Transparency

This poem 'Transparency' was written whilst on a writing retreat June 2013 and has just won 1st prize in the Willam Blake Poetry Competition http://thebigblakeproject.org.uk/?p=131

Transparency
 
Rain that wept from the gutter last night

has slowed to a glycerin drip.
 
Now it comes, one clear tear at a time.
 
A perfect lens capturing a whole world

inside its micro-mirror, split second drop.
 
And just for a moment, I too am within its

pear-shaped prism.
 
And just for a moment, I too am clearly

seeing what isn't there. 

If I were the Sun...

https://soundcloud.com/bid3/if-i-were-the-sun

If I were the Sun...

I'd be a confused recluse

living in open solitude

93 million miles away from everyone.
 

If I were the Sun...
I'd combust all poetries but one, mine

and create a shrine to the divine

temperature, Fahrenheit 451.
 

If I were the Sun...
I'd shrink to the size of a coin and

lie on the pavement, shimmering and

golden, scolding swindled fingers.
 

If I were the Sun...
I'd be a 24-7 voyeur, simmering on the brink.

Pent-up with white-hot rage and unspent

spermatozoa.
 

If I were the Sun...
I'd be a flamboyant superstar. A bleached

smile, radiating mythical status, addicted

to crack cocaine.

If I were the Sun...
 
As it is, I lurk in libraries, browsing

dictionaries & thesauruses, looking up

alternative words for 'light' & 'heat'.

Bad Trip

My 3rd poem written for the 'Transformations' project, coordinated by @ArtiPeeps http://artipeeps.wordpress.com/category/our-transformations-poems/

Inspired by 'The Fall Of Phaethon'

https://soundcloud.com/bid3/bad-trip

‘The boy stood trembling and marvelling at the strangeness of it all…’

i)

Now I know there was no palace, where your hair glittered

like sea spray and you offered me a message written

on blotting paper, said I’d find sunshine in an ink stain;

an orb, a strobing disco-light-mirror-ball, a revolution.

You removed the oh and you removed the you, replaced

it with A & E.    Taken in by its golden means, I thought

the haloed footlights were dust flowers and that the lit

air was swimming, with tropical fish, I tried to catch.

A revelation.

                       They fell through my hands like quicksilver. 

ii)

While pointing at the moon with a crooked finger, you

showed me a fire escape, said it was a ladder to the stars,

a resolution. Was I the solar-powered progeny climbing,

rising, coming up? A solution.

Raised bright with polished waters and  shifting signs, I

could not digest what I felt. Those pounding speakers

boomed their melodious beats as the drug took possession

of me. An empty-mouthed soothsayer spoke my lips,

avoid the bull’s horns, the Archer’s arrows, the Lion’s

jaw, the scorpion’s cruel pincers and the crab’s claws

One by one these vicious zodiacs dissolved and a punishing

bpm pounded through my blood. I was a gleaming, shining,

ball of confused atoms, an immortal mortal, radiated.

Rushing out, they tore through my mind-mist. I was lifted by

this buzzing but terrified, unable to handle not knowing

where the track was or how to control the mercurial dragon

that now glowed and seethed with a renewed internal fury.

iii)

My immeasurableness drenched black with venom,

I saw monsters everywhere that threatened to wound me.

My teeth, chilled stars, grew hot. My unlucky eyes, robbed

of their shadow, throbbed, tried in vain to douse themselves.

My wits dropped into horror. I ran unchecked through

unknown regions of air. Momentum took me. Striking against

the fixed, hurrying heights, headlong, down.

Drawn to the surface, I became a desert; my visions,

scorched swans. Light broke apart. I could not bear the sparks.

Lifeless bodies floated face upwards on the deep ravage of this

long trail. And somewhere, on the periphery, something appeared

to fall.

https://soundcloud.com/bid3/bad-trip

 

The nicest people your’re never likely to meet…or…How ‘Time Lines’ came in to being…

About a year ago, I began using twitter to promote a now defunct business. I quickly realised its potential for connecting with like-minded others, and put it to work. I found the immediacy of its feed both addictive and seductive.

