tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76065600502831344102024-03-16T00:09:00.843-07:00The New Beatnik"The horror! The horror! Exterminate all the brutes!"Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger256125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-56319073690496344422015-06-06T01:13:00.000-07:002015-06-06T01:13:06.025-07:00Randall K. Rogers<div>
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<span><em>Randall Rogers says</em>: I am fifty-three, now from the town I went to high school in, that is Rapid City, South Dakota, where many Original Americans, mostly German and Scandinavians immigrant's descendants live. I have spent the thirteen years from 2000 to 2013 in Cambodia and Thailand. I just yesterday traded in my American made Stratocaster, the 60th anniversary issue, for an acoustic, mahogany bodied Taylor guitar. It should be fun. Last published in The Camel Saloon, and Dead Snakes, but I think some of my best stuff is in the Feb. 2010 archives of Ross the Russian sounding last name guy's Asphodel Madness, and in the archives and books of Scars.TV. I was the editor of The Beatnik Cowboy from 2003 to 2008, it was an hard copy only publication that I put together from Pattaya, Thailand. Usually little magazine editors like Joe Speer, David Pointer, Jonathan Penton, a rather famous old Beatnik gent-poet from San Francisco whose name escapes me now, and even Lyn Lifshin submitted to the Cowboy. It was going well and I had the penultimate issue on my fine Dell newly bought computer when the Cambodian cops got me (I was charged with shooting at the too poor to purchase a uniform or gun cops, destruction of property, and ganja - my takedown was a wild two days or so) and the poor policemen stole my computer and much more like sheets, towels, and all the booze in the bar in the bar-hotel I was running. Later I asked why they didn't steal the fine art I had up in the place, and the Cambodians replied "no need". They even took my dapper, Cambodian tailor made clothes. Must have had a "need" to style up. I started writing at age five, and, believe it or not, I won a contest with my short story then and read my work over the radio. Russel Struer of Camel Saloon brought me back into the US poetry fold in 2010 by publishing a lot of my stuff. I was sort of making a small splash in Baltimore and England when I gave up writing and sending out from Cambodia due to lack of internet, computer, and crushing loss im my attempt at starting up and running a twelve room small property hotel and bar. Old famous rockers, washed up, used to come ashore at our Native Khmer Hotel and the Jerry Garcia bar in Siem Reap, Cambodia. And I did sort of well until I gave it up too as a professor of Sociology, working for among other academic joints the New School, the famous place in New York city, where I worked as an online or distance learning professor for eight years. I am hoping to revive my poetry career. I am so Teddy Roosevelt like dee-lighted you like and are going to publish my stuff! Still a thrill for me! Thank you exceedingly so very much! Or, as they say in the eastern and Russian speaking part of Ukraine, where I taught Sociology for one year at Kharkiv National University, spaseeba bolshio or big thanks.</span></div>
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<span></span><br /></div>
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<span>Is that fine enough for bio?</span></div>
<strong></strong><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJhWA6eEEGHuOBdhFVQ6ennEmP_xkYHdwWKnlEryAhdsQzyKQo43r9lh70FjLIG8kQsl2yFTk8kTYp3RSfiJGOSObzR2d-oJ6j7T0ac_QT93A6rX79H31t8l5q14sO-qMNn4ahEteVLN0/s1600/unnamed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJhWA6eEEGHuOBdhFVQ6ennEmP_xkYHdwWKnlEryAhdsQzyKQo43r9lh70FjLIG8kQsl2yFTk8kTYp3RSfiJGOSObzR2d-oJ6j7T0ac_QT93A6rX79H31t8l5q14sO-qMNn4ahEteVLN0/s320/unnamed.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<strong></strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
<strong>A Hairy Loss</strong></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I can't see for miles and miles,</div>
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anymore,</div>
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and I get freaked out</div>
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on details,</div>
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it is sort of like Kerouac said,</div>
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while trying to write "Memory Babe"</div>
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"The story is in the details,</div>
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and damn it I can't remember them."</div>
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And, commenting on Allen Ginsberg,</div>
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he declared Ginsberg was </div>
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little more than</div>
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"a hairy loss".</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<strong>Oscar Wild</strong></div>
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<br /></div>
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Geez, I started getting</div>
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right with me dying</div>
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alone and stinky </div>
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unfound</div>
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in my early fifties.</div>
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And I watched older people</div>
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and saw how they reacted</div>
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when one of their group</div>
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died.</div>
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<br /></div>
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And I thought, wow, isn't</div>
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it great that studies have</div>
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shown when you're freaked</div>
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and freaking out you're</div>
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losing your mind, it is not a</div>
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prelude to actually,</div>
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spontaneously, losing </div>
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your mind.</div>
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On the contrary, one eases</div>
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into mindlessness, and no</div>
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no one became senile</div>
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ever panic attack freaked</div>
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out about their thoughtless</div>
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slide into the abyss.</div>
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Of Satan.</div>
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<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfQMl38_Dmc5ikKGqzTVTgK_iycNbbX4ZfPRnMsXaDg6dg2LV-z0xYMvpzUzGwCmTOu6-tDtypKrESVVcCTGjIbTHD1fkNb3TEiYYjfKDQv9RnAHOOWFLjYFE1RaekB9NPRfAOrw4JDcQ/s1600/unnamed2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfQMl38_Dmc5ikKGqzTVTgK_iycNbbX4ZfPRnMsXaDg6dg2LV-z0xYMvpzUzGwCmTOu6-tDtypKrESVVcCTGjIbTHD1fkNb3TEiYYjfKDQv9RnAHOOWFLjYFE1RaekB9NPRfAOrw4JDcQ/s320/unnamed2.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<strong>Mindful Numbness</strong></div>
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<br /></div>
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Oh shit,</div>
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redirect,</div>
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stop the too much</div>
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detail-notice</div>
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minute differences</div>
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uber-real,</div>
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and nip in the</div>
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half sentence</div>
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the intrusive/automatic</div>
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thoughts or </div>
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internal dialogue,</div>
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that sooner</div>
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than later</div>
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usually</div>
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may spiral down</div>
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soar in mis-judgment</div>
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and bring you</div>
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to where all is nonsense</div>
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seems a pity</div>
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and you wonder</div>
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feeling this bad </div>
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every sleepless waking</div>
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hour of life and is</div>
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it worth it? Appears, the</div>
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only way to stop </div>
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the most</div>
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horrible brain pain </div>
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is to act yourself</div>
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on yourself,</div>
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to ensure, Earthly</div>
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non existence. </div>
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Where all</div>
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the needless suffering</div>
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seems a colossal waste</div>
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and a pity</div>
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considering your</div>
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correct thought</div>
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non-rumination</div>
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very real philosophical and</div>
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problem solving</div>
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potential,</div>
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if you can ever get</div>
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over your present</div>
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condition.</div>
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Bet your bomb shelters</div>
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Marxist-Leninism</div>
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will rise again </div>
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in 2030 CE.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-31458850312431481822015-05-23T03:03:00.000-07:002015-05-23T03:08:25.376-07:00Adam Ward<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVop8KL6YJQxtmvwhy5D5ihLG8jA-v-ZQeNFIHWcSUs9jmhWVxRHYdLAQZF8l0kIqI3uzppDcBqfjmBmP2BL8CWGGI8QBO8Suqx5bN8zlM0gQd2t8vTFuUaeXcy91dB32sR-eAwacQ0HY/s1600/10624648_361495807350257_134551841657720827_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVop8KL6YJQxtmvwhy5D5ihLG8jA-v-ZQeNFIHWcSUs9jmhWVxRHYdLAQZF8l0kIqI3uzppDcBqfjmBmP2BL8CWGGI8QBO8Suqx5bN8zlM0gQd2t8vTFuUaeXcy91dB32sR-eAwacQ0HY/s320/10624648_361495807350257_134551841657720827_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<u><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong></strong></span></u> </div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"><u><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Star-spangled
cylinders<o:p></o:p></span></strong></u></a><br /><span style="font-size: large;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-size: large; mso-bookmark: _GoBack;">Let’s
fight Western style:<br />
dominance from a distance<br />
missiles without empathy.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-size: large;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large; mso-bookmark: _GoBack;">Gravity
doesn’t look<br />
to see if Newton is waiting<br />
under the apple tree.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large; mso-bookmark: _GoBack;">Star-spangled
cylinders<br />
don’t care if the streets<br />
are filled with guns,</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large; mso-bookmark: _GoBack;">or
women clutching hands<br />
with a sugar-smiling child,<br />
or a father buying toys.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large; mso-bookmark: _GoBack;">I
would like humans<br />
with less discrimination,<br />
and bullets to have more.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _GoBack;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _GoBack;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<u><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">The simplest of things<o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></span></u></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<u><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></span></o:p></span></u></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Don’t build a palace with marble and gold.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Begin with the music that feathers the
breeze,</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">or the bicycle-bell of a wine glass toast.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Knead clay made of warm days on the grass,</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">and the sun’s lemon-light massaging your
face.</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">A clammy clench of hands on a picnic
blanket.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Let the foundations sit upon Sunday
lunches,</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">the crescendo of Christmas crackers,</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">the falling cadence of a goodnight kiss.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Decorate the hall with the smell of burnt
toast,</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">paint the walls with rouge cheeked grandchildren</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">as they pour sand from their shoes.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Furnish the room with morning-breath snores,</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">the bubble wrap clatter of rain against the
window,</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">and the sky spat lightning you watch from a
veiled room.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 144.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Tile the kitchen
with the sizzle of a camera flash,</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 144.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">laminate the
floor with the glossy prints,</span></span></div>
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</div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 144.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">plaster the
red-eye to your walls.</span></span></div>
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</div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 144.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">It’s not the ring
on your finger that matters.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 144.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">but the circular
band that your lips make,</span></span></div>
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</div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 144.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">when you shape
the words: </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">I do</span>.<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
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</div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span> </div>
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</div>
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<em>You can read it for yourself: <strong>Adam Ward </strong>is one of the top poets publishing in the UK small press right now, and it's a pleasure to have him back on the top UK small press poetry site. (Well, if you don't speak up for yourself, who will?) Find Adam's page on Facebook if you want more delicately nuanced sensory thrills and wordery.</em></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span> </div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: _GoBack;"></span> </div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-73198968405489678162015-05-17T03:59:00.001-07:002015-05-17T04:07:46.044-07:00Bryn Fortey<div dir="ltr">
