Public Sector Poetry Journal

 Just had some poems published in a brilliant new journal for poets working in the public sector. Check it out HERE.

And watch the readings and debates from the live event HERE.

If you work in the public sector and write poetry, submit to future journals HERE

THIS AMERICAN CARNAGE, 2028

                     I

“…Now arrives the time of action, 

a frozen SonderKommando 

marches the windswept 

plains of Nebraska. Detroit 

sprawls glorious freedoms 

and our dreams define 

the disease of national pride. 

Meet me in loyalty, unstoppable

in every city far and wide, 

the breath of life almighty: we will not fail. 

Living is striving, we are the struggle…/…”

…we cut the beards / scream the Lithuanian anthem from atop a pile of cardboard cut-outs / applauding the effort / on a garage forecourt we take a crowbar to the skulls of the communist functionaries / such sport the tarmac supports / special work in rear areas / set the native population against the others / watch the well-dressed burn…

(ASIDE) (Please see me standing, 

my children singing 

to themselves. 

half-hymns, 

half-gibberish show tunes. 

come to breakfast, 

sit next to me, 

washed blond hair 

stiffly tufted in the

summer garden.)

II

“…/…This American carnage 

stops right here. We will 

harness the energies, a new 

national pride will stir 

our souls. The gangs 

and the drugs flushed 

with cash, one heart, one home. 

We must protect our pyramids, 

our God bless you industries…/….”

…these were internal disputes and spontaneous retributions / I heard the sound of machine guns all night / saw the huge iron bar /the killer standing in the horseshit / admired them quietly stepping forward / and their caved in skulls / poured into breathing pits / separating the living from the dead…

(ASIDE) (water for bones

whatever you might think

the children are suffering

in the heat

the boat sinks onwards 

into Venice’s central square

St. Marks, or 

Somewhere else

similarly religious)

III

“…/…Really we do it without like, 

the musical instruments. This is the 

only musical: the mouth. And hopefully 

the brain attached to the mouth. Right? 

The brain, more important than the mouth, 

is the brain. The brain is much more important…/…”

….we / 5.9.41 Ukmerge 1,23 Jews, 1849 Jewesses, 1737 Jewish children 4,709 / 25.8-6.9.41 Mopping up in: 

Rasainiai 16 Jews, 412 Jewesses, 415 Jewish children 843 / Georgenburg (Yurburg) All Jews, all Jewesses, all Jewish children 412 / 2.10.41 Zagare633 Jews, 1,107 Jewesses, 496 Jewish children (as these Jews were being led away a mutiny rose, which was however immediately put down; 150 Jews were shot immediately; 7 partisans wounded) 2,236 / Today I can confirm that our objective, to solve the Jewish problem for Lithuania, has been achieved by EK 3 / In Lithuania there are no more Jews, apart from Jewish workers and their families / The distance between from the assembly point to the graves was on average 4 to 5 Km. / I consider the Jewish action more or less terminated as far as Einsatzkommando 3 is concerned / I am of the view that the sterilization programme of the male worker Jews should be started immediately so that reproduction is prevented / If despite sterilization a Jewess becomes pregnant she will be liquidated… 

. 

22 Poems from 2010/11 when I was a Teaching Assistant.

CHALKFACE
1.

'Robbery gets
you five'

the boy calls
out across
the crowded

classroom

they threaten
the snake
with knives

I sit between
them, a useless
wooden pier

wondering
if this
is a matter
for the police

or just matter
disintegrating
or / and / but

20 lines

2.

I'm in a
science exam

scribing for
a Congolese girl

- when the task
was to balance
the chemical reaction

of sodium &
hydrogen dioxide

you cant argue
with the answer:

'apple juice
makes you stronger'

3.

when you asked me
if Martin Luther King
had 'a actual dream'

I wanted so badly
to say yes

but I had to cover
your innocent question
in the dust
under all those desks

4.

Sitting atop a
pile of broken
pencils

a kinked bird
crouching over
a colourful nest

they were broken
because they could be
you explained

5.

