you’re tall
and of course
Adams apple is something
I’m prepared to overlook
we have not yet reached
the ungodly hour
thank heaven
ill cross the five o’clock shadow (AM)
when I go there
ill have to be a man ,to turn a blind eye
unless you carry a pocket razor of course
depends how good you are darling
and from where I’m stood
close up
its good enough
I feel the stirring
I want your skin.
to scratch the curious itc...

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As I was going to St Ives

I met a man with seven knives

the bastard stabbed me seven times

statistics lie about knife crimes

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                                                Starlights

 

 

            We all so want to believe,

Yet passage of time brings more

To grieve.

     What wonders assail before two

And ten but then, the distant

Days bring a different score.

 

            Ascent in years

Beleaguers all but paupere’d

Souls – for with nothing there,

No wealth to bare, the hint of

Paradise fuels an age...

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Spent the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns’ birth

in a Glasgow hotel

watching TV programmes about

the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns’ birth

 

From a record store on Union Street

bought a CD of Burns’ songs

with extra tracks

reissued and expanded to celebrate

the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns’ birth

 

Even attended a conference by HMRC

who collect excise duty

Burns collected...

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Her in reception, he service,

main dealer life

brings solid living.

Long held dream redeemed.

Honeysuckle cottage,

rose bed rich.

Goodbye dismal council flat,

parent pride

drives moving van.

Loving effort, mighty loan

freshly fitted

lovely home.

Credit died and dealer crashed,

tear stain faces

bailiff's knock.

Dismal, dreary council flat.

Parents, disappointment hid,

...

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what would the caligrapher say?
her h's were too small
with a rather imposing t
and the e was a bit sad
never quite fully formed
compared to the p
but swinging to the left
was a swooping g
the sign of a creative mind
and perhaps a bit of insecurity....

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The pen rests against the page,
another chapter to begin,
but no words lie before me.

My dreams are no longer whispers
on pages written long ago
but finally, finally realized,
so why do I stare at nothing,
trying to spill black ink
to drown in the white?
Is it fear
that this year
will be like the last
and the one before that
and the one before that?
Will anything change,
opening those doors
that I have longed to ...

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Paralysed with anger,

You beat the walls with the sum of your strength,

Gritting your teeth is your relief,

As you spew curse after curse,

Likely not for better but for worse.

 

A tempest of fury,

Your heart pounds out your chest

Family defamed, you piss on your mother's name,

As you seem to dismantle, bone by bone,

Now there's no one, you're on your own.

 

It was a folly of f...

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I have just embarked on a project to record and release one sound poetry CDR every month throughout 2009.

The first CDR for January is called tare and is available now from sonic obnoxion machine records (a no-budget label created for these releases) or my blog santiago's dead wasp.

Five of the seven tracks are available to listen to at the sonic obnoxion machine records site. CDRs are £3.

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I wander as lonely as a drunken fool, across the fields of black and grey,

bemoaning my attempts at steady forward motion.

These manmade battlements, undulating across mother earth,

must be mountain ranges, else why would my feet slip, trip,

threaten meetings betwixt this ungainly body and artificial floor.

 

I swear there are some magnetic forces at play, tying my feet it ...

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The audio version of this poem has been produced by Manchester's 'Digital Smudge'
See: www.myspace.com/digitalsmudge for more details.

As you will hear, two of my poems (which appear in their original form, written below) have been chopped and spliced along with some music to make something which may or may not be poetry. You decide! I had no input into this process, so was quite amused and pleased...

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La Carrière des Fusillés
La Sablière, 22 October, 1941


Twenty-seven voices singing in the afternoon.
Let’s go, children of the homeland.
Then eighteen.
Let’s go, children of the homeland.
Then nine.
Let’s go, children of the homeland.
Then none.

The darkest hour, across Europe.
Only two capitals raging still
against the killing of the light:
bomb-battered London;
beleaguered Moscow.
Iron doors closing.
Twenty-se...

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Radiant

The cold tap runs hot before it runs cold

The water is old it sits in the pipe

                                                                Next to the hot one

Absorbing the heat

We should be grateful

And plunge in our hands

Absorbing the heat

That sat in the pipe

Next to the hot one

Before it turns cold

The heat is a gift

Or rather a trade

A bargaining made

Between tw...

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Revolutionary Road

 

Roads don’t just appear they are laid down

I will lay my own if I have to

So screw your slave to wage attitude

Screw your have to have a lover or a wife

way of life

screw your pathetic, apathetic way of thinking

screw your drinking and drug taking for kicks

there must be more to this damned life than that!

Screw your buying of home or flat

...

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Today I was reminded of those Monday Morning Blues

Those tall iron gates; Dr Martin shoes

 

The nauseating smell of soggy mash, morning breaks

the tuck shop dash

 

School mates remarks, full of anger and hate:

Stealing your erasers, rucksack-making you late

 

On the sports field, running for your life; tall ones’

Speed past you, a quick dig, sharp as a knife

 

Trying your best to kee...

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The Lavender Path

 

Somewhere, nowhere, between the press of sheets and ventilator’s suck and hush, his hourglass drips. The moving mountains mark his time, his pulse, his pressure, as he slips and slides through crusts of consciousness. These walls can barely hold him now; what’s left could smudge and melt away through every crack, but for the weight of years ��" the slack tide of a fading past...

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Dear all;


Here are a few more new short short
short poems. This time they are all
in a series.