Bryn Fortey has had a lifetime's involvement with words. One time editor of Bruce Hodder's favourite poetry magazine, OUTLAW, (<em>it's true! Bruce</em>),</div>
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a family tragedy forced him away from writing for a number of years before circumstances allowed him to return. The Alchemy Press</div>
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published MERRY-GO-ROUND, a mixed fiction and poetry collection of his work, in 2014.</div>
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<strong>ELVIS AND I</strong></div>
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Cardiac arrhythmia</div>
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(Irregular heartbeat to you)</div>
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Tick</div>
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Enlarged heart</div>
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(His by 50%, mine just a little)</div>
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Tick</div>
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High blood pressure</div>
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Tick</div>
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Short of breath</div>
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Tick</div>
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But I was never the avatar of cool</div>
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Nor become a figure of bloated excess</div>
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(Well not to the same extent)</div>
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I have far outlived his forty-two years</div>
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A musical snob at first</div>
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I danced to his rhythms in secret</div>
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Before acknowledging his heritage</div>
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Janis Martin sang: 'My Boy Elvis'</div>
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But he belonged to the world</div>
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And tears were shed around the globe</div>
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On the day he died</div>
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The King of Rock and Roll</div>
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Fat with junk food and prescription drugs</div>
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Pyjama bottoms round his ankles</div>
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Dead on his toilet floor</div>
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<br /></div>
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With my list of medical 'ticks' in mind</div>
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I am in and out of my 'smallest room' real fast</div>
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Knowing that one day the strain</div>
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Might be too much for my heart as well</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Bryn Fortey</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<strong>THERE, THE SONGBIRD</strong></div>
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I am the Captain</div>
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Of this vessel</div>
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I set the sail</div>
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And plot the course</div>
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You would lose</div>
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Should we wrestle</div>
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I am the master</div>
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Of brute force</div>
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<br /></div>
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The Sea</div>
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The shore</div>
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The orange skies</div>
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<br /></div>
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A songbird dies</div>
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For lack of grace</div>
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<br /></div>
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Space, the killer</div>
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Dark assassin</div>
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There the seat</div>
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The pilot sat in</div>
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There, the songbirds</div>
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Strangled face</div>
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Bryn Fortey </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-56496529019982757142015-05-01T04:41:00.000-07:002015-05-01T04:41:34.382-07:00Jono Bell
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vTxk02s-Medy_IBDiAbb3_hlNGLWXnlMK56DX730dGSrBF33riGROfEVcOQ3ZATv7shYHm9Zm7hhBV-12d_BivAej5o8zV_z0QP2ewkr0Pl4p-fjjv-fmb6-hat-3mbA2Bj0pUXa51o/s1600/th.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vTxk02s-Medy_IBDiAbb3_hlNGLWXnlMK56DX730dGSrBF33riGROfEVcOQ3ZATv7shYHm9Zm7hhBV-12d_BivAej5o8zV_z0QP2ewkr0Pl4p-fjjv-fmb6-hat-3mbA2Bj0pUXa51o/s1600/th.jpg" height="223" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong></strong></span></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong></strong></span></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Pamphlet of
lies</span></strong> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We've been here
for ages <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Working zero
hours for minimum wages <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #141823;">Just too weary
to turn the pages</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To your
pamphlet of lies <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Saw you on a
television debate <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Telling us who
to fear and hate <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You covered
everyone in my community <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">All the angels
on my estate <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We've been here
for ages <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Zero
hours,minimum wages. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We got some
angry sisters here<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Who wanna make
a mess of you <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Fools will vote
for liars <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jokers govern
and lead <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Crack the whip
on so called austerity <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Only the poor
and disabled bleed <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And if you dare
come to my estate<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With all your fake airs and graces <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We got people
at the food bank here <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wanna make a
mess of you <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We've been here
for ages <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Zero
hours,minimum wages. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And we will
burn all the pages <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To your
pamphlet of lies<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ignorance,fear
and bigotry <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;">Dance to your
propaganda</span></span> tune <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But you see we
are many <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Community won't
fade away it's stronger than you. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We've been here
for ages <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Zero
hours,minimum wages. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And we will
burn all the pages<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;">To your
pamphlet of lies</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"></span></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><em></em></span></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="5yl5"><span style="color: #141823;"><em>Jono Bell is the Jono in Jono & The Uke Dealers. He also plays in the 2 Tone Ska Band. This is a song the Dealers are working on which stands up exceptionally well as a poem.</em></span></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-39120154404184896022015-02-14T02:49:00.000-08:002015-02-14T02:50:21.041-08:00Andrew Darlington<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">EROTIC GHOSTS
OF HEBDEN BRIDGE:<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">DIMENSIONAL
ABSTRACTIONS <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">WHILE
OBSERVING GANYMEDE<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">too old, too sick, too tired for poems<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">done with poems, until returning here, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">where we were the bright and burning wind<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">bled and howling through Hebden Bridge<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">in spliced silver apocalypse frame after frame<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">with machine whirr and click whirr and click, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">and now they start up again, can’t staunch <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">these ghosts caught and stuck in flickering<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">projector images/ ...when we matched breath,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">exhaling into frosty-crystalline sunset over<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">hacked and gouged ripple-skied motorway/<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">by the underpass/flyover chrome-grille<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">concrete monolith of spiral M62 crawl<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">stooped and crawling, screaming ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">BASTARD</i>’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">at anonymous steel projectiles, our laughter<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">lost and rolling in shattered syllables all along<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">the verge/ ...and did we lie inert and not move<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">and breathe again as if it were our first breath<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">and at the same time our last breath, recalling <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">a bright and burning wind over Hebden Bridge<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">and ripple-skied motorway monolith of stoop<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">and crawl, and smile and think ‘this is good’,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">I don’t ask for my head to be stuffed<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">with these burning visions, but they’re here,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt 103.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">is
a sleeping madman still crazy…?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">too old, too sick, too tired for poems<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">trying to turn your mind to other things,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 103.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">and these ghosts return…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /></div>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">
</span><o:p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><h4 style="margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
<b><u><span lang="EN-GB">ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS NO MATCH FOR NATURAL STUPIDITY!!!<u></u><u></u></span></u></b></span></h4>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><h4 align="left">
<span style="font-size: large;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Check out my website</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red;">‘EIGHT MILES HIGHER’</span></i></b> – ‘The Blogspot for People Who Don’t Like Blogspots’ – latest postings include ‘Music From Sheffield: The Box’ interviews/history, Kurt Vonnegut 1983 interview, full Bill Nelson interview-live/album review-discog retrospective with rare archive art, ‘The Lost Worlds Of Arthur Conan Doyle: His SF, Fantasy & Horror’, Neil Sedaka Live, Elvis: My Visit To Graceland & Sun Studios with photos, ‘Rogue Moon’ by Algis Budrys – history & analysis, Cassandra Complex 1988 interview, and more<span lang="EN-GB">… </span>monthly updates <span lang="EN-GB">at <a href="http://andrewdarlington.blogspot.com/" style="font-weight: normal;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">http://andrewdarlington.<wbr></wbr></span>blogspot.com</a></span></span></h4>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span></o:p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; text-indent: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 231.7pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 1pt 4pt;">
<h2 style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 193.5pt;">
Andrew Darlington</h2>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Email: </span><a href="mailto:andydarlington@talktalk.net"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">andydarlington@talktalk.net</span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border: currentColor; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 1.0pt 4.0pt 1.0pt 4.0pt; padding: 0cm; tab-stops: 193.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Twitter: <u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://twitter.com/darlingtonandy"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="color: blue;">@darlingtonandy</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Website: </span><a href="http://www.andrewdarlington.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">www.andrewdarlington.blogspot.com</span></a></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-67641198617436999822015-02-14T02:04:00.001-08:002015-02-14T02:16:58.675-08:00Adam Ward<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The Piano</span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">It’s as if my fingers had forgotten the piano,</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">or maybe my eyes drifted from the keys</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">to the ivory of her smile once too often.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Maybe the beer had slowed my knuckles,</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">and the turquoise sponge of her eyes</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">drifted to my hands to watch me play,</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">but the nerves rose through my chest</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">and gave up music, or hope perhaps.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">As I played for the hollow home</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">somewhere beyond the rolling cloth</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">the creased quilt, dotted with sheep</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">bleating new accents in every field</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">she sat quietly, tongue small and thick</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">resting on a scarlet glistening pillow.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Her eyes stroked between my face,</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">my hands, and back and back.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">But I shook the notes away,</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">each cadence a memory discarded,</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">an inhibition lost, an epitaph.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Every bar was a coda waiting.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Each coda could not begin a new refrain</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">for there was no melody for here and now</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">without a scale of guilt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And those chords</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">would only accompany me to the gallows.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Yes the songs would end</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">the hammer ceased beating the strings</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">and her hands brushed mine</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">like a cotton bow upon airy skin.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Begin again her mouth would urge</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">and whipping hair of flame just once</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">to rest upon the lagoon she’d draped</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">around her hidden curves.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">As the bitter night closed the light</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">and my hands caught the wind</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">reaching for hers, subtly.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">She shrunk back into whispering black,</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">her elven feet carrying her home.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Back up the hill I’d drag my shoes</span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">through gravel, gate, and upstairs</span></div>