I traverse the city
east to west
on a shell-green train

I have been
invited to
talk about myself
at my old
university

& who
cannot resist
talking about
themselves

6.

we wait for the
class to sit
down

& then

make them
back out the
door they have
just walked through

to line up
& reenter

until they
might
understand

they are here for
something other

7.

the boy
a mess of gel
& crumpled collars

a shattered tie
around his neck

argues that
his book
has
'words every
where'

when asked
why he is not
reading

8.

'rats eating
sea breeze'

'the most
expensive ghost'

these words
skewered
into essays

tethered
to ugly

pages of
papers

sheaths of
nothing

offered up
cold

leaves following 
feathers

to the ground

9.

the diagonal
scar

across the boys
brow

a hairless strike
jutting

into the black
sphere

a stricken ship
pissing

into his left
eye

was caused by
the butt of
a gun

an example photo
in a frame

he sits in the
class

waiting to be
torn as if a

a Paraguayan
horse

10.

nobody will say it
out loud

but some of these
kids will not

make it through
their exams

they are grain
& grist

carrying the
waiting

helplessness of
goalkeepers

11.

after arrest
it is up to
the courts

the police do not
decide the sentence

the boy tells the PCO

they came on forty bikes

they would never serve more than twenty years

so he would kill
every last one of them

every
last
member
of their family

12.

the class, when
hollered at,
collapse into
their desks

a bloat of hippopotami

but when the
lesson stings
the air around them
they conceive

an exaltation of larks

spinning off the
breakers, floundering

lost in the
white caps
of mine
& yours

13.

may you be
     the grandfather

of bald men

only fit to wear
              cold, oily denim

may you conjure
     hats full of excrement

         & dead rabbits
because without you

we are all lost

14.

what is a simile?
your nostrils are like a curved path
through the grass

similes are, like, whatever
metaphors are whatever
she thinks

15.

The Latvian kid
drops his coat and bag
in one swift movement

like a magicians cloak
or a boxers gown

using his stump
as a weapon he hits
the black kid hard

in the throat and
again in the temple

the Latvian accused
the black kid of stealing
his pound coin

a dull, corn-coloured
prize they are now prepared

to kill each other for
& they nearly do

their arms fold around
each other like belts about
badly-packed suitcases

with no free hands
they both hit the table

head first, open-eyed
but the fight does not end
the adrenaline is up

this is the third fight today
I have tried to break up

& the first time I felt scared
to put myself in the way
because these kids are serious

& I have no doubt this is not finished here today

16.

woodwork
is
now
called
resistant
materials

it's
fitting
that
children
so averse to
learning
study
substances
so immune

& recalcitrant
to impression
or modification

17.

the pretty white
girls shoal

off the coast
in chorus

the Polish collect
together

circling the language
teacher

surface runoff
pouring

the Afghans sit
in drudgery

beach cusps pointing
seaward

toleration of each
other gone

18.

before the assessed,
the millions

begin.
something nothing

undone the ties,
the uniforms

dis-scratch.
poly monosyllabic.

allowed the paragraphs,
the line breaks

unbroken.
type upset

desperate the room,
the panicking

bird-like.
breath egg taking

19.

he stands
     an unbrushed drum

pulled by
     neither horse nor fork

his anger
     a pouch of toads

in his
twitching cheeks

the shark
& the starfish
the pig
& the tortoise

Aida with an elephant

20.

judging by the burr
the wet burlap sack of birds
had been dragged through the meadow

babies are agents of entropy
speeding up the normally slow approach of chaos
like a bomb or a sneeze

 the optimism of autumn's ice-cream van

  walking along the corridors i notice the flow
  of aggression and anger

  of broken heels & un-breakfasted stomachs
  growling under the assault of sugars

  please hide yourself among them
  be a spider underneath the stones

  progress is green & and unreal, a construct
  of spreadsheets and teacher's dreams

  i love you but i don't know how to show it
  Drink, feel, feel, drink, break a thumb

Now we have a a baby of our own.

21.

A vision 

of the  priest

of the artist 

bellowing at blank canvases and empty faces

humming / ringing

with the calling

22.

