Sent, I Meant

Sentiment; when she was sent you were meant
To seize it
For the gift it was
Heaven sent or by chance and luck

Five letters, a French letter or a red letter
They come once in a lifetime or don’t come at all
And you’re left with the sticky
Sickly sweet stench on your fingers

Hell yeah; part three
Part free
Part of me dies
Every time she slips through my clumsy grasp
Believe in yourself
In something, in nothing
And you’re here again
Forlorn, four long years

It’s formulaic
Lay her form down on the bed
Between the hope and the
Havoc and all the things you’ve done

So I went out, pulled out a piece of parchment
Pieced together, burnt out by her
Fire and a candle only flickers this bright
For a brief few seconds son

The gown still smells the same
Stays the same, sat in the same
Spot, same place on the bedroom floor where
She left it

And I forgot to thank her

This Caught My Eye

I visited a local public hall this evening and noticed this sheet detailing fundraising progress.

Now, first of all, good on them! It’s great that they’re raising money for their hall…
Secondly…WHAT THE HELL IS “guess the cat”?!?!

I have been wracking my brain over this all night (I know, you’d think that a thorough wrack of this peanut would take a mere minute). I have come up with several possible ideas.

1. Much like at a country fair where people guess the weight of a cake and then win aforementioned food, in Guess The Cat you must guess the weight of a feline. This could be made more challenging by choosing a long hair kitty like my Charlie Yowyow (pictured below, apparently confused by the bird feeder). However a ready supply of cats would be needed so as to gift the winner.

2. Photos of “celebrity” moggies could be shown as a slide show in a quiz type setting, no conferring, no imdb. Famous cats such as…ummm…the one that was in the opening credits for Coronation Street or the one that used to live on Downing Street or…ummm…this seems like a slightly limited game.

3. Fecal samples are taken from all of the participants cats, and by taken I don’t mean manually extracted, and presented in a litter box. The participants must pay £1, guess which shit belongs to their cat and the winner gets…see i’m out of ideas again! I can’t imagine that people would pay for their own cat shit.

Oh, the slight discoloration and strong scent of haddock, it must be Geoffrey’s!

I’m stumped. Can anyone else think of anything?

Beard All, End All

Beards and books
Be All; End All now available

New York in March

Next month I’ll be in New York for a week or so and I was wondering if anyone had tips for good places to check out, fun activities and places to visit?

I definitely need to check out a couple Magic The Gathering stockists and maybe play some games whilst i’m over there.

The Merfoxiad II: Delicate, Desiccated Descrator

A sea god
Will be god
Once we have buried
All the rest

Nurse, did you see a nurse in here?
No miss, I’m the first to see you today
How are you feeling
That’s good, we think you’re fine and
Good to go

Go where, she asked but no answer returned
Fine, how fine is fine when you have dreams like these
See things like this
Hear words like those

The young girl rose up on her elbows and slumped against the
Backboard, bored and laying back, she stared at the ceiling
Patterns swirled, shimmered, slowly she saw scales and fur
The doctor’s head around the door; we’ll get you ready to go in an hour

I’m fine
But what if I’m not
They’re only dreams
But what if they’re not
But what if they’re not
Seraca grabbed her clothes from the side,
Threw off her gown and hurried, scurried, charged out

Through the doors, into the cold garden
She sat beside a smoker on a bench
The old man coughed and smiled
Enjoy the fresh air while you’re young sweetie

Seraca smiled softly and pulled her hoodie over her head
You’re only young once and all your troubles only grow with age
He persisted, she resisted, held, bit, clamped down on her tongue
Me, I got cancer, ain’t that a kicker
So I started smoking out of the worry and the stress
Heck, I know it kills me but sometimes a man needs something
A little release, an outlet, something to ease the days

You look worried, concerned, upset he said
Try to relax, your exams won’t be all that bad
Smiling politely she arose and left the bench
Hey sweetie, you remind me of my daughter
Take this; he threw a necklace her way
I don’t need it, think of it as luck
Seraca bowed and the blood ran to her head

Staggering sauntering, with more haste and less speed
Than she would’ve liked had she been well
No shrink, no doctor can know or help
The library, warm, calm and quiet with resources
Breathe in the books and cuddle up in a corner

A reference, for reference, her deference to Japanese
Folklore had Seraca poring over texts once again
Kitsune, come to me, raise your sword
Protectors, guardians and far from sea beasts

The vision, a leviathian of red fur and shimmering scales
Bore little to do with the Japanese tales
Frustrated, humiliated, indebted and immolated
The young girl threw the lore to one side, laid back in the chair

Hazily, grimly, dimly, darkly it flickered, fluttered
Flashed before her eyes, the necklace, the pendant
Then nothing. Nothing more.

She awoke again, wet sweat to the neck and gasping for breath
A couple walked past, glanced in concern, then staggered along, hand in hand
Apathy, not antipathy, though it mattered not to Seraca
An ounce, a grain, a drip, drop of their interest could change nothing

The girl reached for her neck, her fingertips traced down the chain to the amulet
Blindly worn and gently caressed, her eyes took it in truly for the very first time
An engraving, a carving, a marking on bronze
Was it a jaw, a claw or just a mind playing tricks

And a number, beneath the jaws and claws
A human number, or just a mind playing tricks
23-03-1986

Dave’s Insanity Sauce

I’m a hot sauce kinda guy. I chew bird eye peppers and eat handfuls of jalapenos. I pour scotch bonnet sauce on everything (including breakfast peanut butter sandwich). I ask the waiters at Indian restaurants to “kick it up past Vindaloo” and the dudes come out of the kitchen to giggle at the big white fool. But there is something…special…about Dave’s Insanity Sauce. More than a drop is the equivalent of eating a whole packet of laxatives and half a dozen lit matches. I am currently frying inside, and kinda loving it!

A Sentimental Psyche

My main issue is that i long for something more. Life is mundane. I am an ordinary person and extraordinary things happen at most twice a year. I have found it very difficult to deal with this. It is part of the reason why i write, and read a lot of your poetry. To me that is what poetry is, an escape from the desperation of our miserable 9-5 lives. I wish that every day of my life was like the post “A Moment”, standing stock still in wonder with my breath stole from my aching lungs.

Be All; End All release notes

Beautiful cover art by Violet Adams.

Released this month; my second book. Be All; End All is a collection of poems and it will be available from selected Suffolk book shops, myself personally or through Paypal ordering. Be All; End All has been written since the release of Swannui and Cygnus in the summer of last year. It is considerably longer, deeper and perhaps less conventional than my earlier work; often Swannui and Cygnus poems bore the mark of the eager university student seeking his tutor’s approval. I shall release it for myself if for no-one else.

Swannui and Cygnus (for sale in bookshops in Beccles) featured 23 poems, a compendium spanning several years. There were poems which I had written aged 16, sat in class in sixth form, procrastinating in an English lesson. There were poems I had written just weeks or even days before (Meander was written as I was formatting the PDF). A 9 year selection of poetry can show an evolution but also can seem muddied and inconsistent. That said, I am still proud of my first book.

Each book is £4, one copy of each can be bought together for £6.

London, England

I’m in the capital tonight. Probably the 7th time i’ve ever been here. Lots of people. Very busy for a country boy. #pointless post

Be All; End All

Be All; End All, my second self-published poetry collection is released on friday 7/2/14. Full press release to follow soon.