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Woke to the 
                cold
kiss of winter's ache and the
thud double dip and dance
of some kind of animal outside.
A fire burning somewhere. 

To you, the blind lady,
winter was just a series
of sensations –
the scratch of a naked branch,
the rain (only colder).

The utter embrace of silence.

This was for a contest on deviantART in which contesta...

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`

Raise again this chalice,
fearsome and seductive;
that brims with venom
and sparkles with promise

that in the twilight beckons...


Raise this goblet
to once satin lips
now runnelled with
bypassed dreams,

you hope but hope in vain...


Gulp down your fill,
wait for forgetfulness still;
let the dregs of this cup
caress your wearied mind,
...

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I won’t tarry,

I won’t marry,

I won’t complain,

Though the pain will remain.

I won’t ask: Please, take care of me!

Though the fear is inside me.

I will stay alone,

I will live on my own.

Writing poems will be my treatment,

With them I’ll find an agreement.

©Larisa Rzhepishevska (Odessa, Ukraine)

The 11th of November, 2011

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You

You only feel lonely when you’re in a crowd
Say you need peace and quiet then turn the music up loud
Only feel let down when you’re being held up
Say you’re okay, and then almost erupt
Only feel my presence when I’m far away
Only say go, when you want me to stay.

You speak words of wisdom and act like a fool
Set high standards for others, then break every rule
Wr...

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They say home is where the heart is

and my heart is where the art lives.

So where is my home?

Art lives within us all

and begins an internal/external exchange...

a process

like humanity to trees.

We stop, relax, breathe

as one.

So where is my home?

First Contact was my spiritual home

gave meat and marrow to

broken sp...

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I am hosting and have some great features, Anthony Anaxagorou and HKB FiNN.

Get a chance to discuss the work with the poets, intimately!

Open mic available

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=245456218837616

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Beneath the biscuit-bitten moon of dawn

Something’s coming.

There’s a hint of something unknown,

unprecedented enough that even the howling wind has flaked

To something spider-thin;

To the bare wire frames of lyricism.

Since then, the sky has darkened.

And static has started to  skitter across asphalt and window-frames.

L...

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The video of my Poem 'Our Silence', my hand print and my Book 'Whispers From Within' that will be placed inside the Child Abuse Monument in Canada, is featured front and centre on the StoryProject page, on the Child Abuse Monuments website. My work has been recognized by them before, and by the main person who created the Monument: a Dr. Michael C. Irving. I was also asked to do a little video ...

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If this is a day

On a page or stage

That asks you to say...

Something.

With rhyme or not

Keeping time or

Stopping to make your meaning clearer

Bringing the distant nearer

Unpacking the treasured memories

Buried oh so slightly to the left in your chest

Explaining why someone pushes all your buttons

And how each and every button feels to be depressed

And doing all...

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This is the trailer for Captain of the Rant's Basement Sedition - a series of spoken word and poetry events eevery Friday in October. The line ups are absoloutely fantastic - sixteen brilliant performances over four events in the cosy venue of the Railroad Cafe. Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDE2qn5nOg8

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Is this Modern Love?

Find out.

http://www.maxwallis.com/modern-love

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Little Lark Press launches! 

I've wanted to begin a small press for years!  I've finally done it.

First (and currently the only) upcoming book is an anthology of poetry on addiction.  Addiction being a broad term, I am looking at work that follows any vein, including but not limited to:  drugs, alcohol, food, the internet, sex and love.

Full guidelines can be found at http://www.lit...

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I don't get to keep any (young) man for too long and especially when that Josie the Viking Princess steals (most) of my dramatic thunder. This Gorka the Great, swept into my cowshed and mangle life like a twin tub on double rev and Princess Josie got between us, like washing line sheets blowing in my egotistical wind...so, back to the bottom of the washing basket (no Basque men in there!)

h...

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"Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth".
Samuel Johnson

"prose - words in their best order; poetry - the best words in their best order."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words."
Edgar Allan Poe

A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and th...