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">to play piano
perfectly alone</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span><br />
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<div class="normal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-pagination: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">A Rutlanders Yarn</span></span></b></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="normal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-pagination: none;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">In some wez shis wiser na.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Sh’c’n tell th’Jewsh, Christians,</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">th’Indoos oo’s right’ an’</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">seddle th’score on those what lied.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Tho still an’ dumb, th’eyes a closed</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">wi’sheckin’ thumbs, c’n see wha’ man</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">‘as killed ‘is brother uva, fer centries</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">in livin’ breathin’ blin’ness.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Jus’ las’ week shwas ‘ottin’ soup</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">an’ serm’nisin’ ‘rithmetic and revlations</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">to yunguns oo’d not utter a word</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">whils’ Mam’d wield th’ladel</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Mu’ely, an’ withou’ force she</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">gev um each day their delly bread</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">an’leddem no’ inta temptation.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">We mathed’er words to full bolls.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">When Dad cemmum frum wuck</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">th’dug, cherishin’ ‘is face wi’</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">baptisms a slick slobber</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">shwud thank th’Lord furriz return.</span></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Shid sen’ God wee us, dan th’jitty,</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">up each tree wid climb, uva each stile,</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">an’ anywur ‘cross th’Wellan’ Valley </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">wid yomp wi’spirit accussom t’ yunguns.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">An’ one day sh’open’d twa man,</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">seein’ only a bet’n gosp’l in wunand,</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">not th’knife ‘e ‘ung cashwul-like</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">‘aside ‘is fawny jacke’ an’ nea’ trousers.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Goodwill twall men, sh’ad ‘im in</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">sheckin’ wee a fruzzen gale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hid accep’</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">th’good char, of a good woman, wee th’</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">good book on ‘er oak tebbel</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Frit tho’ shid be, a’th’ final plunge</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">a’d no’ won’er tha’ a final preh would</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">‘scap ‘er lips, ta God ‘oo fersucker</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">a’tha’ mumment, in ‘er dires’ of need.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Na cotched in slumber, in wood an’ chapel,</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">‘ands ‘cross her motionless ‘eart she knows</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">an’ sees th’frui’ ova life whisper’d on knees.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Bu’ sh’speaks not til’th veil’s drawn</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><em>Adam Ward can be found on social media in the following places. Twitter - @WardyBoy82<br />FB Page - </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/AdamWardWriter" target="_blank"><em><span style="color: #1155cc;">https://www.facebook.com/<wbr></wbr></span>AdamWardWriter</em></a><em>. I last found him in North Gate bus station in Northampton, where I twisted his arm to give these poems to Beatnik. I think they're extremely good, for whatever my opinion's worth ~ Bruce.</em></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-47092674927612184572015-01-26T02:15:00.003-08:002015-01-26T02:18:23.221-08:00Essay: BY KEROUAC'S GRAVE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirqMAWIuxbNHC1PYlRRj9-h1ybP0lmiSM5nHK8GwfZ_StYX_XcFR_rG-qSqyr363OHyq96fzhu-sfdwd1om6VKc45lGoK9cUX8IUVfSR3aD43E7Ah0KzSChJXT26mBzb1sYrdhnmcpwIA/s1600/unnamed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirqMAWIuxbNHC1PYlRRj9-h1ybP0lmiSM5nHK8GwfZ_StYX_XcFR_rG-qSqyr363OHyq96fzhu-sfdwd1om6VKc45lGoK9cUX8IUVfSR3aD43E7Ah0KzSChJXT26mBzb1sYrdhnmcpwIA/s1600/unnamed.jpg" height="238" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">By Kerouac’s Grave</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">by Pat King</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sure, but I do realize that I’m quite the vain man, the pain-in-the-ass man. Dear friends, this is why I love looking at old pictures of myself, love showing them to other people. “Look, look, here I am! I’m real! Let me tell you a little about myself…” Most of the pictures are casual snapshots, taken either by my dad or mom. They’re nice enough things to look at and, in my dad’s case, done with a certain sense of aesthetics, since he was always an amateur photography enthusiast. However, among all the snapshots and pictures taken on vacations and holidays, there’s one picture that I particularly cherish. It just sums up a moment so completely. Yes, I’m pretty sure it’s my favorite picture.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;">Observe the photo’s composition: it’s framed deliberately, thoughtfully. It’s meant to evoke something very specific, perhaps something that the photographer only knew unconsciously, after all, she had only a moment to snap the thing. It’s clear that the photographer is trying to get at the real meat of the subject. The subject was my sad, dead-drunk face, my broken heart. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The photographer was Katie Jachowski. Later she would become Katie King, my beautiful wife. Maybe that’s part of the reason I’m so attached to the photo, because Katie took it. But Katie’s taken a lot of pictures in which I’ve been the subject. No, this picture is special. This one says so much.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Observe my late-20’s hipster long hair and the hoodie I was wearing and the all-too-serious look about my face. I wasn’t happy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The picture was taken on an unusually warm mid-October day in 2007, the final morning of an annual Jack Kerouac festival in Lowell, Massachusetts. The weekend had been a blur. We didn’t go to many events. Only one, actually. It was a Jazz brunch kind of thing that I have vague memories of. We wandered the city and drank whiskey in our hotel room. The whole thing had a tie-wearing, appeal-to-authority kind of vibe. We had more fun just doing our own thing. We did, however, make sure to visit the original </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the Road</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> manuscript. The teletype scroll was on display at a textile museum. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That whole trip had a kind of lost weekend feel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wonder whether that look in my eyes, the one that Katie captured so well in that picture, was the same one a literature professor saw when he said to me, “Just don’t end up like him,” meaning Kerouac, after I had casually mentioned my weekend plans to him: the drive from Baltimore to Lowell, the readings, how much I was looking forward to the whole thing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">End up like Kerouac?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like drinking myself to death, living my last decade in isolation, shunning my friends and dying from cirrhosis of the liver? Nah, man, not me. I was 27 years old and never going to die. I liked excess, I liked extremes. So what if I had been drinking and overeating for the past decade? What the hell? This guy, this tie-wearing literary professor thought that I was romanticizing Kerouac’s life. I guess he figured I thought it would be cool to die in physical and mental anguish, to have my body shut down. Get a life, man. Fucking asshole.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe I </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">kind of on the way toward killing myself. It’s hard to say for sure, because by that time I didn’t really drink with any real frequency. I would binge, sure, but I would also go cold turkey for a few months at a time. But couple that with my out of control eating and it was obvious that a breakdown of some kind was coming. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It crept up slowly, but it seemed so sudden.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was already overweight when the picture at Kerouac’s grave was taken, but I would keep gaining. Seven years later, I was 310 pounds. A hulking beast of a man who could barely walk without getting winded.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In late September 2014, I had just started a new supermarket job. I had only been there for a full day and a half day when the freakout happened. I’d been noticing that, for the past week or so, my vision had been getting bad. I used to have perfect 20/20 sight, but now I couldn’t see much past a few feet ahead of me. I thought maybe my eyes were sore or something. I didn’t know what was going on. I just figured it would get better on its own. But it didn’t get better. On that second day of work, I noticed that I couldn’t see a customer’s face across from the deli counter. I panicked and said that I needed to leave.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I went home. I told Katie what was happening and she came home early from work and took me to the emergency room. The nurse nearly gasped when she saw that my blood sugar was at 445, way over the normal 60 - 100 range. No good. Diabetes. Katie and I sat in the waiting room, silent, for about thirty minutes, until I was admitted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over the next four hours, I was given insulin. My sugar got down to about 140. After a long lecture on what I could eat (not much) and what I couldn’t (just about everything I liked), I was finally discharged. My vision had already started getting better before we left the hospital. It took a few days, but it finally returned to normal. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was devastated. I took the next day off of work. I figured I was fucked. Surely I was going to get fired.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I lay in bed, self-pity washing over me. All I wanted was to sleep, to drift away…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Katie got home from work that afternoon and walked into our little apartment to find that I had locked myself in the bedroom. I didn’t really mean anything by it. I just wanted to be alone for a while. But I guess I did mean something by it. Katie, panicked and afraid, called my dad, who drove 45 minutes just to talk to me. I wouldn’t let him in either, so he talked to me through my locked door. As always, he was kind, gentle, his voice soothing. He did his best to talk me down from my freakout. Finally, after about an hour, he asked, “What’s next? What’s the next step?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I said, “I’m going to work tomorrow.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I knew I had to do it. It was a daunting step because of my embarrassment over being so new and already calling out -- a working class dilemma if there ever was one. But if I could just make it through the day, through the awkward motions of a new job and new people, then the worst of it would be over. Then I could really get going.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And so I went to work. A couple of days later, I started to walk. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was only a few blocks at first. I got winded easily. But I kept walking. Every day at first, then five days a week, pushing myself a little more each time. Months later, I started to jog. I still have to alternate between jogging and walking, but I’m getting there. I’m making progress. I’m going to make it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By December 2014, I’d lost over 50 pounds. I was still about 260 pounds, quite a bear of a man, but getting smaller, getting healthier. I was also eating right. Meat and vegetables, bread every once in a while. No sugar. And I started meditating again, something I hadn’t done for months. All this is to say that, while these aren’t the happiest days of my life, they might end up being the most contented. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But, man, that picture. Sitting cross-legged at Kerouac’s grave didn’t mean much to me at the time, except maybe that I got a cool picture of myself out of it, a way of saying, “I was there.” But now I look at it and can’t help but see a kid. A kid pushing thirty who thought he knew his trajectory. I was trapped by a faulty sense of imagination. I’m 34 now, and far less sure of myself than I was back then. But what did being sure of myself ever get me?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes I can’t help but shake because of the immensity of it all.</span></div>
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</span> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thank you, Katie. I love you.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><em>Pat King is the author of the classic underground novel EXIT NOTHING.</em><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-77653190361037510932015-01-04T02:00:00.002-08:002015-01-04T02:36:19.404-08:00Review: MERRY-GO-ROUND by Bryn ForteyThe Alchemy Press, 2014<br />
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"Merry-Go-Round" has been available for a while now. It's a perfect gem of a book by a writer who I've only known, previously, for his poetry. According to the introduction by editor Johnny Mains, however, Bryn has been writing stories like those featured alongside the poetry here for years and years. Shows what an authority I am. <br />
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I know some of the poetry. So might you, if you read the little magazines, or if you saw me read them at a festival last summer. They're presented in six sections between the stories, and they explore some of Bryn's familiar themes--music and family in particular. His science fiction poetry is new to me. A taxi driver on Mars studies to keep his brain ticking over. The Siren Women of a distant planet slaughter their males by tearing their flesh with sharp teeth.<br />
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Clearly the self-deprecating Mr. Fortey has an imagination as wild as H.G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe. And they are the authors I kept thinking of as I read the stories. Not because Bryn is copying them, or even, necessarily, influenced by them; I'm not an expert in horror or science fiction, genres that most of the stories fall into, so if the author's style has precedents, I almost certainly don't know them. But the horror stories, especially "Shrewhampton North-East", which starts the collection, have an eerie mystery, and a perversity, that almost belongs in the Victorian periodicals. (When I say the stories are perverse, I mean that as a compliment.)<br />
