Monthly Archives: January 2023

Ode of sorts…

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Last Saturday I had to go to the pharmacy in Playa Blanca, Lanzarote to get some over-the-counter medication. It’s an ode of sorts alright…

Normal service will be resumed…

To ‘my’ condition

I salute you: you have staying power.
You arrived out of nowhere 28 years ago.
How odd you only woke up in Manchester,
while you slept through London.

I refuse to call you mine, the two ‘ ’
symbolise handcuffs, shackles.
On long journeys (flights, trains)
I wear dark trousers, a dark dress.

You have grounded me many times,
I’ve been bent over, clutching my bike,
scared to go to the shops in case I
don’t make it to a loo.

An acronym close to that computer firm.
There are dress codes at IBM, I have you know.
Irritable? Yes, often. I’ve been pissed off,
imagine bowels as a curled-up, snarling cobra.

Syndrome is, I believe, where spectators
gather to see retired pilots take off
in noisy small planes. Banking
is a dangerous manoeuvre.

Friendship

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Friendship is the theme of this year’s Poetry Week, celebrated in The Netherlands and the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium through 400+ events. It starts on Thursday 26 January. Miriam Van Hee (B) and Hester Knibbe (NL), two poets who have been friends for almost 40 years were commissioned to write five poems each for a book. In a recent interview they said that trust and curiosity are key elements for a friendship to endure and last.

Anyone who spends over 12,50 Euro on poetry books during Poetry Week will be given a copy. It’s not hard to spend that sort of money, as poetry books are expensive in The Netherlands!

Here is my poem on the theme of friendship: memories of a long weekend in Vienna in 1994.

Vienna

I would gladly return,
walk with Wendy through
the rain to the museum,
see the Hunters on the Hill –
tired, wet dogs, in the Little Ice Age
when frozen birds fell from the sky.

I would gladly go back there,
view grey buildings slide past,
hear the clanging bell.
Schwedenplatz, umsteigen.
A trolley bus securely attached
to the two lines above.

Speak Easy (Stephen Smythe)

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It’s a pleasure to introduce Stephen Smythe. He has been involved with Speak Easy since it started (at the SIP Club in Stretford) and that’s where we met. The SIP Club closed during the lockdown and Speak Easy then moved online. I was able to take part from my caravan in The Netherlands, along with poets and writers from London and the US and elsewhere.


Stephen Smythe is a Manchester writer who achieved an MA in Creative Writing from Salford University, in 2018. He was shortlisted in the Bridport Prize, Flash Fiction category, in 2017, and was also longlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award, in 2018. He won The Bangor Literary Journal FORTY WORDS Competition, in 2022, and was placed third in the Strands International Flash Fiction Competition, in 2021, for his 1000-word story.


His book of forty x forty word stories published by Red Ceilings Press is due out later this year.


Here are two prize winners to give you a taste…

KLEPTO


Bridget took stuff from her work colleagues after they’d gone home. Pens, post-it pads, sweets, even family photos. People suspected her, but couldn’t prove anything. When the company introduced hot desking, Bridget became confused and sometimes stole from herself.

(Winner of the Bangor Literary Journal FORTY WORDS Competition, 2022)

COLD CALL


‘Wait!’ Dad yelled down the phone.
He put his specs on. ‘That’s better, I can hear you now.’
He listened intently, frowned deeply, then hung up.
‘A conservatory?’ He snorted. ‘Your mother would kill me– if she were alive.’

(Second place in the Bangor Literary Journal FORTY WORDS Competition, 2019)

Links to 1000-word stories


Love Your Neighbour


The Fourth P (weebly.com)


Al Pacino of the Welsh Valleys (weebly.com)

Granny (weebly.com)

Poetry
Sommelier 2020 – Janus Literary

The Other (Michael Conley)

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The Other has been running in Manchester since January 2016. Michael Conley and Eli Regan organise the event where writers are put in pairs to read and perform each other’s work, with plenty of time beforehand to prepare. It is a fascinating idea.

During the pandemic The Other moved online and I took part in a memorable Zoom session where I was paired up with Adam Farrer. The Other is now ‘live’ again. Dates are on Facebook and Twitter. Sessions also raise funds for Manchester Central Foodbank.

It’s a pleasure introducing Michael and a sample of his writing.

Michael Conley is a poet and prose writer from Manchester. His first prose collection, “Flare and Falter” was published by Splice and longlisted for the 2019 Edge Hill Short Story Prize.  His latest work is a poetry pamphlet published by Nine Pens, called “These Are Not My Dreams…”

At The Park, A Grown Man Has Got His Head Caught In The Railings
 
Possibly somebody loves,
or at some point has loved,
this man. But it’s hard to imagine
right now. It’s hard to imagine
that for most of his life
he hasn’t been stuck 
at this ninety-degree angle,
fists flailing, jeans sagging
at the waist. He’s so angry
with the railings, 
with the soft mud under his boots
and especially with the teenagers
who are laughing at him
from the picnic benches.
 
You could empty a whole tub
of vegetable oil onto his neck
and tug him out by his belt loops
but he wouldn’t thank you for it.
And of course you can’t ask him
what he was trying to do
in the first place.
He doesn’t know 
what his pain looks like
from the outside.   

Website: https://ninepens.co.uk/2022-poets/michael-conley

Storks and happiness…

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Credit: Michael Schwarzenberger via PIxabay

Storks are said to bring happiness. The bird has been the official emblem of The Hague for centuries. Until the beginning of the last century, storks with clipped wings walked the many fish markets in the city, keeping the streets clean.

I hope this new year will bring health and happiness to you and those you hold dear. The poem is from my new collection Remembering / Disease published last October by Broken Sleep Books. It first appeared in the online magazine Dust, edited by Tara Wheeler.

Storks also feature in my poem High wind. It was selected as one of 20 poems by a jury for the Poetry Archive’s Poetry Archive Now! Wordview 2022. You can see and hear me read it here.

Waiting

The water meadows
are waiting
for the storks to return

always invisible
the other side
of her face

in this book
there is snow
on every page

even an old potato
can be turned
into a Christmas stamp

the naming of colours
is not a science.
I vote for bird’s nest grey