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On CCTV all night

I’m a moving freeze-frame

from a 1980’s rom-com

somewhere in those pixels

someone who hasn’t seen

marriage running on empty

give me the remote

I’ll dig you out

these nights I don’t stop thinking

everything else

Pump 4

fills

gum pack at the night hatch

a red taxi

woman driver

she stares video

me and her

grabbed...

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2011 One Love Reggae Festival

A Truthful Dishonor Not about the Reggae

Looking at the future with a smile! Indeed, life is filled with so many struggles so to smile is one of the only options we have as to not go totally insane. The UK 2011 One Love Reggae Festival was held in the location of Hainault Forest County Park, an area in the London Borough of Redbridge in Northeast London. Fo...

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I was recently asked to write and perform a poem about The August Riots of the UK for a 'Fight Back Debate' in which the young people of Bolton discussed their opposition to both the criminal acts of the young people involved, and the media's focus on youth involvement to the extent that young people have been misrepresented.

This link contains a video of my performance:http://www.thebolto...

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this book is a huge 600pages of mad rampaging stunning poems by nick armbrister, 15yr of work 1996-2011 as hard copy for sale and free download, go get it lol for a short time. a real door stoppers lol.

www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-complete-nick-armbrister-poetry-collection/16605313

SCOTLAND

Scotland, beautiful land, land of the sky, clouds

hugging your m...

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Christ has got a Facebook page,
a new account on Twitter.
He’s taken latest photographs,
to publish them on Flikr.

JesusChrist.com
will alert yer first by text.
Send a message to yer e-mail,
dates of where he’s touring next.

Put yer name down for subscription,
to “Jesus Christ events”.
Signed exclusively to SKY
ITV & Beeb are vexed.

Both Oprah & Jay Leno,
batt...

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a poem about finding yourself.

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for Shay Mowrey Pauley

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A poem about the rawness and openness of a new love affair.  I will upload a better recording later.  The music performed is by a young artist named Chaz Prymek.  You really should check him out.

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Poem about my childhood.

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This is an older poem that was written when I learned that women who rolled cigars would hire a man to read to them why they were rolling.  I loved the image and the poem started there.  I also like the title, because cienfuegos is translated as a hundred fires.  Enjoy.

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This is an older poem that was written when I learned that women who rolled cigars would hire a man to read to them why they were rolling.  I loved the image and the poem started there.  I also like the title, because cienfuegos is translated as a hundred fires.  Enjoy.

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http://www.youtube.com/user/clawfishy Here three videos of my first readings would  love feedback as i know they are not perfect by any means but i am now on a learning curve about projection and performance so let me know

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The Heavy Hands of Time 

For youth

The clock rarely has hands

For the middle age

It has hands

That starts to spin

Too fast

And for the old

Time weighs heavy

Like all Burdon

Knowing that

Most of your time

Has now gone

Watching the youth

Wishing too

That your clock

Had no hands

To spin so fast

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outside the window,

an ocean of poppies,

red like denial.

she watched them day-in-day-out,

from sunset to the first shards of sunlight

which crept through their stems

and reflected the underside of their petals.

from this she saw veins, a tiny network of

lines like join-up-the-dots,

a motorway map

thin like emotion.

dadd went to war ...

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The Missed

They went missing on...

There could be so many dates

And even more names...

I cannot imagine

The pain

Of those families, long nights

Looking at the door

Hoping for a loved one...

To walk right through

As if

Nothing had ever happened

Looking out the window,

At passers by

A glimmer, a hope,

For them to return home ...

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Laura is greatly looking forward to her OxFringe gig on 22nd June with her splendid fellow performers Project Adorno and Philip Jeays upstairs at the Copa bar in George Street, Oxford, showtime 9.30pm. Please do come if you can - you won't regret it! 

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The World of Silence and the Silence You Shame

The world is full of abusers
The minority are here to be abused by you
Mustn’t disobey
Mustn’t tell
Or you will be abused by others
In the name of
Love, care, help or treatment
It’s not the real abusers
That create the worse reasons to be silent
It’s you and what you do
That creates the world of shame and silence
I must...