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And like Wells, Bryn's science fiction takes us to places our own minds could not conceive of. He imagines technological advances that allow for the instantaneous transfer of human beings from one place to another, or from one time to another. Time travel, of course, is one of the most venerable tropes of science fiction, but Bryn handles it with real ingenuity. In "The Oscar Project" the protagonist journeys back to the days before Christ's execution--an interesting premise in itself for an author who has rejected religion, as Bryn seems to have done. I won't spoil your reading by telling you what happens, but the drama that unfolds is intensely gripping and beautifully described.<br />
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As I've already written, music is never far away when Bryn's around. It's something he and I have in common. Other stories in the collection concern his beloved jazz, a subject he writes about as well as anyone. I like most "The Pawn Shop Window", a melancholy tale about a trumpet player who lives in the Golden Age of jazz but never makes it. In some ways, at least for me, that one's about poets too: all the really wonderful men and women Bryn has known and I have known who lived hard lives trying to bring something to the world that the world didn't want. People in the small press whose stars were eclipsed by greater talents (like Louis Armstrong in the story), or lesser talents, like the poetasters whose academic connections got them mainstream publication and write-ups in the TLS.<br />
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You can probably still order copies of "Merry-Go-Round" online at <a href="http://www.alchemypress.co.uk/">www.alchemypress.co.uk</a>. I think it's a very good book, and not just because of my long-standing friendship with the author. There's science fiction in here, for Heaven's sake. Anyone who can get me reading, and even enjoying, that has got to be worth a wider audience.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-89815877778536110192014-12-03T05:29:00.001-08:002014-12-04T05:52:20.001-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTovAeY_tnwISN3eTl9GuxS0EB5Ncbtl1nhhSoYf8DHtk5uCGh6-Tojkj0IrxEfQ03Pgd9WfFQrSELxkctEqOKxg1qr6Johz1noeMlceRLWGh7A_79LQKbrpCONIu2N70Wz_4ZkCDaL84/s1600/thM5LGP71G.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTovAeY_tnwISN3eTl9GuxS0EB5Ncbtl1nhhSoYf8DHtk5uCGh6-Tojkj0IrxEfQ03Pgd9WfFQrSELxkctEqOKxg1qr6Johz1noeMlceRLWGh7A_79LQKbrpCONIu2N70Wz_4ZkCDaL84/s1600/thM5LGP71G.jpg" height="289" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">DEAD MEAT</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">by Bruce Hodder</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At ten pm under a thin December moon, Declan O'Connor, a short, overweight Irish shift manager, arrived in a new BMW to interview candidates for a cleaning job at the meat factory. He was half an hour late, but as he was in charge, who was going to tell him that?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Two Polish men, one Lithuanian, one Latvian and one English man had been waiting silently in the canteen since half-past nine. Once O'Connor was in place in his office, with his usual cup of coffee and his biscuits, a woman in a tabard came into the canteen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"New starters? Follow me."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The candidates were escorted to a meeting room, where they sat together around a big table talking quietly, mostly in Polish, but occasionally in broken English.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"What was your last job?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Nothing."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"You never work?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"A day here, a day there."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"How long you been in England?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Six months."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Latvian man, his blue eyes hollowed out by melancholy, told the Englishman, "Used to be jobs so easy to come by. Now nothing. So hard. Something very wrong."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The candidates were called one by one down the corridor to O'Connor's untidy office, and returned to the meeting room five minutes later.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"His accent so hard to understand," said the Latvian man. "Ireland is part of England? Same language?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The English candidate went in last. O'Connor told him with a conspiratorial smile, "You're in a minority here. There are only two English people on the shop floor. And most of the managers, of course."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">They had a cursory chat. O'Connor asked the Englishman about his experience, although the job had been advertised as "full training given." If he had known experience was a requirement, the Englishman would not have bothered to spend money he didn't have coming all the way across town on such a cold night. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Afterwards, he was sent back to the meeting room as the other candidates had been. They waited another five or six minutes for O'Connor to come in and announce three successful names out of the five. The chosen ones who would come back in tomorrow and start their training.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There was a complete absence of feeling in his voice or on his face as he read out the names. He might have been sorting fresh joints from rotten.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Leaving with the others, too tired to feel sorry for himself, the Englishman said, "Well, that was a waste of bloody time." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">One of the successful candidates, walking behind him, laughed and said, "Can you smell the dead meat?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">He was right: the stench rising from the factory floor was thick and awful. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Pushing open another door marked "exit", the Englishman looked at his mobile and realised he had missed the last bus home. Perhaps understanding why he looked so annoyed, and perhaps not, one of the Polish men touched him on the shoulder. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Hey, bro, you want a lift?" he said.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Outside the winter chill closed around them. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-91599706916667379942014-11-14T01:49:00.003-08:002014-11-14T01:56:09.132-08:00 BETHANY STIANA PATIENCE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtLXrzM96dKFcoa8n0tUDDsfcZEghhthnxsIwVLRc2YL-P3c1ex5hEc8zCG33Ambc9ytYvYgpsnwS3Uc8n320SFJwLvRXkhd6JqEM9PNuVLRm_II65lUmAIZdhKbFNXQbR6No2bXe7CM0/s1600/578171_10151876051494541_1227231796_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtLXrzM96dKFcoa8n0tUDDsfcZEghhthnxsIwVLRc2YL-P3c1ex5hEc8zCG33Ambc9ytYvYgpsnwS3Uc8n320SFJwLvRXkhd6JqEM9PNuVLRm_II65lUmAIZdhKbFNXQbR6No2bXe7CM0/s1600/578171_10151876051494541_1227231796_n.jpg" height="640" width="424" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><strong>Bio<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<strong>
</strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><strong>Bethany (Bee) Stiana Patience<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Performance
poet, marketer, founder of ‘Run Your Tongue’ spoken word night, and Charles
Bukowski devotee. Bee graduated with first-class honours in Creative and
Professional Writing from the University of Nottingham. Following a brief
period working as a poet in schools, she has since moved into the fast-paced
world of marketing, where she’s able to use both the left ‘logical’ side of her
brain and the right ‘creative’ side. Inspired by people and places, Bee’s work
focuses heavily on the five senses, and she believes that every word counts.
Her ultimate aim is for readers and listeners to see, hear, smell, taste, and
feel her poetry. Bee also happens to be the 2012 Nottingham Poetry Society Slam
first prize winner. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><strong>Poetry<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Written in response
to a poem called ‘Song for Bethany’ by the late Graham Joyce; a fabulous mentor,
an incredible author, and an insanely missed friend. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><strong>for Graham<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">life tasted like candyfloss<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">rolling ourselves in rizlas of earth<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">finding feet through hopscotch <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">joining freckles like dot-to-dot across<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">shoulders and collar bones<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">imagining cartoons and unicorns<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">onto skin<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">pulling <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">thorns<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">and arrowheads and bluebirds from chests<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">stabbed breath<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">twenty-nine reckless<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">glasses of wine<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">then coming up Sunday<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">aching gazes down stranger’s spines<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">unmarking red lines<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">under empty cigarette packets <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">and double-decker wrappers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">what do they know?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">what do I know?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">standing in love with another<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">not falling<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">promising not to let them hurt me <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">as much as the first<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">or the second<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">or the third<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">pulling thorns<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">and arrowheads and bluebirds from my chest<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">underneath my tongue<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">broken guitar strings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">are buzzing <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">like heavy rain on the sunroof of a car<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">like standing on the edge of a platform when a train goes past<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I’ll use lowercase for every single word<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">so that each letter knows their worth<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">and I will write<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I will write<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will write<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I will write<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">and listen<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">to the sound of <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">rules <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">tearing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">themselves <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">up<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><strong>He Didn’t
Want to be a Victim<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">What did you carry?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Anything –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>flick knife, lock knife, butterfly knife </span></i><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">–<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">How can something so beautiful
share its name with something so... <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #c00000;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Why?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I didn’t want to be a victim. I’ve seen
things, lost things.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The whisper of prison missed my ears beneath
the shouting streets.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A slap on the wrist – I can handle that<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">then he’ll fall back into
concrete embraces,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">continue to subsist in a
vulnerable bubble of kindred pretences <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #c00000;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">choosing
violence, over conversation<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #c00000;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Because they
live in another post code?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Their skin’s a different colour to yours?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 79.1pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Or you can’t pronounce their surname?<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #c00000;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I didn’t want to be a victim.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I didn’t want to be anybody’s victim.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">We can’t harmonise with a handshake.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Peering from my back pocket, hidden in my
jacket <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">the blade<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">boasts protection, saves face in
front of connections<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">better to arm yourself with a weapon, denote
intimidation<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">than be a victim.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Victim?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 49.65pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I didn’t want to be a victim.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I didn’t want to be anybody’s victim.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">We can’t harmonise with a handshake.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right; text-indent: 49.65pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">And now all I see are these walls<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">eats and sleeps a metre away from
his toilet –<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">disgusts</i> him. The drip<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">drip<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 108pt; text-indent: 19.6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">drip <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">of the sink,
syncs with the thud of his heart and the blink of his eye<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as
he tries to forget <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">the encounter of my shank with their skin<span style="color: #c00000;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #c00000; font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">puncturing layers of cotton,
cells, tissue<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">flesh tearing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">at the point of his knife<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">and the life
that taints his iron hand<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">that can’t be washed away with peroxide.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><strong></strong></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><strong></strong></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><strong>Unnoticed,
until<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">around half
past seven, eight o clock<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">he’s there.
Just there<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A lost
receipt for a packet of wine gums<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">an elderly
