Liaisons

In summer time, head to the cemetery,
out around nine o’clock, where birches drip the days
and you’re freshly plucked and razored
into what you think is your best self.

You’re meeting friends, supposed to be going
out with a boy, some years older than you
and you don’t know his last name, but covet
his leather gloves and biker jacket, para boots

with stories to tell. Your friends have sticky palms
and cider on their breath, the ground is flecked
with rollies; it’s August and you are still young,
until September comes and moves everyone on.

You kiss the boy on the cheek, maybe take it a little further,
fingers in zippers and the soft sounds of birds,
a gnat swarm suddenly veils you, a graveyard bride,
or a gothic pop-song caricature of yourself.

Later, you lie on the earth and play dead.
Imagine what it would be like to spill into the soil,
while others tell themselves that everything will be ok.
Night rises, fix up your lipstick, kiss the boy

on the cheek again, say thank you,
because that’s what your mother taught you;
that manners are as important,
as the way that you live.

-Ali Jones

The Cobweb’s Breath

Cobweb’s breath dew sticky,
comes over the shoulder
from the back. Hairs
rise from their quiver.
Were I to touch your stone,
would we be holding hands… again?

There is a transparency here
where your roots spike
through the sorrow of long grass.
Under church eyes and iron fencing,
Where we take our visiting hour.

I sometimes wish you
had been burnt in
the gas hot fires.
Then I could have
held you up to the winds.

You may have embraced
cliff-skies and turbulent spirals.
Tree hung dappled brooks
and fresh water meadows.
Casting off your glooms
as you once tossed your hair,
in a shower of grey dust.

But I like this garden
with a parlour’s quiet,
wild flowers abandoned
to this overgrown place.

Where we nearly hold hands
sipping our tea from a flask.

-©️ Dai Fry 29th April 2020.

Tiger Lily

He was playful at the end,
surprising me with treats
when I appeared at his door,
sneaking pieces of chocolate
from his wife’s private stash,
sharing the spoils.
He ate whipped cream without a spoon,
slept in his favorite suede shoes,
told me he wished he could fly away.

He will never be entombed.

He will be given back to the earth,
mingle with the roots of trees,
become the soil that cultivates life.
He will be branches that touch the sky,
leaves rustled by a gentle wind.
He will be a field of sunflowers
that greet the day,
rolling hills that stretch
to the edge of night.
He will be a tiger lily that blooms bright
for just one day,
reminding me to breathe,
to treasure what is beautiful,
what is fleeting.

-Susan Richardson

Moksha

Today the spirits are partying
while the corpses are dancing
in their graves.

They have done it!
They’ve broken the loop
of birth & death.

All these souls are free of regrets
for they can’t repair anything now.

The loads of setting things right
in the next life have drowned.

The manipulative manual
is in tatters.

Having broken all the shackles,
having won the ultimate battle,

there is one thing that’s
irking them now:

Why didn’t we live like this
in the very first place?

-Jay Gandhi

Writing My Epitaph

My ghosts already haunt me.
Ghosts of poor choices and
Things I shouldn’t have said;
Ghosts which sneak up around my grave, and
Show me those deeply-buried,
Long-loathed parts of me
That haven’t fully decayed.
The rotting, fleshy bits hanging in
Their grotesque way,
Reminding me they wait for me
To address their presence, pick them apart and
Bury them again so they may properly deteriorate
Into fertile earth for healthy new growth.

When they come haunting,
My ghosts make a compelling case.
They are translucent, persistent things,
Not unlike the memories they dredge up to share with me.
Sometimes, they nearly convince me I’m already dead.
But why is my headstone blank?
My ghosts don’t understand, but as
They walk me through graveyards,
Instead, I see orchards of opportunity
Ripe to harvest in good deeds for
My future epitaph.

