~~~~~~~~~~~~ (the poetry) WORM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 12
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Hello, welcome to Worm 12... lugubricus terrestris, and all that.
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They...
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have tilted the world on its side
so that the hill to and from her house
is much steeper. They have moved
the zebra crossing a mile or two
further along the main street. They have
replaced the bright warning lights with
dimmed ones which blur through
a perpetual haze and removed
entirely the once audible bleepers.
They have bred a new race of drivers
who are not gifted with patience.
They keep moving the loos despite
her wayward, insistent
desire to seek them more often.
They have tilted the world on its side:
she would like to tell them
she used to be happier with the way it was.
.c. Cara May
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Tampa
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A jai alai fronton is walking
Down a dirt path by the curbstone
Looking for a Laundromat.
The concrete shoes sink into the earth,
Leave deep foot tracks
That will become hazards,
Deep, empty pits.
Often the fronton is followed
By a dog track
Who also wants to find a place
To wash its dirty clothes.
The dog track has ear plugs in its ears,
So it won't hear the barking.
The stadium never moves,
But sits in the lotus position
Under a Bo tree, eats rice from a bowl.
.c. Duane Locke
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Watching the Swallows
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I don't know when I became
aware
watching the swallows
kept me sane
and then
after they
had their evening slot
of flitting around the sky
there was an intervening lull
before the silent dart
of pipistrelles
on the cusp
of night
and the night
itself
much cooler
more bearable
than the heat of the day now past
nothing malign in almost
darkness
a stillness
faint glow
in the sky as this day
distances itself from us
and you can imagine
even feel your life
slip away
until next day when
to watch the swallows
is that moment's eternity.
.c. James Bell
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Homage to Panagia Nikous
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As the sun strugges free from an Aegean
grasp, the coppered bells of Panagia
ring Festival onto a waking Kithnos.
At the harbour wall, Christos and Vassily
hawk iridescent sardine and shining mullet
from a bobbing hold. Papered parcels
of fish, tattered drachmas and strong coffee
mark time, whilst an egg-yolk sun
drip-dries in a flood of sky.
Summer shimmers endlessly above the pink and white
mosaic quay. Vagabond dogs pant in doorways,
slink beneath benches to sleep away the dry used
mid-day. Christos snores in the shade of the bulkhead
as Vassily slips into town to buy his wife
a tiny glass Basilica, a peace offering
for a day's lateness, a day spent in celebration
of Panagia Nikous.
Dusk falls mauve on the streets of Kithnos;
men haul communal pots of tomatoed
stew onto the cobbled walkways. Dark-eyed women
wind bougainvillea through their hair, flirt and laugh
in the day's dying light. At a table outside the store,
a musician eyes the women and tunes his Bouzouki.
In the courtyard, Christos joins the men and begins
the dance, a tight circle weaving, undulating,
encircling the flowered women, their sun-weathered
wrists linked with bright hankerchiefs. They whirl and merge
frenetic, a blur of silken hands and flashing, shining
olive limbs.
Against the backdrop of a fired sky and the aroma
of pot roast and charred basil, to the jangle
of tambourines, Vassily stands on the harbour wall,
drinks Metaxa as he hoses rainbow scales
from the hold of The Hora.
.c. Bunny Goodjohn
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Haunting Myself
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It is not this place, this set
of soulless rooms are not to blame,
nor clumsy layout - no sympathetic flow
or symmetry of form reflected here -
this was just a shell I filled
with leftovers,
haphazard, random, juxtaposed
to hide, disguise the gaps
in who I am.
But phantom shapes moved in with me, slept
in the dust of corners seldom swept,
hung thin with cobwebs,
waiting for the busy clock to stop.
I've glimpsed them shift - old sorrows
stretching, wings like tattered crows,
then shuffling back, content
to bide their time.
You've sensed them too, I've seen
you turn and frown,
then pull the covers close
as though you knew it's only me,
haunting myself -
that shadow by the door
brought with me from my last house
and the one before.
.c. Jean Harvey
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Melt (Three)
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(Je suis comme le roi d'un pays pluvieux.)