leaf, shrivelled<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">beneath your
foot<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Look.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The stranger
captured in the background of your photograph<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Always there<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">wrapped in<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">damp, last
month’s shirt, rolled in tobacco<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">as if he
grew from a seed of ash in the air<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">you stare <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">at this
1900s circus beast<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">but it’s you
who paints a smile on your face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A naked head
hides<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">under the
peak of a cap<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">his hair
lost<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">years ago<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">to a
receding hairline<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">along with
everything else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Both hands
placed below his chest<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">his
fingertips kiss<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">earth’s cast
offs trapped <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">under his
nails<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">his hands
offering<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">a bouquet of
decaying fruit<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘Excuse me?
I don’t suppose you’ve got forty-six pence?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He glances
at the change cradled in his palm<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘I’m just
short and I need to get a bottle of pop?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">For a
heartbeat, you panic<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">smell
diesel, taste metal, hear train brakes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">barbed wire
pricks your spine<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">then<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">you think, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">he</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">needs
more than a bottle of pop</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Two small
spheres of black ice, too close together<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">look at you<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">wait<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">‘Uh no,
sorry-’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Before
you’ve finished, he’s turned away<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">as if swung
by a gust of wind<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">zig-zagging
through the blind<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">unnoticed,
until<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">he asks them
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He’s asked
me three times – twice<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">in the same
night, once<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He’s there,
always there. Just there<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He mustn’t
have remembered me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I remember
him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4tapZz4mbJmpS2bnBMQbSZiw0Wv13b2SFHtUP-vqvDO_yysONcQr5PqkBXxIEhLUvos0XaednTTAGDNySctvKgeQlh62MQT-PiUsIJ5nnO3-sqdLNgMtiHf3QlezU3L8UXcdy6vWCq30/s1600/10606187_10152390433129541_8586019479746666190_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4tapZz4mbJmpS2bnBMQbSZiw0Wv13b2SFHtUP-vqvDO_yysONcQr5PqkBXxIEhLUvos0XaednTTAGDNySctvKgeQlh62MQT-PiUsIJ5nnO3-sqdLNgMtiHf3QlezU3L8UXcdy6vWCq30/s1600/10606187_10152390433129541_8586019479746666190_n.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-51715781547737962772014-11-12T03:59:00.001-08:002014-11-12T04:21:30.070-08:00Our Patron (Ahem) Saint<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-4983239407539686922014-11-05T03:14:00.001-08:002014-11-05T03:18:21.440-08:00The Beatnik Is Back. Long Live The New Beatnik!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today the New Beatnik launches.<br />
<br />
Remember the old Beatnik? It ran for six years, until other commitments, which included a fortysomething university degree and an unfortunate energy-sapping involvement in politics, took me away from the work that really mattered. Without knowing it, I was also getting ill. I had a growth beginning on my lungs, and pneumonia. But I survived. Suffolk people are stubborn as old tree stumps.<br />
<br />
Now the time has come to give Beatnik another go. But this time, or at least for now, it will be a little different. I won't be accepting unsolicited submissions for the time being. The volume of material I received before, once Beatnik was listed online (without my knowledge) as being open for contributions, was crushing. I loved reading the poems, and meeting, long distance, the poets, but I couldn't keep up.<br />
<br />
As I say, things may change. I may even get a little helper in. But until then I'll be approaching the poets and asking them for work. With any luck one or two will even say yes.<br />
<br />
An important point: the Beatnik reference in the site name doesn't mean that all the poetry is Beat or Beat-inflected. It's just a name, and an indication of my own favourite reading. But my taste in poetry is broad and the material you find here will reflect that.<br />
<br />
If you want to correspond with Beatnik, feel free to email me at <a href="mailto:bfredface@gmail.com">bfredface@gmail.com</a>. I'd like to print your messages if possible to stimulate discussion among readers, so if you do write, but you'd rather it stayed private, please mark your email 'not for publication'. I want, also, your recommendations--poets I should be considering for publication here.<br />
<br />
Currently I plan to post once or twice a month. The first featured poet, who I saw recently giving a stellar live reading, will be appearing soon. She may not be known by everybody, but I'm sure you'll like her work as much as I do when you read it. Keep an eye on the page, or like The New Beatnik on Facebook for updates.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-40325917234484555682012-01-24T03:29:00.000-08:002012-01-24T03:29:50.499-08:00satnrose<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGffnpZhe_p8ARwNghyrIJG3jMxwQkDx_jBgt2FelWksQld6pkaY3_ku66sbhV7H4mMcbu7Dk4RwQkCUunsScT-acCEuvkEtfGlLSMbanATnElj8ZHa6CN2ZTOELbygOCLJWfbClw_lY0/s1600/kachinka2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nfa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGffnpZhe_p8ARwNghyrIJG3jMxwQkDx_jBgt2FelWksQld6pkaY3_ku66sbhV7H4mMcbu7Dk4RwQkCUunsScT-acCEuvkEtfGlLSMbanATnElj8ZHa6CN2ZTOELbygOCLJWfbClw_lY0/s320/kachinka2.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;"><br />
<br />
<strong>TO RESPONSE THE RESPONSE </strong><br />
<br />
the mile being level the sharp air <br />
center where you burned the warm <br />
my eye heard the sound of the thing <br />
but only the sound my blade was <br />
made of the thin blue ice mile under <br />
the river it skates by pushing that <br />
in the limit which it maintains and in <br />
regard to response the response <br />
to her whom the rhythm which is <br />
the harmony is where am I where I <br />
am of the feet which move aligning <br />
me without any conscious thought <br />
until I am in you thought simply that <br />
if we make a quick survey of the <br />
river the wood which it pulled <br />
would hide the string which did not be- <br />
long here together and with her eagerly <br />
before me the pain would then <br />
break and each step slide on down <br />
the hill fast enough perhaps as if it <br />
was possible and if I do not need <br />
to go up to the top I just need to try </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;">================================ <br />
<strong><br />
BEFORE THE TRIAL</strong><br />
<br />
the city and you you are there so <br />
your love is the you man and the you <br />
corner of the street is defended you <br />
use the come on to come in and let <br />
someone far cross the time someday <br />
just for the hell of it you lost me <br />
on the stairs I hear the heart ex- <br />
plaining the beat so many years if some- <br />
one was you then you would know <br />
it I was expecting you so use one in <br />
a million what is true someday he’ll <br />
someday do what can be done be- <br />
fore the trial and then you will know <br />
you know and I’ll make your bail <br />
<br />
<br />
=========================<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>THE LAST MESSAGE IN THE LAST BOTTLE </strong><br />
<br />
being the last message in the last bottle <br />
it was something that I had to <br />
read when obtaining the good ones <br />
ignore the lie of the differential it <br />
is thought that we want entirety <br />
entirely but if or when we get it then <br />
we can’t handle it I was crossing <br />
the garden to watch the fight of the <br />
red ants with the white I was not <br />
unaware of the similarities between <br />
ants and men but for honest sweat <br />
and the promise of the brown earth <br />
you see with one eye more than <br />
half of what you see with two and so <br />
what is chosen is as good as the <br />
land can produce it is no empty small <br />
thing but as big as anything can be big <br />
hard to imagine I listened to the <br />
strange purple flowers who talked to <br />
me I opened the door to the NO <br />
of empty thought but surely no matter <br />
how elevated you get you have <br />
to come down sometime so I be- <br />
lieved in self-reliance but you know at <br />
some point we all need help when <br />
the hot day deserted me I was left in <br />
the cold to find my own way over <br />
the fences topped with broken glass <br />
and barbed wire but the top <br />
of the mountain was up there where I was <br />
going the boundaries made no difference <br />
so ignorant of any aftereffect <br />
I had to steal the where from the <br />
nowhere to wake up and fly right but <br />
moved by the mercy of the salt <br />
like a child who has it easy easy the gun <br />
held to your head and the well full <br />
of your own blood and the so-called <br />
epiphany you got wasn’t what you <br />
hoped for so it’s back to the factory <br />
for you you puppet and next time <br />
you’d better have the proper respect <br />
<br />
<br />
============================= <br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>THE DRAGONS CAME ROARING OUT</strong> <br />
<br />
<br />
she provided the liquor <br />
and the fire pedestrian lit the room the roses <br />
danced on the table <br />
and the cat insulted me all night which I thought <br />
was hilarious and the <br />
cat just got pisseder and pisseder and so in the <br />
morning the landlord <br />
kicked me out on the street someone came up <br />
to me and spoke a <br />
Spanish I could almost understand and I just kept <br />
nodding and they <br />
went away shaking their three heads the mountains <br />
separated in front <br />
of me so I dragged my carcass up thru the canyons <br />
and sheets of ice <br />
glared back at me a dog wanted to bite at me but it <br />
had a steel wire muzzle <br />
so I grabbed at him and his walker ran away <br />
with the bitch so I <br />
went to ground but didn’t have the technical skill <br />
to put the slug in the slot <br />
and the brakeman pushed me through and <br />
out on the tournament <br />
floor the dragons came roaring out and I had <br />
to step into the belly <br />
to get to where I was going I looked at all this <br />
as if I were my own <br />
ghost and I guess I should have been frightened <br />
but if you must know <br />
to tell the truth I just didn’t know who I was <br />
<br />
==================== <br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>THE MYTH OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS </strong><br />
<br />
the achievement of wealth is a chimera <br />
you can take the appropriate <br />
expedient and clip its wings whether <br />
grasping at the best straw is a <br />
wise course of action or letting the <br />
mystery play play itself out we do <br />
what little we can to lighten the <br />
damage if the process can go or be <br />
reversed you have to have known <br />
that something would change the <br />
cost is not large in the short-term <br />
but in the long term brutal money <br />
wasted is only time so someone <br />
stabilizes while someone else tries to <br />
get rich quick the rule of law <br />
and legislation won’t stop the process <br />
of erosion but only slow it down <br />
or else speed it up so in light of the <br />
present condition we can either <br />
try to sit stock still or run it into the <br />
ground cause either way y’know <br />
absolute power stupefies absolutely<br />
<br />
===================== </span><br />
<br />
Bio: "satnrose is a well-known antiquarian bookseller, and formerly a not-so-secret messenger in the innermost depths of Capitol Hill and K Street. He has been published in a number of literary magazines, but since his reincarnation as 'satnrose' a couple of years ago, he has been published in EVERGREEN REVIEW, ICONOCLAST, DANSE MACABRE, COUNTEREXAMPLE POETICS, wtf.pwm, OYSTERS & CHOCOLATE, APPARATUS, GLOOM CUPBOARD, ESCAPE INTO LIFE, MAD SWIRL, METAZEN, THE <span style="border-bottom: #366388 2px dotted;">NOVEMBER 3RD</span> CLUB, STRAY BRANCH, THE CITRON REVIEW, THE COPPERFIELD REVIEW, THE HELL GATE REVIEW, THE BLUE JEW YORKER, MASTODON DENTIST, FULL OF CROW, FORGE, ROSE & THORN JOURNAL, THE MAYNARD, NEFARIOUS BALLERINA, COUNTERPUNCH, deadpaper, theviewfromhere, MAVERICK, CALLIOPE NERVE, THE BATTERED SUITCASE, PSYCHIC MEATLOAF, HAWK & WHIPPORWILL, etc., etc."<span style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;"><br />
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-50619308719501587542012-01-17T03:23:00.000-08:002012-01-17T03:33:07.952-08:00Michaelsun Stonesweat Knapp<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><em>When a poet sends a really good batch, it's hard to say no to any of them. Here's another three by Michaelsun Stonesweat Knapp. For a brief bio of the poet, go to last week's posting.</em></span><br />
<br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><strong>If Crime Doesn’t Pay Sandwiches Will</strong><br />
<br />
There are two reasons<br />
I know of<br />
Why most people<br />
who are missing fingers<br />
lost them in the first place<br />
<br />
either they’re a great carpenter<br />
but lost the digit<br />
to a saw blade<br />
while they were distracted<br />
<br />
or a Yakuza <br />
who failed their <i>Oyabun</i><br />
and had the extremity cut off<br />
to teach them a lesson<br />
<br />
So when the woman at Quizznos<br />
handed me my two Sammies in their brown bag<br />
and I noticed she only had <br />
one knuckle per finger <br />
my immediate thought was<br />
she had to be the world’s greatest woodworker<br />
<br />
but then it occurs to me</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">why then was she<br />
working the register<br />
at a sandwich joint?<br />
<br />
So the only logical <br />
explanation<br />
is that she was<br />
at one point<br />
just a really shitty gangster.</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">***</span><br />
<br />
<strong>Rob and the Birds</strong><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Rob is a carpenter<br />
for the county fair;<br />
has been since high school<br />
before either of his kids were born.<br />
He’s the one<br />
<br />
who does the work<br />
in the repurposed hanger<br />
with tall wide doors<br />
that lets birds and the wind in.<br />
<br />
<br />
Every night at closing <br />
he walks between the walls<br />
of the hanger <br />
and the facades <br />
he builds every year, <br />
throughout the year, <br />
<br />
<br />
looking for people <br />
who went through an access door <br />
to hide. He never finds anyone, <br />
but what he does find <br />
, next to the various wrappers of God knows what<br />
, resting on the sea of kettle corn that he walks on, <br />
are dead birds. <br />
<br />
<br />
The ones the wind brought in <br />
and left to twist <br />
in the cool air conditioner breeze. <br />
<br />
<br />
The sparrows starve <br />
and fall, unable to fly or even waddle.<br />
<br />
<br />
The pidgeons find the corn <br />
back there and their stomaches soon burst. <br />
<br />
<br />
The hawks are the worst for Rob. <br />
They manage to look so stately <br />
, so immortal, <br />
while trapped in the hanger. <br />
They last the longest<br />
, eating the other birds, <br />
but they too die. And Rob <br />
