Thursday, 29 April 2010
'Millers' by Dan Veach
'Light' by Connie Miller
I grasp at the last rays of sun from day
And I wish sunlight would return to me
I hear the sound of people on their way
But I want time to stop so I am free
Again in the embrace of summer
When all my troubles are strangers and still
The wind brushes past me like a lover
One that knows my inner thoughts and self will
Always whisper to me like the breeze of autumn
When the leaves are dead and falling off
The trees have aching hearts and I am numb
And left alone like the clouds with not enough
Love like the brightest star cannot sustain
Our hearts through winter months will die again.
Connie Miller studies a science course at Cambridge University. The exact name of the course I can't remember.
Sunday, 25 April 2010
'Baby Tooth' by Thomas Clancy
When dem is hungry
Mans gone stick you
Merk you for your kebab
Not no bollocks job, trust.
Straight up knife light ribs tight.
Blood flows from bleeding spa
Faces like drawn got sour
Shank’s still shining. Blades bent blunt.
In the gutter. Floating in endz dirt water
Youts all crying. Shades tipped down.
Little girl runs, mother ignores.
NY baseball cap shielding eyes
Your little brother dies
While your father stands among yous packka and cries.
Kfc paper lines aisle of funereal prosession
As youts father carries body over yonder
Mother and sister trip down to depression
And mans stand still, shake hands, click fingers, touch fists and wonder.
Old lady passes. Sucks her teeth and says ‘young people.’
Her teeth clenched tight and her hands they tremble
Walks on wheeling her chequered trolley past the dawn.
And she yawns
And the mother of the dying brother cries ‘you old woman. Know nothing of this.’
The ones arrive all flashing cars and tightness
All clear the scene and semi racist politeness
And people leave and leave dead youth
To uniformed white mans in search of dead truth
Thomas Clancy has been described by some as one of the great young talents of British theatre. He spends his time in London writing plays and working at the Royal Court.
'This Concrete Wins Awards, Annually' by Thomas Clancy
I read walls
Though I have been blind
Eyes full of this century’s diseased semen.
Under crass unmedicinal plaster
I spy Olivier’s tongue
And Wesker’s scribbling
Through a haze of removed asbestos
One spots dangerous constellations
Relevant only in that they bear knives to your lungs
Volume upon volume do not speak volumes
In monochrome comparison
To a crumbling wall
Or tea stained paper
Or dried purple flowers
Tipped from black plastic
Onto dry Indian floors.
I do not feel much anymore.
Anything?
For newness is synonymous with optical sterility
I’m fine with brown
Or grey or dust
Yet you insist on pink plastic
When I’m fine with oak
L’histoire habite en les briques et le mortier
Synthesis filled with anything
Is still
Quite
Empty.
Thomas Clancy is primarily a playwright and lives in London, where he converses, works and drinks with other playwrights. He has been described by some as one of the great young talents of British theatre.
Saturday, 17 April 2010
'First It Is Taken Away From Me' by Richard Tillinghast
And now I am home again.
I can sit out in my pyjama bottoms,
two cats sprawled
belly-down on the warm deckboards
to converse with
the Saturday after Father's Day.
The air is saturated with moisture
as a rum cake is with rum.
Like a tourist, like a slow boater,
like a firefly past the solstice,
I hover and scull and wobble
through these haunts and currents and air-pockets—
the day's emptiness
radiant in the hollow of my spine.
Of the hospital I remember only:
Dry mouth, icy feet, rough dreams.
Nausea of waxed linoleum
down a hall the gurney ran along
at scaresome speed.
The gabble of television sets,
and low voices leaking through half-closed doors.
The graph of the monitor repeated, repeated, repeated.
Burgundy velvet like the robe of a grand vizier,
the clematis blossoms like big sagging stars
or moonfish
soak light in and collapse it into their mystery.
The clematis plays Juliet on her balcony,
bosoming out into moonlight,
ripe with the desire to be known,
giving herself, wishing to taste and be
permeated by the world,
as if she had never breathed air till now.
That's how it is with me,
wing-shot and hampered as I am,
idly rubbing the IV tape marks off my arm.
First it is taken away from me,
then it is given back.
'Divining Myself' by Montana Blue
beneath the silent tree.
Reach deeply for the moon.
My God. It's me.
To know.
To know.
Like solving snow.
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
'The Owl' by Wendy Videlock
Beneath her nest,
a shrew's head,
a finch's beak
and the bones
of a quail attest
the owl devours
the hour,
and disregards
the rest.
Wendy is a poet from western Colorado. You can read this and other US contemporary poems at American Life in Poetry.