I'm like a lairdie in Lochaber, or somewhaur juist as wet:
A tweedy rich impotentate, young yet past his sell-by date,
Sneerin at the bou an scrape o factors,
Bored wi his dugs an paycocks, pigs an tractors.
Naethin can divert him, no huntin, fishin, falconry,
No even tenants drappin deid aneath his balcony.
His favourite gillie's cantrips, sangs an sports
Are nae distraction sin he's taen the dorts.
His rose-strewn bed's mair like a peat-bog o despond,
An jet-set limmers, skeeled at makkin lairdies feel like Bond,
Rin oot o sexy ploys an skimpy claes
That uised tae raise a smile at least frae Greitin Face.
The alchemist that kens hou gowd's procured
Cudna howk the iron in him immured.
Even a bathe in bluid, that the Romans thocht
Cud refull ancient veins wi virr, wudna dae ocht
Wi sic a stuffed auld stookie: I dout there's nae remeid
When, whaur bluid shud rin, fylt water flows insteid.
.c. James Robertson
Publication details: Fae the Flouers o Evil: Baudelaire in Scots by James
Robertson (ISBN 1 902944 12 7) Kettillonia. £2.50 including p&p within the
UK. Full details of this and other poetry publications, plus how to order,
are on Kettillonia's web site: http://www.sol.co.uk/k/kettillonia
GLOSSARY
melt: spleen
lairdie: contemptuous term for a landowner
factors: estate managers
Lochaber: an area of heavy rainfall in the Scottish Highlands
gillie: fishing or deerstalking sportsman's attendant
cantrips: antics
sin: since
taen the dorts: gone in the sulks
limmers: loose women
skeeled: skilled
claes: clothes
Greitin Face: one who habitually looks miserable; a cry baby
gowd: gold
howk: dig out
virr: energy
ocht: anything
stookie: a slow-wit, one who does not respond (from stucco)
dout: should think
remeid: remedy
fylt: dirty, defiled
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The Euglenoids
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They're coming, they're coming
- the euglenoids -
they're coming to take us away!
With trailing flagella
and flailing caboodles
like ancient paella
or living pot-noodles
they're threatening to blast us
with green chloroplast
and they're threatening to do it today!
They're going, they're going
- the euglenoids -
they weren't very frightening at all!
Though photosynthetic
and OK at crawling
they're rather pathetic
instead of appalling
as well as myopic
they're well microscopic
believe me folks: we're talking SMALL!
.c. John Carley
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Dress Sense
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darling it's magnificent
what a creation
beautiful colours and so stylish
I simply love it
it's only when I look a little closer
that a few small things make me wonder
that seam threaded across the bust
reminds me just a tiny bit of something
I saw several seasons ago I think
it perhaps a little too early
to try to bring that back
don't you agree?
less classic than cliché really
no?
the back now
just a tiny bit higher to offset
the plunge of the front
less filigree for the straps
you don't see it?
of course dear I understand
lord knows through the years I've seen
several successful variations
yours may work
oh
the hem
too lacy too many frills
any elegance is lost in over-pretty patterns
I really think it should go
for the good of the creation
you wouldn't want to spoil
all the wonderful work you've put into it
would you?
well just give it a little more thought dear
I'm sure it will be perfect
such a clever girl
if only she would listen
.c. Frank Faust
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For A C Graham
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(in memoriam)
The scented hollow in my hands
once held the flower of a lotus.
Grief
in the sweep of green willow.
The empty sickness;
tasting iron in my saliva.
Nine years have passed.
Our tongues are severed.
The moss of tree bark
masks your direction.
You cannot return
with migrant geese.
Your voice is in the oxide
of a tangled ribbon
blown as leaves
through city veins.
I touch your mind
through your translations.
Wei T'ai
does not console me.
How can I drink wine with Chuang-Tzu?
.c. Christina Fletcher
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The Brass Teacher
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Maybe even then we sensed something broken:
not so much in his stoop, or the rounded shoulders,
or his hitching up his trousers as if he'd just lost weight;
not the fag end see-sawing on thin lips; not
the silver flask being tucked back in the pocket. Not even
that his wife left each night with some-one else, or that
once he put dinner in the bin and the package in the oven.
