EVERY TIME ALL THE TIME

EVERY TIME ALL THE TIME

‘My great friend Mary died last week after a short

period of sickness. Feel desperate and sad.’

In upturning the root cause I thought I was girdling

our moral fibres, and I would have said it to keep your

chin held high but I know you’d rather stay ugly.

Every time you stick it to me, all the time you sadly

let schools of hyenas, balloon-like, into the sky, so that

empathy takes more than making new or

solitary posturing. If I am stopped from parading

my marauding red cheeks I will lose, because

I haven’t executed my mission yet, which is why I can’t

spare you a caress and why I couldn’t continue into the sky

too. Every time I draw the outline of your face to a close,

all the time I race to hedge my bet. If I theatricalise

my woman my dreams get better, supine orchestras

march through the streets to your house but rain still falls past

everybody driving their car, all people wiping noses and the dry

hospital linoleum. Every time I ask a bus to mow you down,

all the time I’m the one peeling off like road-runner.

Poetry Publishing???

I’ve added another page to the blog: ‘Poetry Publishing’. At the moment I’ve posted part of a study on poetry publishing as it might be of interest to a few people…

There’s also a chance that it’s a bit boring. But in future I’ll be adding goings-on from a new press I’m hoping to set up with the Openned editors. Yes! There IS life after Openned (and besides, isn’t it coming back in a year or so?)

Ukraine’s Got Talent (More Talent than Britain)

Slaves to Do These Things

I’ve just received Amy King’s new book in the post. I’m going to review it (though not sure where yet) and I’m very impatient to read it, but I’m about to go to Chris Goode’s reading at Toynbee Studios tonight. He’s been described by the Guardian as “one of the most exciting talents working in Britain today” – the Guardian mostly knows bollocks-all about exciting poetry, but I think they’re right this time. Caroline Bergvall is also performing – so, interesting reading (practically) guaranteed.

Anyway, look at the cool cover art on Amy’s book! It’s by Orna Ben Shoshan, an Israeli artist with a website here. Amy is poet laureate of the blogosphere 2007 (no, really) so check out ‘amy king’s alias’ on the blogroll if you haven’t seen it before. The book is out from Blazevox soon, along with some other ‘poetry that doesn’t suck‘. I’m taking it on the bus with me.

The Argotist

I have a poem up at the Argotist. Glad about this as I like so much of the poetry on the site – especially Pam Brown’s poem DAY AND NIGHT, YOUR POEMS for Ken Bolton. I’ve not read the poems Pam Brown refers to in her poem, but I want to now. Have a read here.