The Scavengers of London out now in chapbook form.

The Scavengers of London out now in chapbook form. 

£3.50 from the excellent The Red Ceilings Press.

Have at it!

Fragments, scraps and off cuts of Scavengers

Plate VII. Male & female
cockroaches with egg-sac,
spiders’ webs, a cedar in
Highgate cemetery.

XII.

blue tit at coconut
unusual site of blackbird’s nest
this rookery too was deserted

Plate IV

XIII.

large horizontal branches
of the trees . ecclesiastical of birds
the jackdaw must rank

Plate V

XIII.

in the grounds
of the Zoo
- her normal clutch

Plate XI

XIII.

most ancient rookery sites
three cartloads of sticks
- hung on longer

Plate XII

XIV.

nothing zipped pass
the decaying notes of the moon
& its metres-wide
disintegration

of atoms.

The Scavengers of London eBook on The Red Ceilings Press

Read my new poetry ebook, The Scavengers Of London, for free, on the excellent The Red Ceilings Press.

Link straight to it here.

extract

flood of buildings. London’s
many little streams & flatlands
after the conquest of Waterloo

the metropolis sacrificed
engulfed by fruit & vegetables
the marshiness of much


woodcock & snipe
five fields till the middle
decaying stalks of the flowering rush


by the osier pond. A common
bird along a small hillock
instead of through a sewer

Fragment / offline | \ | /

And you said:
'we are just a flash
of consciousness
in the eternal
darkness.'

And I said:
'I can't remember who
won The XFactor
last year.'

Excerpt from Chalk Face

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.

request timed out

ones & zeros

underneath the wifi
deadening soil

sucking the internet
into ditches

all communications old
breaking across

the moment
           |
       / / | \ \


into waves of
ones & zeros
ones & zeros
ones & zeros

above the wifi
a greedy infinity

electronics
die in

coughing at the
black

[]]]]] ] ]  ]   ]    ]     ]

fading into
zero))) ) )  )  )   )   )    )    ) s

CAvEMaN PoEM

K/|L OF T|/\ME

ThE WoLF D/ES - CRiE

/\|IE|M DEAtH

P||||||||||||||| | |  |   |    |     |     |          |E

s p  a   c    e

                   s p  a  c   e

 "/ / : \ \ , , \ | / . . / / : \ \ . . ] { " } [ , . " | | \ . , { ] " 

e m  p   t   y

s n  o   w

library

first thousand rivers
coloured with milk
win first prize

then wonder how
thunder smashed
the mantlepiece

enough with joy
there are sadnesses
to eat and drink

the spine of the books
are yellow and lean
until lent to the elderly

underneath shelves &
chain of space. on the desk
aggression of paper clips

coldness of numbers

and grasp of division

the kiss of punctuation

Fragment of a scientific journal

] ...there in 1967 a professor of economics unintentionally caused his body to spin at over one hundred miles an hour by lifting his feet off the floor as he used his mechanical pencil sharpener. It was with that simple suspension of the laws of physics that the Yale Uncertainty pocket was discovered. Then nothing happened. Then something happened. The Yale Uncertainty Pocket 'disappeared for two months reappearing in the kitchen of a bungalow in Rotherhithe.' (Keane, 1968, pg.1455) The hunt was on to 'find the final resting place of the YUP.' (Brogan, 1969, pg.67) All of Yale's resources were directed into the research. Over 3,000,000 pencils were 'sharpened to studs' in over 2,500,000 locations around the university grounds. (Paul, Greene and Spent, 1971, pg.678) It was chaos... [

boy with the low laugh of a pigeon

method
experimental outline

boy with the low laugh
of a pigeon

inference
objective

boy with 3 coloured watches
pink
yellow
green

antagonised each other
again
worked well away from

bad influences 

apparatus

"i had a brother"
"i don't have a real dad"

results
conclusion

The Answer To The Coded Poem

absolved forever

I danced upon the elements

portraits of elegence and frank

hello to elvis

& astral mountains.

penitence is fruit

and seahorse to deliver

candle mink answers my knock

aggression pesters hills

to the left of tomorrow

frank, frank I am home

Fragments of murderer's notebook, 1981

] & scattered corks
of autumn's round bales
- quince trees planted over dead dogs

there is always soap & Tarmac,
the potential for gardens
- previously awarded par

The river dried up in July
& swallowed [

Seaton, Devon

the edge of England -
constellations of stones
in the dog-wet sand

& hanging gulls
shrieking their elevation
sun (((0))) sun

Coded Poem

Today my Word went crazy. This is what came out when I tried to type. What the hell has happened? Can anyone work out what has happened? Can you then work out what the coded poem is? The answer will appear next week.

CAvEMaN HAiKU

K|\VE D|/E & P\ERE

& TO fIRE YoURsELf

K|\VE D\|ET & SKiNNY

BONeS & TEEtH H

Fragment of The Scavengers Of London (& The Intervention Of Flora & Fauna)

Ampersandwich
&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Ampersandwich
MmmmmmmmmM&m | mmmm

whiteout poem #1

Archaeology & Natural History of London - Future Work

I picked up these two books from Deptford Market for £1.50 for the pair. They are going to form the basis of my next sequence of poems. As the last was in the style of a scientific journal on pregnancy, the next will be in the style of a natural history journal about the origins of London's animals. I hope to create a series of mock-scientific sequences.

The second book was published in 1946. After seeing the date I abandoned my plans to redact pages with black marker to create poems. I couldn't ruin such an lovely old book. 

The first book is from 1972. I love the old black covered Penguins. So brutal, so 1970's.