<br />
<br />
brings them all out. He <br />
carries them like friends<br />
, wraps them in white newspaper, <br />
and takes them to the dumpster out back <br />
where the birds had wanted to be <br />
from the moment they flew in,<br />
and couldn’t fly out. <br />
<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>Sink or Float?</strong><br />
<br />
<br />
A carrot?<br />
A potato?<br />
A can of tomato paste?<br />
Sink.<br />
<br />
<br />
A fork?<br />
A rock?<br />
A coke?<br />
Sink.<br />
<br />
<br />
A Florida orange?<br />
A four by four?<br />
A plastic orange?<br />
Float.<br />
<br />
<br />
A car?<br />
A scream?<br />
A brother?<br />
<br />
<br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-52127421266582141132012-01-07T04:42:00.000-08:002012-01-07T05:09:52.702-08:00Michaelsun Stonesweat Knapp and Natalie Morales<strong>Michaelsun Stonesweat Knapp</strong> <br />
<div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Or49HS0k_6SioIWaxLL3K3An4RLua2ABQ31GHaxBt3U5csZWNDEnEzib4srd1zyJd35jCtyKtz1tBi0cGlypmJo0WzKURe0A7YuBa51KfedOvJGwdAnkvh6S4ruZKWjKblQoSRXfjvc/s1600/untitled.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Or49HS0k_6SioIWaxLL3K3An4RLua2ABQ31GHaxBt3U5csZWNDEnEzib4srd1zyJd35jCtyKtz1tBi0cGlypmJo0WzKURe0A7YuBa51KfedOvJGwdAnkvh6S4ruZKWjKblQoSRXfjvc/s1600/untitled.bmp" /></a></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Venice on the Second</strong></span><br />
<br />
<br />
</div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">it’s twenty eight hours shy of July Fourth,</span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">in Venice, by way of the 10 freeway, </span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">and the sky groans in its sleep </span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">with premature fireworks and </span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">electricity running relay races on telephone wires.</span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">In this city by the sea,</span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">in the parking lot of a Ralphs, </span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">a homeless dog is tied to a shopping cart collector </span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">and alternates saying first, “Save me,” </span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">but then “Go away.</span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">I listen, eating a peanut-butter cup </span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve gotten for being a good boy; </span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">sit on the hood of mother’s Toyota Sienna, </span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">which both looks and drives like a whale,</span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">and after considering the dog’s requests </span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">I turn to him and reply </span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">“No,”</span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">and he hushes-up and lays down </span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">until he’s picked up by a man </span></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;">who isn’t a homeowner either. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
</div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><em>Bio: I am a 22 year old, Native American, college graduate from the Los Angeles area. I have been published in In Somnis Veritas, Creepy Gnome, and will be in the upcoming editions of </em><a href="http://carnivalitmag.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0068cf;"><em>Carnivalitmag.com</em></span></a><em> as well as California State <span class="ecxyiv429316265ecxyiv942075900Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman", "new york", times, serif;">University</span><span class="ecxyiv429316265ecxyiv942075900Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman", "new york", times, serif;"> San Bernandino's newpaper The Coyote Chronicle.</span></em></span><br />
<br />
<br />
</div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></div><div class="ecxyiv429316265ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span> <span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 12pt;"><strong>NATALIE MORALES</strong></span></div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><strong>For Kathleen</strong></div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">Some people would rather you stay with the abusive boyfriend</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">who demanded seventy-five hundred dollars</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">in return for your life</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">who bought you birthday gifts with your money</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">because he’s a chivalrous motherfucker</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">who put a cigarette out on your face</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">since the ash tray was full.</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">God would rather you use your soul</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">to carry around demons</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">like an old suitcase</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">Pastor would rather you batter-ram your emotions</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">into a sardine can</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">on the tip of a pinhead.</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">But let me tell you</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">—sister—</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">who you are is fine with me.</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">And let me tell you</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">—sister—</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">the caged bird doesn’t sing.</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">You’re a peacock, not a parrot</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">—sister—</div><div align="center" class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">so let your wings breathe.<br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-26756798587140241562012-01-04T02:51:00.000-08:002012-01-04T04:01:29.917-08:00Hello Marylou: Lu Anne Henderson Tells It Like It Was<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnV1re9ma7j4Er6thCH-QFVlcFQyVoh0YGQQQpx3fQ4jmOvshCSECrUBgHPKwPDha6uUUI-8zgC3eKz80d2TjFMNLoIBf3vlR7uGYghnYEGL2bFDs7cudnJk6iI2mYNx1WOQd9ZtqXqcU/s1600/FC9781936740048.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnV1re9ma7j4Er6thCH-QFVlcFQyVoh0YGQQQpx3fQ4jmOvshCSECrUBgHPKwPDha6uUUI-8zgC3eKz80d2TjFMNLoIBf3vlR7uGYghnYEGL2bFDs7cudnJk6iI2mYNx1WOQd9ZtqXqcU/s1600/FC9781936740048.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">“One and Only: The Untold Story of ‘On The Road’”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">by Gerald Nicosia and Anne Marie Santos</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">Viva Editions</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">ISBN: 978-1-936740-04-8</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">Cultural and literary studies of the 1950s tend to focus on two things: conformity, and its breakdown. Which is really one thing, of course, in different phases. Along with Marlon Brando, James Dean and Elvis Presley, in the ethnocentric, superficial examination of this cultural stasis that everybody was supposed to be frozen in, the Beat writers and poets are generally credited with shaking the citizenry loose and leading them to the cultural revolution of the Sixties. That’s too shallow, too convenient and too easily-rubbished a theory, but I’m happy to go with it when I’m not feeling pedantic and ready for an argument.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">For a long time, how you felt about cultural revolution defined how you felt about the Beats, at least if you were a casual reader or an interested but unaffiliated poet/ novelist in your own right. If you liked rock and roll, cars, drugs, hair, peace and sex – if you were sceptical towards institutional authority – you probably liked the Beats. And if you didn’t like those things, you probably hated the Beats. From the start the Academics had their own snobbish put-down agenda, based on who knows what (the sheer impudence?) and most of the hoary young-old bastards still do. It must drive them nuts that nobody except other Academics or people who wanted to be Academics ever listened to them. You can, after all, get a copy of “On The Road” in almost any decent-sized bookshop in the Western world (not that that’s much of a measure of quality, when I think about it).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">But since the Seventies a type of criticism has been developing that Beat aficionados can’t ignore, and that’s the one analysing Beat writing and culture as rooted in deliberate or inadvertent misogyny. The university in my own town, Northampton, teaches to this day that Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, in the journeys back and forth across America that make up the narrative of “On The Road”, were partaking of a freedom that the women of the time couldn’t; any woman who accompanied them – like Lu Anne Henderson - was brought along as some sort of victim of their terrible sexual machinations, and would be maligned by society as a teenage whore. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jack’s was a boy gang, </i>as the blurb for Joyce Johnson’s 1983 memoir about, among other things, her time as Kerouac’s girlfriend. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Women were minor characters at best.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“One and Only: The Untold Story of ‘On The Road’” is a very important book, in that it turns the current critical wisdom about the role of women and the Beat Generation upside down by presenting, at length, the largely unmediated testimony of the one woman who hasn’t really been heard, and – you might argue – the one woman who really saw the Beats up close. The woman is Lu Anne Henderson herself, known to all who’ve read “On The Road” as Dean’s “beautiful little sharp chick Marylou” (Kerouac 4). Lu Anne, who’d been Cassady’s wife and travelled by car and bus across country with him in 1946 when he was heading for New York to fulfil his dream of going to Columbia and learning how to write. Lu Anne, who’d met Kerouac and helped Neal and the reticent Jack form a friendship that would ultimately give birth to the novel. Lu Anne, who in 1948, despite their annulment and Neal’s marriage to Carolyn Robinson, travelled back across <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> with Cassady and then Kerouac at a later stage of the journey. Lu Anne, who smoked opium with Cassady, Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg to celebrate New Year’s Eve 1948 and then went with Jack and Neal to <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Algiers</city>, <state w:st="on">Louisiana</state></place> to take their friend Helen Hinkle away from the house of William S. Burroughs, where she’d been living on the charity of the man who’d write “Naked Lunch” one day and had finally outstayed her welcome.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">I could go on for three more paragraphs about Lu Anne’s counter-cultural adventures, as described so beautifully in her own words in the book from the transcriptions of two interviews Gerald Nicosia did with her in 1978 when he was researching his monumental Kerouac biography <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Memory Babe</i>;<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>but I think the point is well made. Lu Anne didn’t stay at home in a nice little suburban house venturing out only for Tupperware parties and baby showers and making sure that her husband always had his dinner on the table when he came home from work. That’s one of those Time magazine clichés about Fifties womanhood that have taken hold in the minds of Academics because in the postmodernist age intellectuals can’t tell the difference between the real world and media representations of it. Lu Anne didn’t stay home when her old man, or someone else’s old man, took off across country for a trip either. She went with him. It’s like she says on page 122 of the book: <em>I went on that trip solely as an adventure. […] I loved to go any<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">way; I was always ready. I was like Neal in that respect – it didn't </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">take very much to move me.</span></em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">It’s interesting, isn’t it, how inconvenient a view that is of a woman when there are still, thankfully, a few people left in the world who admire such carefree behaviour in a man. Why do male and female commentators (feminist writers have charged the Beats with misogyny for years) prefer to think that the women who travelled a<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nd </i>the women who stayed at home in their phoney historical construct weren’t equally responsible for their own decisions? Lu Anne is clear throughout the transcript that she was responsible for hers at every point along the wild, dangerous, thrilling road she travelled. She wasn’t manipulated by anybody; she didn’t miss out on anything – except perhaps the intimate love she might have shared with Jack <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> Neal at different times, although she saw deeply enough into the souls of both to understand why it never happened – and she definitely <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wasn’t </i>the loose-moraled “slob” she felt she had been portrayed as by Carolyn Cassady in her book “Off The Road” and in the movie “Heart Beat”. What was so wrong with three people who loved each other sharing a bed at the same time? Lu Anne asks in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“One and Only”</i> ( <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Heart Beat, </i>a rather average movie as I remember, shows Carolyn discovering Lu Anne in bed with Neal and Allen Ginsberg.) Indeed, what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> wrong with that? I wouldn’t want to do it myself, but what? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">The majority of the narrative in Lu Anne’s interview recalls in detail the same events Kerouac describes it “On The Road”. It’s like the same novel, but from the point of view of Marylou; and she is a wonderful storyteller, with a memory for detail and a gift for the evocation of scene that might have made her a great novelist, if she’d ever attempted to tell her story on the printed page. But we have her great gift memorialised now, thanks to Nicosia, and the form in which it’s presented to us and to Time (that of the interview instead of the novel) doesn’t matter; gas station attendants can be poets, as Bob Dylan says. Or was that farmers?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">Later sections of the interview reflect on the precipitate decline of Kerouac when fame arrived – too late for a man already exhausted and disappointed by life, she says. Lu Anne privileges us also with a last glimpse of a weary Neal, with whom she had maintained irregular contact right to the end, heading down to <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Mexico</place></country-region> on that last, fateful trip. “Where do we go from here, babe?” Neal asks her (<city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Henderson</place></city> in <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Nicosia</place></city> 157). It was clear that the answer, for Neal, was nowhere. The railroad tracks in San Miguel de Allende, and a lonely death from exposure, awaited.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">“One and Only” concludes with an unsent letter from Lu Anne to Neal, dated 1957, a consideration of her role as an important facilitator of the Beat movement, a biographical section about Al Hinkle, Ed Dunkel in “On The Road” and lifelong friend to Lu Anne, and lastly, a lovely, intimate and very moving 31 page account of her mother’s life by Lu Anne’s daughter Anne Marie Santos. I don’t know whether it was the cumulative impact of the book, or just the post-Christmas mood I was in, or whether Anne Marie’s story had got me thinking unconsciously about my own mother, also gone now and dearly loved, but by the time I reached the last page of her account I was in such a state of heightened emotion I cried. I genuinely can’t think of the last time I cried at a book, other than in the case of Ann Radcliffe’s “The Mysteries of Udolpho”,when I cried in anguish because it was so boring. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">My feelings about “One and Only” should be clear by now, after the long weeks we’ve shared together dissecting it. I think it’s a beautifully conceived, edited, and written book, and for the reasons I’ve already outlined, I’m convinced it is the most important addition to Beat scholarship since <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Nicosia</place></city>’s “Memory Babe”. Bookshops may not carry it so you could find yourself doing a little work to track it down, but it’s worth it. Failing anything else, or perhaps as your first stop, try visiting the publisher’s website at <a href="http://www.vivaeditions.com/">http://www.vivaeditions.com/</a>. Then come back to BEATNIK and let me know what you think.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">Bibliography</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">Johnson, Joyce. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Minor Characters. </i><city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">London</place></city>: Picador, 1983.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">Kerouac, Jack. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On The Road</i>. <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">London</place></city>: Andre Deutsch, 1973.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><city w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">Nicosia</span></place></city><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">, Gerald and Anne Marie Santos. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">One and Only: The Untold Story of ‘On The Road’. </i><city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Berkeley</place></city>: Viva Editions, 2011.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-13602737295678371512011-12-30T02:25:00.000-08:002011-12-30T02:27:13.547-08:00Charlotte San Juan: Three Poems<div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidHeJi77_KmcDFGctyUaRtcb09iKl6oUsIW4GVkn-kzfo1eRp-snlbJG-wVLBIYd_pjEmn0I9-Lask7QH7a2oxcS1kYvyYentt07Qhoo_dwsbPgq8MgPlvRqOXgWr97G89elpqaNmZ_TU/s1600/untitled.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidHeJi77_KmcDFGctyUaRtcb09iKl6oUsIW4GVkn-kzfo1eRp-snlbJG-wVLBIYd_pjEmn0I9-Lask7QH7a2oxcS1kYvyYentt07Qhoo_dwsbPgq8MgPlvRqOXgWr97G89elpqaNmZ_TU/s1600/untitled.bmp" /></a></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What Drives You Home At 2am</span></strong></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You admit that it is the way</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An oncoming train becomes a slow moving</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Upside down glowing socket. </span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A snake whose loud mouth is open wide</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And full of light</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You admit that it is every stray cat</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Huddled beneath parked cars</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hugged together, a tight ball of yarn</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eyes caught by your headlights,</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two illuminated silver coins</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Marking the way back home.</span></div></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>California Trash</strong></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At times my eyes are </span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shooting blanks into the horizon, </span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Trying to puncture the clouds. </span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Trying to escape the smog and nicotine,</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the yellow sheets of paper that burgers are wrapped in</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That float around in the gutter,</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In parking lots and</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sway across the beach sand.</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Blackout</span></strong></div></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You never liked night driving.</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And now, on the road</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You find yourself a strange,</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lonely vehicle that careens</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Up an empty street</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Drenched in the pitch black nightgown</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of the devil herself.</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It makes you remember the folksy darkness</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of Massachusetts, </span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How a single pair of headlights</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Isolate every passing tree</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like tall nude broads</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Exposed and awkwardly branching,</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Momentarily bathed in silk light.</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then shrouded safe by</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An ink curtain draping over them</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As you, with feigned indifference</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leave them untouched, distant figures</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To be groped by other lights.</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-4731936934550838862011-12-23T02:16:00.000-08:002011-12-23T02:44:14.341-08:00Gerald Nicosia: Press Release on the Kerouac Estate<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Gerald Nicosia, author of the best biography of Jack Kerouac <strong>Memory Babe</strong>, and editor of a moving account of the life of Kerouac's daughter <strong>Jan Kerouac: A Life in Memory</strong>, writes about the recent appellate court ruling that the will being used to direct the operations of the Kerouac Estate is a forgery. </em></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In May 1994, Jan Kerouac filed a lawsuit in Pinellas County, Florida, against the Sampas family, alleging that they had forged her grandmother Gabrielle Kerouac’s will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jack Kerouac had left his entire literary estate to his mother Gabrielle, and when she died, a will was filed leaving all his property to Stella Kerouac, his widow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jan Kerouac died on June 5, 1996, before the case went to trial; but it was eventually carried on by Jack Kerouac’s nephew, Paul Blake, Jr., son and only child of Jack Kerouac’s late sister Caroline Kerouac Blake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kerouac, in fact, had written a letter to his nephew Paul the day before he died, telling him that, after his mother passed on, he wanted his entire literary estate to go to Paul.</span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On July 24, 2009, Judge George Greer in the Probate Court of Pinellas County, Florida, ruled that Jack Kerouac’s mother’s will, leaving his entire estate, including all of his literary properties, to his widow Stella Kerouac was a forgery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In an unusually lengthy and strong decision, Judge Greer wrote that Kerouac’s mother, who was partially paralyzed and bedridden from a stroke, “would have lacked the coordination to affix her signature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The [probate] court is required by law to use a clear and convincing standard in determining these matters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, even if the criminal standard of beyond all reasonable doubt was the requirement, the result would certainly be the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly, Gabrielle Kerouac was physically unable to sign the document dated February 13, 1973, and, more importantly, that which appears on the Will dated that date is not her signature.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He “ordered and adjudged that the document bearing date of February 13, 1973 and admitted into probate herein as the last will and testament of Gabrielle Kerouac is a forgery….” He also ordered the probate of Gabrielle’s will, which had given all of her property to Stella, to be revoked.</span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Sampas family, the brothers and sisters of Stella who had inherited the Kerouac Estate from her when she died in 1990, immediately took an appeal of Judge Greer’s decision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Co-heir and Literary Executor for the family, John Sampas, told British journalist Stephen Maughan “We do not believe the Will of Gabrielle Kerouac was forged and do believe the Judge based his ruling on fictitious accounts by a doctor who never met Gabrielle Kerouac.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sampas also lamented that a strong defense of the will had not been put on before Judge Greer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why he and his family did not mount such a strong defense, he did not explain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Our lawyers,” Sampas claimed to Maughan, “would have demolished Alan Wagner and his corrupt father Bill Wagner [Paul Blake, Jr.’s attorneys].”</span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">While the appeals process continued, Paul Blake, Jr.’s lawyers were prevented from going after assets of the Kerouac Estate, and even from getting any sort of accounting of those assets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All that is now changed.</span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On August 10, 2011, the District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District, ruled against the Sampas family and affirmed Judge Greer’s ruling that Kerouac’s mother’s will was a forgery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The way the decision was written, it is a final decision and cannot be appealed further.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That means it is now in the history books that the Kerouac Estate, arguably the most valuable literary estate in recent history, was stolen.</span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bill Wagner, Blake’s attorney, stated, “In effect, the war is over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gabrielle’s will has been determined to be a forgery and now our chore is to see what assets we can trace and still recover or recover rights to.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Jack Kerouac died, Stella was entitled to only one-third of the estate by a Florida dower’s rights law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rest should have gone to Jan Kerouac and Paul Blake, Jr.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>States Wagner: “The Estate of Gabrielle Kerouac is being administered at this time and the Personal Representative [appointed by the Florida court] is collecting information to allow the Estate to benefit as Jack Kerouac intended, subject only to the Widow’s Share awarded at his death to Stella [by Florida state law] ….”</span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Continues Wagner: “By reason of the above events, the 1/3<sup>rd</sup> of the assets of Jack Kerouac which passed by law to Stella became the property of Stella’s siblings. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The remaining 2/3<sup>rd</sup> of the assets of Jack Kerouac that passed under Jack’s will to Gabrielle belong to her recently re-opened Estate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The beneficiaries of that Estate are Paul Blake, Jr., and the heirs of Jan Kerouac, sharing equally once the Estate is fully administered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The discovery of tangible personal property and the accounting for intangible personal property, including intellectual property and money assets, both past and future, will be the focus of the Personal Representative under the supervision of the Probate Court.”</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-36343122392782533232011-12-21T02:52:00.000-08:002011-12-21T02:52:23.807-08:00A.G.Synclair<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfHtyx2dlvtm7VIsAx_4yzAP4COQ7KD7Rl3QGcATdwyNX1AoGNDkwvM-9Ayo5CywTlu7fSTCkVxGVqM8Auzo5wEHrjbhol_1dMbtsejs_5_IvLzWvmAtYowu8M7beXyn-UHjVhyphenhyphen3d1AWQ/s1600/1003101415%255B1%255D%255B1%255D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfHtyx2dlvtm7VIsAx_4yzAP4COQ7KD7Rl3QGcATdwyNX1AoGNDkwvM-9Ayo5CywTlu7fSTCkVxGVqM8Auzo5wEHrjbhol_1dMbtsejs_5_IvLzWvmAtYowu8M7beXyn-UHjVhyphenhyphen3d1AWQ/s320/1003101415%255B1%255D%255B1%255D.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />
</span><br />
<br />
<u><b>WEST REDUX</b></u><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">a raven<br />
<br />
the mighty susquehanna<br />
curling inward<br />
<br />
caw caw caw.<br />
<br />
a breach<br />
<br />
the road was never there<br />
was never mine. it was conceived as a ghost.<br />
<br />
the earth is turning colder. invisible.<br />
there is a bluster of blinding snow.<br />
<br />
she'll insist that I smell like the west<br />
like sun washed trees. like apples.<br />
<br />
like a million little aftershocks.<br />
<br />
later, she'll brush her teeth in the shower.</span> <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;"><em><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><b>Bio:</b></span><br />
A.g. Synclair is the editor and publisher of The Montucky Review. He doesn't have an MFA in anything but still manages to publish regularly. He lives, writes, and collaborates in southwestern Montana with his significant other, the artist and poet Heather Brager.</span></span></em></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-43308522300989305042011-12-19T02:15:00.001-08:002011-12-19T02:35:09.317-08:00In the Country of Nice Things<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">Review</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">The Accidental Navigator: New and Selected Poems and a Story </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">by Henry Denander (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lummox Press</i>)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">A new book by Henry Denander is always good news. This one isn’t completely new, since I received my review copy in October, but who knows, maybe a few of you won’t have come across it yet. And if I want to keep getting books as good as this mailed to me for free I have to keep up my part of the bargain.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">I like Henry Denander. You should know that. My memory isn’t good, but I believe our paths first crossed nearly a decade ago, in a brilliant print magazine run by Bryn Fortey. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Outlaw</i>. I could see then that he knew about jazz and he knew about Charles Bukowski, two things that sell a man or woman to me pretty quickly even to this day. When I got to know him better I realised that he had adapted Bukowski’s apparently plain (though technically adept) narrative style to create his own distinctive voice, which is the four-leaved clover in the poetry game; so few of us achieve it you could write all of the names down while the kettle was boiling and still have time to check your Facebook. I also discovered as my familiarity with Henry grew that he was a good painter and a really nice guy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">You would not think that the latter detail mattered very much, but it’s important when it comes to a consideration of his poetry. That voice, the person speaking to us out of the poems in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Accidental Navigator </i>and Henry’s other books, is, to use Gerald Locklin’s word, a ‘congenial’ one. Mature, witty, reasonable, not at all given to the posturing often evident in those who have taken Bukowski as their leader instead of a significant signpost on the road to liberation of style and content. Henry Denander pretends to be nobody and his poems are filled with the matter of his own life.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">But then, Henry’s life is not an ordinary one. He described himself somewhere as a ‘bean counter’ in the entertainment industry, and in the course of counting those beans he has met a fair few legends of jazz and other musical forms -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>one poem in the collection, “Royalty Advances”, concerns his separate dealings with a “fantastic guitar and harmonica player” (we can only wonder who that is) and Chet Baker, who had much more of the Beat spirit about him when receiving his money. Henry also keeps a home on a Greek island, being financially comfortable and unashamed of it – it is usually the done thing for poets to claim they work in a drive-thru’ and have holes in their shoes (I really have, by the way) – so the collection features Mediterranean poems too, suffused with the warmth and simplicity and companionship of his life there. I like these a lot, for whatever the opinion of someone who has never been to <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Greece</place></country-region> might be worth.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">A new(ish) development, if I’m not mistaken, is the poetry of ageing. Henry talks about kidney stones in “A Perfect Client” and “Nursing” (they insert something into your Johnson – ouch). In “Modern Times” we read of headache treatments and other parts of the body that might need a cure. But it is jazz and Bukowski to whom he continually returns, musing even on the Wormwood Review and in one poem, on the first name he and Buk share. If he had known about Bukowski as a young man, he says, he would have been proud to be another Henry. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">An artist, a thinker, even a human being with no other attachable label, is defined by his or her passions, and it’s an act of generosity for Henry to share his with us. In the prose story that finishes the book, however, he decants into less familiar territory with “The Poetry of Mr. Blue”, a narrative that namechecks an author some might not be familiar with, Paul Auster. Crammed with Auster references and Auster-ish unresolved mysteries and coincidences, it’s an unexpected, skilful and slightly spooky piece. What’s even more spooky is that I’d just started rereading Paul Auster as I was finishing Henry’s book. I know he will appreciate that fact even if nobody else does. Paul Auster, of course, is too safe in the hands of the Academics now to care.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">You can buy a copy of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Accidental Navigator</i> from Lummox Press at <a href="http://www.lummoxpress.com/">http://www.lummoxpress.com/</a> .</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-43897218131689237712011-12-14T02:26:00.000-08:002011-12-14T02:26:12.224-08:00Ramona Itule-Patigian: Three Poems <strong> </strong><br />
