Reuters poem

It's been very very cold in Eastern Europe. Here's a poem about a Reuters story from the Ukraine. Brrrrr.

UKRAINE: COLD 2/12

Stop van on forest road,
light pine to thaw hands.

Rusty 68 indicates
a dwelling hung with monumental icicles.

Stove air lifts family photographs
stuck to pink flock wallpaper

with yellowing tape. Stroke warm cat.
More logs please.

Autobiographical sketches 62 - Jon Snow reading my poem

Delia Derbyshire - Pauline Sewards

The very lovely poet Pauline Sewards who I am so proud to call a friend and I share a mutual interest - in Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic workshop. Pauline has written a beautiful poem about her, and she's kindly allowed me to post it here. Thanks Pauline.

Delia Derbyshire

We are in one of those places that isn’t quite anywhere -
the hard shoulder of the M62
Retuning the radio,
the sound comes through
in querulous spikes -
the voice of Delia Derbyshire
syncopates the night

She did her work back in the sixties,
a Sasooned and mini-skirted Goddess of Geeks,
only years later got credit due
she was with Oram and Grainger
in the Radiophonic workshop
but Delia wrote the music to Dr Who

Images of outer space
inside the eyelids of your inner space
evoke those long ago
Saturday egg and chip teatimes when
Delia’s multi phased sonic innovations
reeled us in to the tingling
Science fiction comfort zone.
Fractal patterns breaking
in a world where identity slips
and time trips over and over

She was the Queen of synaesthesia
if you can have synaesthesia in black and white

And now we are stuck in this car
on the highway,
if we could see through the fog
to the other side of the motorway
we‘d be watching our younger selves
coming the other way

Is it interference in between stations?
Or does the voice of Delia Derbyshire
syncopate the night?

Writers Hub at Birkbeck

Lovely! A poem from my forthcoming collection is published on the online writers hub organised by Birkbeck. Latvia: Soviet Era Exhibition

http://www.writershub.co.uk/poetry-piece.php?pg=1&pc=569

Naomi Woddis - Nothing But

I asked my good friend Naomi Woddis if she would let me publish a poem or two on the blog and also a photograph as she is also a serious photographer and she kindly agreed. Naomi and I are working together on a radio show for National Poetry Day for Reels Rebel Radio, so I'm getting to spend some lovely meetings and chats at her beautiful place in Highbury and Islington. It's a magical place, with doors that open off the kitchen onto a brilliant garden. You could hardly believe you're in central London, I think it's one of the nicest places I've seen to live ever. I do love London so much.

Here's one of Naomi's poems. I don't want to publish them all at once as I want to write some more about Naomi later, and that will give me a great excuse to do so.


Nothing But
Plaster dust laces a light bulb. Beyond
this the smell of newly daubed emulsion
is an echo in the nostrils, a slouch
of damp, the stench of not moving.
The careless invitation of a three-seater,
its screech of red is the only real warmth
you'll find. Its fake fur covering, your last
lurch at tenderness. Lint gathers in its cracks.
I'm all the comfort you'll ever need it says.
But, sinking in to its hopeful upholstery
you find there is no way of getting up.

Pen Pusher

A poem from my first and forthcoming collection appears in the new Pen Pusher magazine.

http://www.penpushermagazine.co.uk/magazine/extracts/article/399/