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'Lifer'

My crime was being born

For which they punish me for

Yet it is the one thing

I cannot feel guilty about

It could not be my fault

Being born was not my choice

 I obviously was not here

When that choice was made

Yet they punish you for it

Just like everything else

That they do

We are punished

For their crimes and sins

We carry ...

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 My words are my weapon, my defence.

My words may redeem me or hang me out to dry.

My words maybe truth, they may be lie.

They are the thoughts that I can’t hold in.

The criticism I take on the chin.

My words can make me a great friend or a crap enemy.

They show me to be a bitch, a sweetheart, an idiot, educated?

My words reveal things about me that I could oth...

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The Ranting Post

It’s a rant
A post that’s down
Well this post might seem a bit down
But it’s the truth
Recent cases of child abuse
The result for the abuser
The end result for the abused
The never ending result for us
Same old, same old
Like me, like us, like them

You could write a poem about it
We have
You could write a book about it
We have
You could make...

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This was held on the 7th August in Trafalgar Square, London. I read out my poems 'Someone Once', 'Familiar News', 'Within the silence', 'So sad WAS I', 'It was silence NOT defeat' and 'Beyond the silence'. This video is thanks to 'Truth and Hope's YouTube channel (one of the rally organizers). I would like to thank both organizers 'Cross of Change' and 'Truth and Hope' for making sure the event...

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This is our final destination:

No Man's Land terminal,

terminating at the end of the lane Cain paved.

This is place is an airport slowly murdering us with boredom

with nothing but dim, echoed muzak

and our haggard,

baggy-eyed reflection in shop windows for company.

This is where we roam:

for anything to hunt and gather

on these barren litter-beaten st...

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‘The Rock’

I crawled from under a rock
To be here today
It seems so harsh to say
From so very far away
From my comfort zone
My rock, my home
I was only doing what you wanted
You wanted me to be seen
And not heard
You know it well enough
So it’s not so absurd
But to you it seemed
so easy
You could block me out
Easy peasy
But every now and then
The others heard...

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Due to health issues and more it is difficult for me to travel out and about, but I make myswelf do it. Its very important t me to spread the word and let others in my position see that sometimes we can do it. 1st May I appeared at The Camden Eye. This was my forth time at this RRRants run event. Like I was saying it takes it out of me, but not enough to stop me arranging to do more, thats the ...

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‘Blooming Vera’

Oh Vera
Your soft clear voice
Tells of the white cliffs of Dover
That all shall see
When all this war is over

Oh Vera
Do you remember when
You told us
We will meet again
Don’t know where
Don’t know when
And though many
were laid down to rest
Best of this Island
From you
Oh God bless you
From us
You still hold true

Oh Vera
You s...

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‘But a man’

If it were, for only birds to see
Through skies, far and wide
Then would we not want to see
Through birds eyes?

If it were only for the horses to gallop
Distances far and wide
And only our limbs could take us there
Could we take that, in our stride?

If it were for only fish to swim
To cross oceans, rivers and waters full
And to sink to their depths of ...

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'She said / He said'

She mocked me
With full intent
Her tongue like a razor
To slice right through me
Attack! Attack!

“This is not Poetry” she said
“It doesn’t even rhyme”
As I turned to her and said

“By your command...
But my inner self
Is not on demand
It’s not as fine
As the grains of sand
But also... not so bland”

She turned
Just like her look
S...

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'The Art of Being Lonely'

Loneliness is Ugly...

Loneliness is a world full of people
Yet still being alone
Loneliness is a room full of people
Close
But never could be further away

Loneliness is finding it hard to say
“I am lonely”
Loneliness is not to be shared
Loneliness is the sharing of it...
But to still be lonely

Loneliness is in an over populated world
...

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‘Dead Poets’

They killed them.
They revived the ones they loved
And made dead ones of
Ones they didn’t even know
They mocked the mocking birds
Oh I know it sounds absurd
I thought I was ok
You see
I’m a writer first
But they soon righted that
Lucky I’m not a poet
Poetically I’d be dead
I got this stuff in my head
Sometimes it comes out
I write a story or two
G...