Unbroken, he'd never have belonged to Wednesday nights,
to the run down school with the ceiling that collapsed
in the middle of the Rite of Spring, that caught fire
and smelt for weeks like too much toffee.
He could teach you how to hit the highest E
without a split, how to trickle down scales
without a fluff, how to double-tongue,
triple-tongue, flutter tongue with flawless ease.
But, what we got was the Song of Solvej
in the side room with the hamster scrabbling
in the background and the same routine
boy or girl:
"Picture your girlfriend
you've bought her an ice-cream, the sun's
on her hair, you look at her ..."
Maybe even then we sensed it wasn't the girl
or the ice-cream or the light, or even the tone
of his voice. Simply that in his presence
a child could breathe in fag smoke and whisky,
sawdust and hamster, dirt and rot,
falling plaster, and burnt varnish,
place a small steel cup to pursed lips
and breathe out something true.
.c. Helen Clare
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Bradford
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Bradford
a city of segregation, isolation
and condemnations
a fermentation of multi races, multi cultures
and multi bloody negations
a breeding pot of retardation, castrations
and malformations
Bradford
a city of the self appointed, self elected
and self inflated
a parade of disapproving stares, twisted mouths
and the wretched demented
a fine collection of the outdated, constipated
and dilapidated
Bradford
a city with blinkers on, zero on the outlook
maxi on the propaganda
a veil of intolerance, oppression, subjugation
hang on it like a heavy chaadar*
a good daughter, a good son
underneath it all going madder.
Bradford
I have listened to you through the stethoscope
and checked the horoscopes
I have gazed under the microscopes
and through the largest telescopes
there is no hope in this city of tightropes
.c. Anjum Malik
* Chaadar ...a heavy shawl ( urdu)
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YOU: A Trilogy
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I.
it's all about you
we're at our usual café
you, at your table, sipping a latte, nicely foamed
reading Heidigger-or is it Nietzsche?
I'm at my table, imagining
you gesture to a chair, smirk
amused perhaps, by my obvious reluctance
to be pursued even while I pursue
thrilled by my daring (oh yes, and by several espressos)
I consider joining you, then realize
we can't rush the process or
anticipate each other's moves
instead, I try to write
Haiku, perhaps-or is it a ballade?
haunted by the hand resting along your thigh
it's more than a coincidence
this poem beginning before we do
you're a muse of sorts-how convenient
and oh yes, how heroically flawed
and I? why, a Minotaurean sacrifice
somewhat virginal
an audience captured for your amusement
an intellectual tidbit, nothing more
I cannot help but wonder, so indulge me
what will happen if I leave to get a refill?
what will happen if I don't?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
II.
It's still about you
Here we are again.
it's our usual café
you're toying with a lemon peel
reading Proust-or is it Sartre?
troubled by the words upon the page
I wait for you
lift a Mahjong tile
uncover a matching symbol
then another
wonder if this is a sign
You yawn, stretch,
reveal what's usually hidden
follow my gaze
with a knowing smile
how long will it take me to realize
gods and demons can take any form
and that's not a good sign.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
III.
This is the last of you
There's this new café
the other's a graveyard
ash and scattered bones
with that funereal scent
of stale espresso
Your toothbrush?
A fitting Momento mori
used to scrub grout from bathroom tiles
while I listen to the dirge of "She's got issues"
knowing they were yours
The exorcism was less wake
than Bahktinian spectacle
science fiction and
horror reruns-
part camp, part genetic mutants
(of passing human interest.)
it was a necrophiliac's nightmare
of blood-drained corpses
not even fit for anorexic zombies
where the blond dies
the black-haired beauty lives on
her powers immutably intact
.c. Terrie Relf
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haiku
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cloud peaks --
inch by inch the worm
stretches its shadow
.c. an'ya
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Compiling Editor: John Carley
Associate Editors: Frank Faust, Margaret Griffiths
Editorial Support: Simon Barraclough
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