17. Featuring: Lesley Quayle

+ Raymond K. Avery + Brian Blackwell + Kenneth Gurney + Suzanne Hermanoczki + Khalid Khan + Ian Mullins + Kerry Orange + A D Winans

A to B – B to A

(Whitehouse Lane)

each day,

the porridge sky

the spitting jogger

the chafed thigh and crotch

the solitary gutter- boot

the ragged breath

the polystyrene coffee-cups

the nudge of moss

the sump of kiss kiss kiss cans

the scuff of grass

the wind-flayed plastic

the tumbling jackdaws

the butts and gobs

the herd of cyclists

the dog-shite coils

the heeling collie

the pizza poultice

the loveless line of road

the tarmac blistered up

the stitch in side

the burrs of sleet

the brown gate.

Down All The Days.

Down all the days so quickly as I fly

On archetypal feet of mortal clay,

Towards the predetermined moment, I

Use wine to dull the ‘dimming of the day.’

Like my late father, who would banish pain

And demons with a daily dose of Teachers,

I’ll fill my glass again and then again

And stick two fingers up at all the preachers.

I don’t believe in Heaven, nor did he,

But recognise Old Nick’s genetic hoofprint,

The father/daughter likeness people see,

Not blood and bone, but chromosomal misprint.

I think of him relaxing somewhere, pissed,

Saying “God, give up, you know you don’t exist.”

This Child.

This child of ours says he’s

always broke

snorts coke smokes dope

life’s a joke he said

you’re off your head

you’ll wind up dead

weren’t brought upknow betterI said

This child of ours borrows

so much cash

too flash not flush

so rash this rush

to have it all misled

by hype and overfed

on junk drunk on illusionI said

This child of ours this man

we hardly know

yet knew watched grow

the slow years flow

gather momentum go

the child has fled

you worry too muchhe said

Cuckoo

We’ve been left a cuckoo child,

hungry and damaged, bisected by anger.

He litters our view of a cosier world,

smears his dirty protest like a sick pup;

having only ever seen the view from the cheap seats,

he has decided to shit on us now from the gods.

His quadrophonic rage is deafening,

us and them, his mother and himself,

there’s no room for simple affection,

his borderless emotions roam unchecked

and his inconsolable lust can’t help but defy –

his days are clandestine journeys along perilous edges.

All the safe houses have fallen down,

scrapped under the hammer of his gaze.

We have been left a cuckoo child,

lost in his tunnel, waving a lamp at the last, late train.

Shoals

This fish,

and this, and this,

neon,

there there

glass splinters ascending,

double helix of sparks

unfolding outwards, upwards,

breaking open the blueblack

scale by scale,

brief silver, copper, metalled green,

needles of violet, verdigris, vermilion,

luminous chemistry,

drawn to the surface.

The lantern’s halo stretches

wide and radiant, like an open mouth,

the dark gape teeming,

stuffed with herring,

foaming, lathering light.

I reach in, feel ice cold

rise up my fingers.

A blizzard of fish, bright as sleet,

tender as kisses,

streams through my handis gone.

Rosalind

Was the first to do it. Jail bait at thirteen.

A casual mention in the dinner line,

then gave a feline stretch, a lazy yawn,

“Christ- not fish pie again.”

On our way to the bus stop, illegally hatless,

“What’s it like?” I asked, voice snatched

by the perpetual squall, frisking our dresses.

“Depends.” Down her nose at me, hair thrashed

wild by wind. “On what?” I chewed my lips.

Didn’t want to appear too interested – or stupid.

We reached the scrum for buses before she tipped

her head close but the swell pitched forward, hurried

upstairs for the back seats. Left her behind.

She never did tell me. Had other things on her mind.