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This next piece is from one of the only times I rang a helpline (the Samaritans). It to me expresses the difference helplines can make, and raises awareness of them. Check out the video on my accounts of it too. Its due to be published in the next RRRants anthology.

'So sad WAS I'

I dialled a number
A soft voice spoke
And talked gently
I spoke tentatively at first
But the...

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I'm playing Mendres, the identity of the devil and lead antagonist in an upcoming British film called Dark Domain.

I wrote this piece as a spoken word/metal fusion piece for the project.

_____________
 

Some say the pen is mightier than the sword,

But they all fear the might of my demonic horde.

I'm Mendres, I'm the devil incarnate,

I use the Dark Domain and I seal y...

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'The Unwritten Poems'

But that my pen
Wouldn’t speak
If I could tell it so
But twas I
Who wouldn’t let it
Oh if I could read you
All the unwritten poems
Of those other poets you know
I would have words
For every moment of the day
And no moments enough
To begin to say
What those poems...
So wanted too

Copyright John Harrison 2010

Video on YouTub...

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'Devastation'

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`

The birthing of articulated expression
will always find its means of entering
into the world outside and beyond
the inner recesses of our awareness.

I love the wee and trippy hours of the
after midnight when the glass slipper
lay glimmering aloof in the moonlight
and the weary dreamer sets some
ink of thoughts onto the parchment
of a woozy head - too...

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`

On a hand-hewn pedestal

imagination coalesced;

on milk-white face alight

eyes sparkle with a liquid flame.

Some build ivory towers,

these hands raw from driven labour,

on scratched cheeks a stricken eye

ransoms a sculpted orphan dream.

Across time and Middle Sea

another calloused hand chiselled;

laughter on a pine-white...

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I've written this about the rising unemployment in Northern Ireland and the severe consequences of it. This is what the future will look like if we don't do something about it:

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Have a look at my book and any feedback appreciated , had a problem with the link but if you go to www.lulu.com and search air of fall will see it immediately

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The harsh beep of the alarm clock

destroys our dreams,

we force our eyes open

splitting the crust at the seams.

Rusty we stand – shaken, brave,

weak, scared,

curing the scars and bruises

for the day and night shifts,

burying a billion excuses to call in sick

our subconscious scratching at the stitches

so carefully woven

over a thousand past li...

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Poets possess passion

to pierce the superficial

with personal words –

seeking circles to soften angles –

surprised by insights

astonished by analogies –

ideas demanding expression

with lame skills -

to make

the invisible seeable

the intangible touchable

the soundless heard

the ineffable spoken.

Poets know -

experience is universal

a ...

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Is that why?

I bled

for so many years with the pain reminiscent of childbirth

and cried with longing and loss

the empty hollow and the useless womb

Is that why

I ached

and found each day weighed heavier than the last

and my body dried and drained

and my world shrank to a parody

Is that why

I killed

Tiny webbed fingers a hea...

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Is it a block if I don’t write with an incontinent flow?

What if my Ganges becomes a trickle and there’s a lickle less to show?

Is it volume that we should measure,

Is life merely a manufacturing contest?

Cos see its quality that I treasure,

Not the most words but the best.

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`

when the clack of keyboards cease
and pages of unbound books
scattered by the indolent breeze
produce a melancholy dirge

think of all the unwritten words
that remain stillborn in the mind
much like the gilded pheasant
out of the snare and into the fire

 

`

Please make your response or comment on my profile page. Thank you.

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You make stories your clever

you bind the lines together

stories written last forever

we are making stories its fun

stories that make us whole

stories that make us one

we make stories from day one

everybody has a story to tell

from the birth of the earth

to the gates of heaven

to the depths of hell

everyone has a story to tell!

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Here we ask is the media and the cosmetics industry as oppressive to women as the Islamic burqua?

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She sent me out into the world,

But before she did she made sure I had breakfasted.

She sent me out into the world,

But before she did she filled my lunch box.

She sent me out into the world,

But for me tea she prepared a banquet,

Gil and Benjamin broke my fast,

So though I knew the revolution would not be televised

I saw a poet could be hero in my Mother’s...

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