I think it's safe to say is the world's only edible poetry magazine.

Join me and the delicious company of Julia Bird, Geraldine Clarkson, Andy Jones, Daniel Payne, Jacqueline Saphra, Susie Wild and Juliet Wilson. Munching will happen at The Bell in Spitalfields, from 4pm on Sunday 16th January.

And you've started eating cake again, haven't you? Jolly good.

Poetry: A scent of you

A scent of you
(with apologies to Joni Mitchell)

I met her in Fitzrovia, fragrance in the air.
“I nose this town,” I said and followed her vapour trails
to Chanel No 5 and Chelsea – she’s a Peter Jones girl.
To Bow and barley and the stout pint we drank.

By Pudding Lane the burning tinge was cinnamon,
the foundations of her gin palace lemon.
Strawberries in Southwark soon followed,
and to Oval and its square-cut grass,
the sharp-cut mint in which she washed me.

A sniff on the wind and I’m falling.
“You smell like you now,” she said, smiling.

Listorama: Facebook status updates vol 18

BetaRish (is)...

is the forever guy

lost the sleep lottery again last night

is arm aber sexy

is on the axis of Bovril

Last of the summer days

This, this is my forever

Blitz, you test me

hopes you can join him from 6.45 this evening at Tate Modern, for some poetry, art, wine, views

Big poetic props to Fred Hale, Kirsti Green, Hella Becker, @Elika, Lorelei Mathias and Camilla for supporting my versifying at Tate Modern. Pamphlets available from the bookshop there

In the hall the girls come and go / Singing of Cruz, Taio

missed his stop, thanks to Franzen’s ‘Freedom’

is up for a knuckles-up, knock-down drag-out

awoke to an accident outside the front door

First body, last body

A yomp here and yomp there

says ‘wait, hey wait…’

is only available for this limited period. Hurry, while stocks last

‘In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo’. Celebrate National Poetry Day on Facebook

Books become cities, before they become clouds and trails of memories

wonders if there’s an equivalent of quantitative easing to combat emotional deflation

Infinity: it’s not as small as you think

is contemplating luck and how to lose it

is somewhere in the sweet exile of text

is bringing dynamite and a crane

is still pondering The Social Network

is progressive like a fox

is more Levin than Vronsky

Welcome to the day the axe falls

is telescoping poems

is still not convinced by the view

is noisy, beautiful

My magpie eyes are hungry for the prize

Give me the money or I’ll shoot you right between the eyes

My greedy eyes, my beady eyes, they swivel and they stare

is copping a feel, all day long

all hail All Souls

is so into you

The cold is winning. Bah

is dreaming about soul cakes

#nonaggressionpactfriday

How early it was, how early

pacta sunt servanda

Set a course that I don’t know

yes, I know I have not said nothing

Only beauty can save the world now

Easy come, easy go

is aiming to avoid an omnishambles

And when I told you that I meant it, I really did, then at least; at least, as much as I could, as much as anyone could. Which might not be much; but should be enough

is destitute of feathers

Axis of cocktails

Another damned thick DM piece! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh Mr Dastidar?

The last sentence? Now, that was a good one

is from the school of gentlemen amateurs

To Italia!

might be right

My second favourite way to start the day: breakfast at The Wolseley with Kirsty Wear and Keren Eldad

is tangled in red ribbons

Sleeping is giving in

is zero harm

is The New You

needs a rubric

The number is up

is an octothorpe

is contemplating ideology

Mastery might be mine

has been captured by seamonsters

will attempt to get a toothbrush in a poem

If you wait for permission for your pleasures, you’ll be waiting a long time

did your Photoshop Handsome

is waiting for the carpet fitter (not a euphemism)

is in the katzenjammer season

is a vector-based lifeform

was expected to slow down

is the new Montagu Norman

Rome 0 Bethlehem 1

Girls, be ambitious! Boys, be audacious!

All day I dream of shelves

1.1.11. Go

spends his days thinking of you

is drafting

is coming up for an approximation of air

will be kidnapping submarines later

Admin, you test me, some more

Poetry: Hammers

In response to this tweet, by Elika:

Hammers

Ladies, we men are as simple as hammers.
It’s the nailing of feelings we can’t land.
Emotional intelligence reduces us to stammers.
Ladies, we men are as simple as hammers.
If only we were trained to be better planners,
we’d plan to try, sometime, to understand.
Ladies, we men are as simple as hammers.
It’s the nailing of feelings we can’t land.

Poetry: Poetry Digest

Otherwise known as a chance to come and eat me, and my words.

I'll be reading at the launch of the new edition of Poetry Digest, which I think it's safe to say is the world's only edible poetry magazine.

Join me and the delicious company of Julia Bird, Geraldine Clarkson, Andy Jones, Daniel Payne, Jacqueline Saphra, Susie Wild and Juliet Wilson. Munching will happen at The Bell in Spitalfields, from 4pm on Sunday 16th January.

Plenty of time for you to have broken your 'eat less cake' resolution. Marvellous.

Poetry: Black ear

A first draft; I suspect for the lady in question, something like it will be true.

Black ear

It’s at 10.45 on New Year’s Day,
when clutching a Coke and
half a bottle of red, that she
shrugs the leopard-print coat
off her shoulders and launches
her resolution at him: this is
the year of throwing more tantrums.

Fiction: Entry

He approaches the alleyway with a light step, murmuring a song and one two spring, grasps the fence, vaults with a clear distance and feathers his way to the ground.

Facing him now: an expanse of clear glass, wood rotting away from it, flakes cluttering the patio below.

He feels the edge, shuffle smooth glide and catches what he's looking for. A ripple of arms above his head and now there's air for him into sideways.

He stands up in parlour space. He looks towards an endless landscape of oil, stopped only by gilt. To his right, pamphlet and tome and volume and stanza, all arranged in order of completion. Or maybe purchase. Or maybe desire.

To his left, where his quarry resides. Resting in the curve of the case for hammered strings, an oboe, proud, glistening, smiling.

"I hear you, I hear you," he says.

He picks her up, not removing his gloves, and plays. And plays and plays and plays.

The glories of all the centuries gone before him, the hosannas and the crescendos and the verve and the bite and the energy and the joy flood out and roll forwards, towards every space around him, air vibrating with passion, history and love.

He stops, and looks at the figure in the doorway. Her arms are folded, her eyes are ablaze, her weapon of choice loosely gripped and slipping away.

She says, "You can keep it. But only if you play for me forever."

Frank Cottrell Boyce on film and religion

Bit late to this I know, but this essay on cinema and transcendence is delightful.