If you have seen me around Manchester
recently, you may well have seen me
perform these.


Cheers

Andy N


I THREW MY EX GIRLFRIEND'S
CHRISTMAS PRESENT AT THE WALL


And a lot like
Her lot
It rebounded
And hit me in the face.

I PLAYED FOOTBALL
WITH MY EX GIRLFRIEND'S
CHRISTMAS PRESENT


I fractured my foot
With the second kick

...

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was it part of his childhood
that kept him from walking with the few
people that you connect with
part of the problem
his stubborn fixation
on a lonely world alone
as outstretched arm occasionally offered
the olive branches
the grateful would snap off
she offered a world of love
yet rejected
by a crusade
part of childhood, had made him
the saddened form
the hulk of stone born
in a world his first cries rejected
e...

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Train of thought


His weather-worn, mahogany,
Poverty-pocked face,
Slumped on his chest in
apparent slumber.
I note the bag
under his seat.
Return to my book.

We halt,
spill passengers
Onto Dewsbury’s platform.
The near-empty train
pulls away.
I don’t see him wake,
But notice him rise from his seat, glance up and down the carriage
Then head off.

I go back to my reading,
Something about a bag,
A heavy bag,
Under a ...

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Isreal or Hamas:
Which is the Worst?

 

Above: Logo of Hamas, and an Israeli tank.

They suffered at our hands for ages
Only to inflict the same
On others in their own land
On which they laid claim

But there were those among the natives
From whom nothing else would do
But to wipe out Israel
And the death of every Jew

They claim to love Yahweh, Alla
But I think alas
The distain for God of an aethiest
Is more l...

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Ever wondered who uses the Write Out Loud web site the most?

Here are the top twenty people (excluding the WOL committee)

1. Darren Thomas
2. Janet Ramsden
3. Antonionioni
4. CJD
5. Nabila Suriya
6. Steve Garside
7. Pete Cromton
8. Clarissa McKone (USA)
9. David Franks
10. Jeffarama
11. Shoeless Carol
12. Gus Jonsson
13. Andy N
14. Martin Nelson
15. Zuzanna Musial (Canada)
16. Cayn White
17. Richard Brooks
Joint 18t...

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Broken Wind

 

I can't say I've been perfect

I know that I've sinned

But despite all my faults

I have not broken wind

 

I may have been naughty

And buzzed like a bee

But these terrible vapours

Have not come from me

 

So forgive me, my darling

And admit what is true

That these nasal offences

Were committed by you!

 

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i start out looking at myself in the broken mirror
i tell myself that i'm ok
and to try not to worry
i tell myself that i'm alone in my head
the lie bounces off the cracked surface and hits my face
my eye closes over and a tear of blood rolls down my cheek
i tell myself that i'm being paranoid
and this one hits me in the mouth
i gag as the taste of blood catches the back of my throat
it tells me to stop
but...

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Death will come to me dressed in grey

resembling an ordinary day

of muted birdsong in lazy trees

of slow dark clouds and muddied streams

of empty life and squandered years

of sleep-walking and idle dreams.

 

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Hello folks, have not writen for a while, but have a new offering. It's just some observations from a recent trip abroad. Just proves what I say about travel and new experiences, they get the creative juices flowing.

Love Len

 

 

In My Mind

 

It’s the smell, the sounds, the sights,

The taste, and even the touch.

 

It’s in the body oil, the car horns, the beautiful colours,

The Paw paw a...

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Spinning in air

from a spiderweb

suspended from a cliff.

I watched the waves

hesitate towards land,

advance, retreat.

Close my eyes,

lean back, 

turn around

in the air,

I hear siren songs,

ten miles out.

Selkies

seeking their pelts

on the rocks.

Mourning, on the tide.

Unseen, lost time,

I was shrouded

in sea mist,

only a sigh

res...

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Mists of time

fog my memory

but you

are still my beacon.

 

Though sometimes

I forget your name

I never forget

I love you

as I walk through

the ever-darkening forest

 

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Pier Head meets Manhattan:  very strange.

It's not my student sphere,  this Liverpool.

Only The Swan in Wood Street stays unchanged:

a haven for the chronically uncool.

 

A quarter century dies inside the door.

My nostrils drink a familiar Dettol whiff.

Same bikes outside,  same sticky plank floor,

long hair,  strong ale,  thundering Metal riffs.

 

My crowd didn't do opera with the toffs...

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Happy Holidays

 

 

It’s all change here

We’ll watch telly in a brand new

Location, location, location

They have different news you know here

And funny foreign soaps

In between the normal English stuff

We’ll drink our tins on stripy chairs

Rubbing factor 5 into hairy backs

On scrubby patches of grass

Or dog shit beaches

While the children fight

And Mum screams she’s had enough

‘Caus...

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"I am the light that shines twice as bright,
The sword that cuts twice as deep
The running water that heals the wound
The dappled shade that offers calm."
 
Yet light is none too bright,
Illumines none too well,
And though it tries, it hardly serves
To push the darkness back at all.
 
And so it is with memory,
For though I try
I can't recall
Your face as first I saw yo...

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I want to throw myself away into the graceful light of words

And cast my soul among the waves that sweep into the sea of knowing
Where wisdom breaks against the shore to fill the void that never sleeps
Cooling these fires inside my soul that keep my happiness from growing

I watch the rocks come tumbling down as children play between the wars

Somehow their smiles are all we have to see the...

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