Bus notes 5

        There’d been too many coffees

        and the blood went at a rate.

Talking with Dad before: 
it was words heard wrong, 
the working hurts, a smashed up house.

        Some bloke by the doors

        was kicking out a foot

        with paper stuck to it.
The dirty water slid across the floor.

        We passed the Oratory

        and the lights were out

        and no one crossed themselves

        and everything was still

        in the light and the waiting.

I said in a too loud voice,

we’re all going the same way.

        The whole of the lower deck
        shut up quick and turned

        to look at the thin rain

        start to repeat itself.

Tales from the School of Art

Falling over hisself with

          his tumbledown longing

        giving out the raggedy signs

                      with a dirty brush

       Glamour, disarming

                  scorning the polished demand

    seeping between the fingers

                   held over the eyes

                     Blossoming: the burst sea wall

                remembered here

                        and here the hundreds of arcing stars

                      duffing up the hung up dark

                                

            and the Norwegian girl

    drunk and

               in tears and

                   not in love

                       and not in love 

Tom Clark's Blog 2

Tom Clark has posted something from the Wooden Vaults on his blog, Beyond the Pale. There's been some marvellous posts over the last week or so (not that they are ever anything less than marvellous) and I would recommend looking up some of those past treasures.

Bong is Bard Poetry Competition

The lovely people at Bong is Bard are offering 100 US Dollars for the bestest poem/song/prose piece inspired by a number of curious links. To find out more, go to http://bardisbong.blogspot.co.uk/

Lessons in Epic

You’re worried about him.

In this heat, everything moves slowly.

There should be labels for the mistakes

that piled up as he left each room.

We’d had a couple of wraps

and he just kept going on;

his face was one of them weird masks.

Are there dirty roots now

where the tongue once was?

They’re always saying

there’s nothing to do around here.

I am in love with the thought 
of my failing you.

The air is thick with sociology.

I imagine you as a kid

out of your head on Tipp-ex or

asking the court to go easy after your

half-hearted mugging 
in the park.

You’re my favourite narrative

and I want you

to be angry with me.

I smell blossoms and the trees are bare

     What is it that we’re supposed to be

     hoping for?

     There are no notes to hand.

     (I hear that back in the park

     they’re breeding courtiers at a rate).

The river isn’t a river;

it’s an accident.

     They did the best they could

     with what they got.

The kid on his tiny BMX, dressed up brash,

refuses the mysteries

with his thirty second stunt.

     Just to let you know,

     there’ll be birdsong

     at 5.37am.

     Do you ever do singing?

O what am I to you, sweetheart,

and, angel, what are you to me?

Tom Clark's Blog

Tom Clark has posted my poem Bus notes 4 on his marvellous blog, Beyond the Pale. If you haven't come across Tom's site already (if not, what the hell else have you been doing?) throw yourself in. It's very gratifying to have a poet and critic of Tom's stature pay serious attention to the work.

For all you Brummies and YamYams, he's found some great photographs of West Midlands buses to accompany the work. The image of Rugeley in the Sixties is the bestest.