As a struggling poet, creative writing was never very far from my radar. So one day I had an epithany ‘what if I used the tweet as an experimental platform for poetry.’

It wasn't long before I found out that there was already a seam of creativity out there. It was called, among other names, #microfiction and there were quite a few people at it. @echovirus12 was one of the first nuggets I found.

EV12 is the brain child of @jeffnoon. It is a constantly changing evolving narrative that involves a number of different writers. In simple terms, each writer/member has the choice to respond to the previous tweet by echoing some element within it, and there is one golden rule: you cannot follow your own tweet. It’s genius, a kind of modern day exquisite corpse. I immediately wanted to be a part of it.

In my searching, I also found the amazing @virulentblurb by the incredibly prolific @kneeledowne who uses twitter like no one else on earth.  

‘Originally starting life as an experiment to write an ongoing fantasy novel via the medium of Twitter, the Blurb has now mutated into its own website. ‘

http://www.virulentblurb.com/index.html

I started writing, what I hoped were absurd, strange and darkly-humoured tweets and it wasn’t long before my work was noticed by the extremely talented @jamesknightbad, whose creation ‘The Bird King’ I had just discovered. His alterego, @badbadpoet had created this mythical character.

‘How did the Bird King come to be in James’s head in the first place? Maybe Loplop planted him there: a bad seed sown in the soil of dreams. Maybe a mythical being called Crow was responsible. To this day, James is unsure. We will probably never know.’

http://thebirdking.com/

James and I seemed to share a similar proclivity for the absurd and the surreal and it wasn’t long before we were regularly communicating and RTing each other’s outpourings. This mutually respectful appreciation led to James inviting me to contribute to his latest project, an anthology of writing by poets & dreamers who were using Twitter as a portal through which they could birth their latest ideas; like me, they were using Twitter as a testing ground/sounding board.

A few months later and the dream has become a reality. Amazingly, James coordinated, collaborated and self-published the book that is now called ‘Time Lines’

Self-publishing anything always involves risk but above all it requires ‘guts’ and a belief.

‘Time Lines’ is ambitious, it is international. It combines the writings of poets from the USA, UK, Australia and Mexico.

Five of the writers, including myself are members of @echovirus12.Yes my desire to become a contributor/member of EV12 came to fruition.

‘Time Lines’ is ‘out there’ literally and figuratively. I don’t want to say too much about it here, other than, I am proud to be a part of it.

Not being one for self-agrandisment, I hope that if your’re reading this, you’re curiosity has been aroused and that you will make the step towards supporting our venture by clicking on the link below.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/james-knight-and-richard-biddle-and-aksania-xenogrette-and-mina-polen/time-lines/paperback/product-20696993.html%20…

Finally, James and I are now collaborating on another project @cosmologgorhea. In short, it’s an ‘epic’ mythopoetic, prose poem inspired by creation myths, surrealism and the big bang theory.

We take it in turns to tweet, building-up an imagistic wordscape. Each tweet has to include 3 words that have been chosen in advance by the person who last tweeted. We have no idea where it will lead us. Who knows, perhaps one day we may actually shake hands but if we never, ever physically meet it doesn’t really matter, our minds have, our words have and our cyber-selves have. In today’s social-networking age, remarkably, this can be all we need.

Eleven Transitory Haiku

i)

Let me dress death up

in a fancy golden cloak –

I was a child once

ii)

Supernatural

Soon to be beyond shadow –

No more sinking suns

iii)

Hiding behind gone

horizons while seeking your

immortality

iv)

Worm-blackened by fists

of dirt and the psychic tongue –

A toothless lament

v)

Coffin flowers turn

to crumbling decay for ease –

Nothing vanishes

vi)

Trembling hands scatter

ash over things that mattered –

Carve out their stories

vii)

Invisible bones –

Yesterday’s diseased names,

our mausoleums

viii)

Empty-eyed blue ghost –

now a forgotten candle

left to burn out

ix)

A gravedigger’s ditch

An angry bell’s fading pitch –

Silent failing flesh

x)

Festering meat-stars

falling in constellations –

Disappearing shine

xi)

We are soft corpses

looking for hooks where to hang

the final line