First thoughts, second part

I spent yesterday in a workshop exploring 'First Thoughts' i.e. Ginsberg's idea that the first thought is the best thought. So, there was a series of exercises and prompts to write poems very quickly - in 5 to 10 minutes generally - to ensure that there wasn't time to revisit the first thought and change it to the second, third fourth and so on. It was a follow-on from a previous workshop on the same topic, and like that one produced a number of genuinely outstanding pieces.

I'm working on a couple of ideas that sprung from the event, and here's one that I produced from the prompt 're-use a line from Long Days by Jean Follain' - I used "next to the worn-out animals" and the idea came from a recent online news story.


In Gaza zoo

In Gaza zoo,
the are no zebras;
the occupiers’ edicts
forbid the import of exotic species
and slowly, the exhibits
dwindle to taxidermy.
But even in Palestine,
kids know what should be on display;
to comply, keepers paint stripes on white donkeys
and children ride upon their backs,
a wire-fenced pleasure-beach,
parading until,
as the gates clang shut,
feral cats emerge
to yawn and stretch
next to the worn-out animals.

I'm quite happy with the story and imagery here, though I may rework it. On other occasions, inspiration let me no further than 'short and silly' as here, written in response to the prompt 'write a poem structured like one of the handouts' - I went with William Carlos Williams' As the Cat (not least because it's short and it was near the end of the day, but also I'm a cat-fan and enjoy sparse poetical structures once in a while). Enjoy... and if you fancy attending a workshop and can get to Southampton or Bournemouth, this is the place to look.

As the man

As Pavlov
rang his bell
and measured

canine salivation
the cat watched
sure-footed

pawing at
its collar-jingle
so the man

on hearing now
lifts his leg
and washes.

Prompty goodness

Yesterday was spent at a 'first thoughts' workshop based around Allen Ginsberg's idea that 'the first thought is the best one'. So, numerous writing prompts and example poems were provided as inspiration to write pieces within short periods of time (6 to 14 minutes depending on the prompt/proximity to lunchtime) after which there were opportunnity to read and critique. This is what came out of the 'beach' prompt and is about a place very near my home.

The beach

Bishy Beach, roadside gravelled arc,
a magnet for shirtless, baggy-shorted teens
to splash, sunlit, where gypsy girls on ponies waded
while mallards, hunting bread-chunks,
dodge the swimming dogs.

Downstream, an angler,
hook-capped in waders and multipocket waistcoat,
grumbles about the frightened state of trout.

By night, a lone pubgoer
eats tinfoiled meat madras
with a plastic fork
as bats take mayflies from fishes’ mouths.

Shifting Dizraeli gears

I saw MC Dizraeli live on Saturday - I was inspired to put out a bit of autobiography. Audio version here.

The right to annoy

After the gig I’m still buzzing,
sitting on the last bus home,
writing words inspired by tales of
Iranian parties
 curtained off from an unforgiving world,
backpacking angst
 felt by the middle-classes
  finding themselves too subcontinental,
and the nastier acts
 perpetrated by Ayatollahs’ bully-boys.

Here, as there,
gagging is ordered
by the homogenisers
to stifle noise and reduce choice –
though on our little island,
it’s not so much theocracy as
the incestuous edicts
of a dysfunctional Wal-Mart fa-mi-ly,
[insert theme tune here]
the Big Brother of Asda
where I’d been courting ASBOs
by stickering produce seditiously,
 highlighting the ocean plunder
  of industrial overfishing
and loggers’ jungle devastation
 adding orang utans to the
  lengthening homeless list.

In-store security drones
dressed in wannabe-FBI black puffa-jackets
and second-tier Magnum-boots
ask me to
“come to the manager’s office please” –
I decline
and politely remind them that
in fact
they have no legal right
to enforce that particular request,
though I’ll happily leave the store
at their behest.

Finding this inexplicably annoying,
they scowl impotently
as they follow me out,
stroking groinal Maglite bulges –
oh, compensating much?

A week later I find myself
sweet-talking a legal secretary into
telling me who owns a particular
piece of not-quite London
real estate,
and through which
hidden offshore trust its money flows.
As a result,
the small field behind a pub
becomes a plot
to block the builders
and the small local town
is not being bulldozed
to line cronies’ pockets with something
folding and crinkly.

The carbon budget breathes a sigh of relief.

But vested interests are predatory
and do try to bite back –
two spooks from maybe-Special Branch
(it’s hard to say when they’ve got no ID)
turn up on the doorstep at 3am,
rat-a-tatting the brass
and bellowing their ‘open up’
with unveiled threats including
“we know where your Mum lives”
while whukka-whukka-whukka low overhead,
a helicopter spotlights and videos.

I laugh hard in their faces,
photograph them back
and tell them to fuck off –
they’ve not met my Mum.

Biotic and Modernist

A few months ago, I went to a workshop on Modernist poetry, during which we looked at Wallace Stevens' '13 ways of looking at a blackbird'. It was new to me at the time, but I was immediately grabbed by it - the range of metaphors, the use of imagery and so on. Expanding beyond blackbirds to include other plants and animals, here's a semi-autobiographical response...