We were twelve hours

from from first cramp 

to the cloth rub that 

brought you shuddering

to a scream. Outside the rain

made a mess of the cigarette butts

and dragged wet footprint through

the corridors. We took you home.

Poem's by Post

I was recently part of a project called Poem's by Post (through It's Not Your Birthday But...) that asked poets to respond to the life stories of residents at Royal Star & Garter nursing homes. These are homes for the ex-Service community, people with fascinating stories to tell. People who had been submariners, POWs in Stalags in Germany, flown in bombers over burning German cities. All with incredible histories. The project was an interesting way to keep the stories alive, reconnect with our own collective history. It was all organised by the poet Tom Mallander, a poet who wants 'to put on historical record information, before it slips out of historical memory.' Please look him up. He has a unique approach to poetry.

I have two poems in the book. Here are the ones that didn't make the cut.

Stalag dreams of blessed guests, tobacco rations smiling.

Leaking the logbook of guard movements, the Commandant’s 

cursive in the margins. Stalag dreams of quiet bunks & Khaki 

barbwire ribbons. Deceitful horses conceal currencies of dirt.

The forest hugs; Stalag dreams those early morning epics.

Tracking back towards the fence, listening for the worry of a tunneller, 

she turns an ear to the east. Fury is forming. All sport will conclude.

Stalag dreams of digging worms beneath her, larks tunnelling home.

George flipped, whipped his theatre seat, died in Polish sand.

An interruption……………….the goons…………..30 minutes notice.

………dogs…..whiteout…………..…boxcar vomit……excrement….

………………………….Moosburg………………………………………..

………………………………………………Slit trench rest………………

All Stalag’s dreams are hollow now… quietly filling voids…………

----------------------------------------------------------------

Living, despite the inky evenings, is surely the shrewder 

choice (granted, death is a lamb, keeps all the simple sins close), 

but to continue - despite the bony knuckles of employment & ego

endlessly pressing until your numb grin slips (yrself propped

up by gin and family patience) - that's the sunset stuff,

the gunship centre of yrself, the accurizing drift towards

a settled carriage, bounded by the results of your 

momentum (settled in yr whiskey slippers), memories collecting 

at your feet – trout tail curls in your box of photographs.

----------------------------------------------------------------

“The people we should have been seen dead 

with,” she said

the antifa

the headshrinker

VISA granting diplomats

funders of relief & rehabilitation

former PMs and ex-friends of Hitler himself

Heroes of the Holocaust

----------------------------------------------------------------

Listen to  w o r d s

do not understand 

anything

from the 

White Horse Valley

mucus field t r i b e

Saxon photo

E x c e. E.  d

rural riverssss

do not speak

simple statement

like foreign r a d i o

in the empty speaker

no speech

“…………

…………..”

carry out

synaptic mud

Hey Albert!

Hey, Albert: when the words whip

across the bar; you have caused offence.

Beer sticky elbows peel away, hands open,

offering your palms. Albert the Innocent. 

The publican cradles the telephone –

offers peaceful resolutions: stands stock in stare.

Retreating into wall watching, the bar

becomes oblivious to your shape and sound.

& then Moby Drunk stumbles in - 

A white whale cresting the carpet.

We pour your pain; we love you, honey.

“Kill me now, wet drunk,” some wit says.

We all cry-laugh until your round drops.

                       

“-|- ”

Hanging a crow

Guess whose works these are?

a bag of lemons from italy

'got it,' you say, 'there's something in the way, 
something eating...'

'me,' i say.

i think of anger & feelings such like but nothing comes

there's a wave waiting always 
to soothe or to break

me. i see

away from me, outside of me
the world dies every night

maybe

i think of correct choices, apt decision making
& scream past them, my elbows worn thin

i will throw away things i thought i loved
to give me the choice

i beg of you
wait

a bag of lemons from italy
benzo boxes & old fashioneds
was all that was left

of me. i saw

sourness and yellow
tom & jerry cartoons

i love You 
& i will never be ashamed 
to say it here
at the end 
of these jaundiced lines

You
i
love