-st

Our Blue Mary (A List Poem)

A caged bride
A dog called what
A salamander’s wool
Age is only a number
Aniseed
Blue Hawk
Escaped
Fingerprint
Found
I decide
In a grain of sand
Kill it my sister
Let me pass through
Midwinter is
My flame
My stone
On the road
Our spired unicorn
Our Unicorn spire
Path of seeds
Silence
Soundtrack
The cost is prohibitive
The one hand
The ruin
The Rung down
The Stag
This egg asks
Trees hold hands
You Meet

=Paul Brookes

Bios and links

-Jane Cornwell

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers three options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger, or an interview about their latest book, or a combination of these.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

 

Keiran Goddard

(b.1984) was born and raised in Shard End, Birmingham and educated in Oxford. His debut collection was shortlisted for the Melita Hume Prize and he was runner-up in the William Blake Prize. He has worked as in policy and higher education and now runs a small foundation focused primarily on the climate crisis. He is the author of numerous academic articles and is a policy fellow at the University of Cambridge. His other interests include wine, philosophy and pop music. Goddard’s second full-length collection, Votive, was published by Offord Road Books in 2019.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I first came to poetry through song, pop songs in particular. When I was about nine or ten years old, I would transcribe the lyrics from my favourite songs and then mix my favourite lines up to make a “new song”.

In some sense, dimly, I think I was already aware that language could have a particular kind of intensity if you arranged the images and the sounds with enough care ( or sometimes with enough carelessness, come to think of it )

‘Meaning’ is a complicated, conflicted word, but essentially that is what I was always aiming for. I eventually realised that the intense compression and focus of a poem was paradoxically the most reliable way of opening up the world and accessing its blurrier and more beautiful edges.

I know that is unfashionably earnest, but there you go. I felt it when I was a kid, I knew it when I was a teenager, and I stand by it even now.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Like many people, I had one brilliant teacher that changed everything for me. I was maybe fourteen or so when I met her. I’d hardly read any books before then, let alone poetry. I’ve been making up for lost time ever since, I suppose.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

I can’t say I was, really. I didn’t know much about the poetry ‘scene’ when I started out, and oddly enough I think this probably stood me in good stead. I did have the vague sense that all of the awards were being shared between the same group of tedious old lads. And I was sort of correct about that.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I take notes constantly, and most days I’ll note down a handful of phrases, ideas or images, usually around a particular theme that I am exploring at the time.

Later, I will take a week or so, book myself into hotel in a city where I don’t know anyone and spend all day every day writing, aiming to shape the scraps into something more coherent.

Rinse and repeat.

5. What motivates you to write?

Writing is the way I understand the world. Or maybe it is the way I approach the various ways in which I do not understand the world. I’m unsure which. Either way, it feels utterly necessary.

6. What is your work ethic?

For what it’s worth, I think the notion of a ‘work ethic’ is pretty damaging, and has historically been a sort of quasi-religious injunction leveraged against the interests of labour by the forces of capital.

But being less wanky, and taking your question at face value, I’d say:

I’m naturally lazy, so I have to structure my days to counteract that. I have a fairly demanding day job as well as various other academic commitments, so if I didn’t actively make time for writing, it just wouldn’t get done. So in summary, I work hard, but it doesn’t come at all naturally.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

My early work was hopelessly derivative of the poets I loved, all the predictable ones; Eliot, Yeats, Plath, Dickinson etc.

A little bit later I fell pretty hard for Elisabeth Bishop, Rilke, Paul Celan, R.S Thomas and Anna Akhmatova.

Looking back now, I think there are a few things that have persisted in my work that I can see in all of these writers. Concision is one, musicality is another, as is a general willingness to mix the erotic with the theological.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

I’ll try not to overthink this. So I’ve recently loved books by: Layli Long Soldier, Anne Boyer and Michael Symmons Roberts.

9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

I’m not clever enough to answer this question. But I would say that some things aren’t exactly choices.

10. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I’ve just recently published my second full length collection, Votive, and am tentatively working on my first book of non fiction. I’m most interested in hope, gift and fetish, so I suspect it will take shape around those themes. Eventually…

Finishing is as Meaningful as the Project Itself

No matter where he goes, it always looks like Yorkshire,
pedal to the metal whenever he can. He comes everywhere
with me. I keep moving, am ghosted by news of milk bottles,
collected late, cricket odds, snow painted over moors.

The endless game of eye spy, that nobody could win, because
the answer was only visible sometimes – grandma’s false teeth.
In the garden, fingering the soil, feather light, never weary.
When I write this, he is long gone, playing mandolin for hours,

making the violin jealous in her velvet home. The needle
always points north, geese skein a morning song, and the way
on is lined with sherbet and barely sugar, Pontefract cakes,
corporation pop. The pull of a homing beacon, the case of

the long way, coming back to the beginning; around each
tarmacked day, a vapour trail, firedogs, a sentence of dusty
boot prints, books, where things are written down. Follow
the words until you arrive home. Put the wood in the hole.

-Ali Jones

Lost In Arcadia

Of Arcadian steel,
this hard moorland. A
bleak back country
kind of beauty,
where I might escape
the weight of empty voices.

Jostled and devoured
by a sense of common learning.
Snapped memories piled up,
made the life I recognised
to be my own.

Competing with skylark’s hook
and silent thrum of insects feet,
a brook that bears me on.
Roads, small as rivers meander.
I traverse the tarmac flow.

I believe I thought this place
and fashioned its being.
As if it could mend me
and patch my canvas
with a sky blue peace.

In my pack, notebook
pen and chewing pencils,
attest to my sadness.
So I sleep and dream
until breakfast time, at
night’s end.

– ©️ Dai Fry 28th April 2020.

Unreasonable Pursuits

There’s too much
Ground to cover.
I wish it weren’t true.
My brain and my body ache, and
There’s still so much to do.

Hitch a ride, or
Take a shortcut
If you can find a way.
But, as for me, the summit
Will have to wait for another day.

-st

On A Road

a wick young lad meets Devil.
Wise with old tales

he goads Devil.
“Before I do owt for thee

I want tha soul. Devil gobsmacked
replies  I have no soul

of my own. Only souls of others.
Then gi me those, answers

lad and I’ll do whatever tha hankers for .
Devil hands him a mobile.

This phone contains all my souls.
There is a woman who
would have your tongue. I ask
you visit her and take hers.

God didn’t sleep with me.
He chose that cow Mary.
Devil put you on to me,
Young un’. Tells you I need
your tongue and you need
to take mine.

I offer you hunger,
wrinkles, short life
and disease, and me
as an ugly bitch.
Except
on Saturdays when
I look like a model
and you have eternal life,
youth and health.
Manage your expectations.

Young chuff replies To me you’re beautiful
for six days. Only a monster
on Saturdays when you’re a serpent
from waist down. Accept this mobile.
It contains all Devil’s souls.

And young man returns
to Devil with her stories.
Accept the Sibyl’s tongue.
he says and Devil scowls
at this young buck’s cleverness.

Paul Brookes

Finding the way Home

I dreamt last night
that the world had fractured
into puzzle pieces,
landscapes that once stretched for miles,
broken into lives divided.
Fragments lay strewn across the sky,
smooth and rounded edges
tossed on the wind and turned
upside down,
searching for each other,
longing to find a place to fit.
My father was there,
telling me I was the only one
who could unite the scattered pieces.
“But, I am blind”,
I told him.
“You don’t need eyes to help the lost
find their way home”,
he said.
He kissed me on the cheek,
then broke into petals
that floated away on a breeze.

-Susan Richardson

Himalayan Hike

The hip generation smokes cocaine
& indulges in unsafe sex in the dark
corners of the secluded caves;
No restrictions. No rules. Get
drunk, get high and make merry.
The soil is plagued by adultery.

Some avalanches are such that even
the dead bodies cannot be traced.

-Jay Gandhi

Bios and links

-Jane Cornwell