13 of life’s moments shared with Wallace Stevens

I

During a squall,
jackdaws shelter
on the leeside of policemen.

II

Nothing is certain,
just as seaweeds are not plants.

III

We sit silently,
us good mates –
the landlord doesn’t mind lodgers having guests,
but what is there to say
when he’s watching TV
and idly cupping
his mastiff’s testicles?

IV

I am an old Jack Russell,
my balls drag in the snow.

V

There won’t be bluebirds over
the White Cliffs of Dover,
not because I don’t dream of peace,
but because the bluebird is not
native to Europe.

VI

Disappointed to find out that
the mummified foetus
of a Tasmanian Devil
has already been sold,
I have to ask myself ‘why?’

VII

Norbert Dentressangle,
Nippon Yusen Kaisha
and Dong Fang,
Triton and Mol the crocodile
bring what from where?

VIII

Pale grey ballast
recently laid and rolled
is soon obscured again
by shoots
of grass and Buddleia.

IX

Flossy the dental nurse
is a nine-grand rhino,
fibreglass,
green and white
with apple-a-day shoes.

X

One big man
admits on stage
how his life was saved.
The saviour,
on duty and
not knowing this until now,
sheds a tear –
gentle gorillas in our midst.

XI

The joy of
discovering a new
sexually-transmitted disease
of ladybirds.

XII

Crows gather,
fly down
and coalesce –
now a back-bent
black-shawled hag.

XIII

We are all stardust,
only some are golden.

Looking back over the summer

It's been over a week since my last post - the paid stuff has got in the way a bit, 'tis true, though I've been editing and consolidating what I've written over a busy summer of showcases, open mics and other events. New work is sat next to me waiting to be typed up and maybe lightly polished, but until then, here's a rare bit of video of me performing - this one's at the Archimedes Screw showcase featuring Susan Richardson.

Wordy workshops and ichthyology

From yesterday's Archimedes Screw workshop on using social media (etc) to create poetry. One exercise was to find a tweet or facebook status update, then use it as a repeated refrain. BTW, Sphoeroides is a genus of pufferfish...

Homo sphoeroides

Platy teeth crush shells and carapaces,
tetrodotoxin awaits unwary fugu-diners
with diaphragm paralysis –
bite me, I’ll bite your lungs,
I’m like a pufferfish in more ways than one.

Hanging boxily in warm midwater,
unhydrodynamic, spines flat for now –
approach with caution,
spikes may rise like the sun,
I’m like a pufferfish in more ways than one.

Slow but manoeuverable, comfort-built,
achieving surprising short-distance speed,
OK – an acquired taste maybe,
floating relaxedly rotund,
I’m like a pufferfish in more ways than one.

I sit at depth, playing in the sand,
making submarine crop-circles,
supposedly enticing new mates,
but spawning’s done,
I’m like a pufferfish in more ways than one.

Out of the Ejector Seat

Words written after a day of hot sun and inspiration at the Ejector Seat Festival...

Penstroke

The Pen beats down,
Roasts my head with inky heat,
Nothing blocks the ABC, the UV to XYZ-rays,
No Ambre Voltaire,
No slipped-on shirt nor slapped-on hat,
No slopped-on factor-many –
The Pen pierces the shady canopy of trees,
Tans the page,
The vellum of my skin –
Tans, turns, tans, turns,
Makes more melanin,
Does my melon in,
Burns,
Leathers me with verbs,
Words inhaled like pollen or hot smoke,
Sneezed-coughed-spat back out in order,
Arranged as palisades,
But the Pen is unrelenting,
May bring into being
Jungles or deserts,
Savannahs or bleached reefs –
It does not care what
As long as it is not
Ignored.

Linking the themes

Three interlinked stanzas picking up themes from a most poetical Sunday - modernism, yellowness, chalk-on-pavements...

Street art

I

Chalking round the sunspot dapples
Like a capella apples,
Eve spread out the tarmacadam
Unbidden on your drive –
“That’ll be a grand, mate” –
“Bite me”,
I don’t want your bitumen,
So bring on your gut-pouched lawyers,
Runaround and sue me,
Affidavits holding hole-hulled lifeboats,
Play the passing notes in full –
John Bullshit,
Rip up the writ
Throw down your cap
Tear off your coat
And draw out in pastel-pinks
The wartime tints of Goya.

II

Hints entrenched in dead-eyes stares,
Though shrapnel’s welcome here,
Throw freely and appreciate
The pigmented figments –
Binocular, binaural, never choral,
One makes it quorate
And so grants legitimacy of status,
Verbal afflatus –
You can’t make us, make me, mako;
Thus spake old fake old
Tsarovich,
A bob-a-job nabob,
‘Ave a cup o’ suzerainty
And a biscuit, ya baskit.

III

We beckon you inside with bourbonhomie,
Ignoring the custard screams of wheel-less wagoneers,
Broken-spoked,
Fragments campfire-smoked –
Outline the carbonate with charcoal,
Illuminate with low-lit rims,
Put up hoods or pull down brims,
Utterly fedorable –
I say, I say, an ice-age eyeshade,
Pretend the light’s about to fade,
Stop your barking
And walk out silent through the day.