<div class="ecxMsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcVWV81bP7PyflbTJbcPO8oFh_1wmlnMDUTeWgdo-8q4Rg2cLC6GW29Z5zLCvoouL09imlborbW7cSM4NNtNW_c3nWXxkCnQv1Y5-Q6iygJVcidlluez6L8Vl67NsfAq5wSNnoVPC1VeI/s1600/untitled.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcVWV81bP7PyflbTJbcPO8oFh_1wmlnMDUTeWgdo-8q4Rg2cLC6GW29Z5zLCvoouL09imlborbW7cSM4NNtNW_c3nWXxkCnQv1Y5-Q6iygJVcidlluez6L8Vl67NsfAq5wSNnoVPC1VeI/s1600/untitled.bmp" /></a></div><br />
<span style="color: black;"></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
<span style="color: black;"></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"> <style>
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</style></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"> <strong> A Short Dissertation</strong></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">Sacred pathetic fallacy, here we are</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">bell and board, bound to brain. </div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">The ghost trains and I searching lights </div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">for more than lanterns. The library romantics</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">and microscope erotics came for columns and</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">they’ll leave with nothing less. So</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">let’s pretend we’re spies and apply band-aids</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">to flat tires. Let’s go wine tasting at the university</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">and fish shooting at the mall. Take</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">me shopping or bar hopping. Tell</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">the bartender you love Stein and </div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">and we’ll toast Sartre, recite symphonies and </div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">play Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. </div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">Read me gibberish, it’s sexy.</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">We’ll buy Che T-shirts and berets</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">as long as there’s an ATM</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">drink ink till we’re dizzy and bask in composition</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">I’ve tried baking cakes with tacks and hangers </div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">and I like the sound of my own voice</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"> <style>
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</style><span style="color: black;"> <strong> Apparition</strong></span><strong> </strong></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">Beginning to imagine my life with the apparition was not hard</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">starting over tea in a silent parlor</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">The two of us seated without the bolts of our waking lives</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">A memory rolls over again, takes a swift gusty inhale </span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">and the cobwebbed body smiles a poker-face smile</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">Appears over the wire in a startling break, a lost bell tower</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">that once knew my heart like the map of a hand</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">Starting to embrace life with the apparition was easy too</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">beginning with a song on a crackling recorder</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">The two of us listening without the rolling static of traffic</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">The memory rises up with a dusty stifled murmur</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">and my call is finally answered in the death of the dead</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">At first just a speechless spell that stood and stuttered in silence </span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">I lost my breath and swallowed my twisted stomach with a gulp</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">trying to find a greeting fit for a talking statue</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">Preparing to shatter glass, drain the embalmed and remember everything</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">Then a tumbling spindle, rattling and re-living in constant spilling threads</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">chattering on to the sound I had buried, to relic lighthouses and dinosaur bones</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">Now the ghost of a ghost</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;">the apparition and I begin to make plans</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
<span style="color: black;"></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
<span style="color: black;"></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
<span style="color: black;"></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><style>
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</style></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"> <strong> Bones</strong></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div>All our finely tuned legacies sprawl out from underneath <br />
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">Like the swift, seared desert that first choked me into fantasy and form</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">All these scowling teenage girls I was and swift fits I hailed sacred</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">And yet I can hardly summon a line for you</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">Let alone any blazed battle fields or mourned loses</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">Those are mine to keep</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">Those that move like stillness and settle unnoticed </div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">Those that bleed through paper like spirits and smoke</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">Those that have grown within my earth and calcify to bone</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">Any cliché that I could give you would seem blasphemy</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">Sold out, grown up, resigned individuality?</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">You waver like the fight in me</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">You pace there in the roots</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">Sifting sand and awakening dust</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">Reminiscent of angst, but more like rebel lust</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal">Sometimes I forget I loved life first<br />
<br />
<br />
<div><em>Ramona Itule-Patigian is from the desert, but now lives in Berkeley, California with her boyfriend and cat. She recently received her MFA from Mills College and loves music and fruit. Her work has appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, Quantum Poetry Magazine, and is forthcoming in Triggerfish Critical Review. </em></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-88071168480583465332011-12-05T03:16:00.000-08:002011-12-05T03:16:55.512-08:00Kevin Cummings: Two Poems<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><strong>Failing</strong></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">I never paid much attention in physics</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">But after a couple of beers </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">And remembering that man was capable of the atomic bomb</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">And landing on the moon</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">I stumble out the door into the night</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Trying my damndest to piss on the stars</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Failing Miserably. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><em>unititled</em></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">I left the car on empty</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Walking the half mile to the tracks</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">To watch the boxcars,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Cutting the horizon in two,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">I dreamt of places,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Of stories told in miles.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">You told me to run from this place</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">I swear I’m trying,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">But I haven’t left;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Afraid there’d be no home</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">To come back to.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-23110592631032797832011-12-04T05:28:00.000-08:002011-12-04T05:28:35.261-08:00McDougal Street Blues - Jack Kerouac<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7zEYISRhjEs?fs=1" frameborder="0" width="480" height="270" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-24105426634040452182011-12-04T02:26:00.001-08:002011-12-04T02:27:15.903-08:00Kerouac and the Clones<h3 class="post-title entry-title"><span style="font-size: small;">A correspondent suggests that Jack Kerouac has no place in the slice-and-dice Penguin anthology even though Ginsberg has, and would have made the cut but for those evil money-grubbers at HarperCollins. I've heard this kind of stupid prejudice against Kerouac many times, but I still can't help wondering what planet people live on. Everybody who isn't looking for the employee of the month badge at McDonald's or next year's £50 000 Anaemic Poetry Prize and the big seat at the English Department table in the University of Clones knows Kerouac is a great poet. Here's Ginsberg's own view on the matter from an old issue of Gargoyle Magazine.<br />
</span><a href="http://www.gargoylemagazine.com/gargoyle/Issues/scanned/issue10/ginsberg.htm"><span style="color: #6699cc; font-size: small;">http://www.gargoylemagazine.com/gargoyle/Issues/scanned/issue10/ginsberg.htm</span></a> </h3>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606560050283134410.post-18874252479333673292011-12-03T05:58:00.001-08:002011-12-03T05:58:37.271-08:00Dove: Digging Deeper<h3 class="post-title entry-title"> </h3><div class="post-header"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-7223695370671423639"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZDOPqjNXfBHzZNZNpBjLZV_Mi9jMbDKFx52c4LlE0gAvwdZOAr-cbmEsS_fw_XJEg9YsyIX8AsDUt9_11QYuPe7CJpfEL79H7z3x7XI8LLw_LY_a14GVrh5ke7hJp0AejKxToBvN0e2c/s1600/180px-Rita_dove_in_2004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" closure_uid_d1oi7n="2" dda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZDOPqjNXfBHzZNZNpBjLZV_Mi9jMbDKFx52c4LlE0gAvwdZOAr-cbmEsS_fw_XJEg9YsyIX8AsDUt9_11QYuPe7CJpfEL79H7z3x7XI8LLw_LY_a14GVrh5ke7hJp0AejKxToBvN0e2c/s1600/180px-Rita_dove_in_2004.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">I've been reading further on Rita Dove's decision to exclude Ginsberg and Kerouac from the new <em>Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century American Verse </em>and I've unearthed a couple of interesting details. First this old quote from Dove, which demonstrates she has no particular prejudice towards Ginsberg (I'd never heard of her before I read about the anthology, so what did I know?):</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Allen Ginsberg's importance was in its twilight for so many years that it took his death to bring it to the front page. He electrified an entire world! And he continues to do so! There are generations who stumble across HOWL and find it speaks to them. Yet it takes a tragedy to make people notice. <a href="http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/dove/dove-interview.html"><span style="color: #6699cc;">http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/dove/dove-interview.html</span></a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Dove says in her introduction, apparently, that she couldn't afford to blow her whole budget on hefty permission fees from copyright owners. I don't know if she refers specifically to HarperCollins and Rupert Murdoch (I am so out of the political loop in literary matters I didn't know they were owned by the liberal's own antichrist Rupert Murdoch), but I suppose the inference is there even if the declaration isn't. So, then, she simply couldn't afford Ginsberg.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">That's a credible argument. Perhaps, then, Dove's mistake was tactical rather than political, in that she has included in her anthology a whole lot of people who could have been excluded so that the most significant American poet of the 1950s - in cultural as well as literary terms - didn't have to be. And if it was a question of late negotiation with HarperCollins when most of the money had already been spent, the same applies. It's bad housekeeping. Blaming the capitalist monster Murdoch and the devils of the Ginsberg estate might be fun but it's too easy. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">And I still wonder what <em>really </em>motivated Dove's selections for the book. While including four of her own poems, Dove excludes Sylvia Plath too, and Plath's poetry is taught in every university from here to the other side of Mars. I don't like it personally but even a pig-headed bastard like me has to admit it's technically brilliant. Is Plath owned by the horned Australian one also? Most of the stuff I've read seems to indicate that Dove just hates her poetry, which is fair enough, but not a good basis for the editing of a poetry anthology.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">As for Kerouac...well, some of the reviews of the anthology have been kind about his writing while discussing its absence from the book, but prejudice against him is so deep-rooted in 'respectable' circles an editor who could afford to buy Manhattan probably wouldn't include him. The professor of American Literature at Northampton University described Jack's <em>Essentials of Spontaneous Prose </em>as 'hippie shit' in a lecture only last year. I forced him to admit he was wrong in a private discussion in his office a few days later, but I'm sure his submission was only made to prevent me from breaking the furniture.</span> </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11