John Togher

Biography

Writer. New booklet of poetry 'The Apparition of Infatuation' (now sold out) Former founder and editor of the Mental Virus Arts Magazine. I am a member of John The Baptist & The Second Coming, electronica/prog/krautrock/blues: https://soundcloud.com/johnthebap Literature Co-ordinator of NXNW Arts Festival www.nxnwfestival.co.uk Book of poetry with illustrations by Anna Smith called 'The Importance of Magic in the Void', released in 2009 (now sold out). I run the Write Out Loud Open Mic at The Old Courts, Wigan every 2nd Thursday of the month. Published in various zines and anthologies. Professional Guinness drinker.

Samples

Unglet Lashings of rain. We see a foetal beggar outside, forehead touching the rain-soaked cobbles of Prague, his bald patch tipping a copper plate, humble to the chink-chink of pennies. More lashings. We use yesterday’s Times as an umbrella of information. Golem underfoot chases us to Unglet. Stumbling, we enter with ink, black ink stained on our hands and sodden paper on our shoulders. A fog hits our eyes and we squint at little fi res held, in warm fi ngers, glowing, lighting faceless shapes. We blink and we blink. Then the noise, seemingly chaotic, frenzied shakes, tinkles and toots, the pull of a long trombone, a skipping beat, looseness in the wrists, the gravity defying notes willing us to think and to think. We’re offered dark froth in glasses and dumplings on plates, so we sit in scotch-red seating. An electric-haired enthusiast in the front row takes a drink, takes a drink. His partner yawns, black caterpillars framing her eyes, as he nods and applauds hypnotically, robotically. I stare at the kink, that maddening kink in the eyes of the players. A bearded man approaches in an almost-clean white shirt, tells us, “You two should have been here an hour and five minutes ago.” We look at each other, eyebrows raised. The trumpets pipe down, the piano plays Morse code, and the lights, the hue, glows pink, glows pink. The Importance Of Magic In The Void The ironblack eyebrow of Hughes raises an inch as I arrive and like a sad A Minor Chord Kundera sits in his corner as I walk through this place, the void. I’m offered a whiskey tumbler; taste my soul in its afterbreath. Virginia Woolf, the curve of her intelligent nose running through her prose, gives a toasts to the void. JD Salinger pours red wine, so that men, women and Gods can line their parallel hearts again. But the gloom continues, persists. I fear I’ll be lost in the void. I try to forget the fizzing cortex of regret, of the holes in our memory that are random and guilty, of the journey I have taken to reach here, the void. In this room full of drunk writers we wait for the magic, that spark of inspiration, whether from absinthe or lovers, the devil or God, we need to leave the void. Then it happens, Herman Hesse, steering his canoe offers an escape through the canyon of dreams and we ride, ride on those rafters thinking through it all of the importance of magic in the void. Piccadilly I meet you at the statue on the hour and think of the drowning grip I have on your face. Your onion seed eyes are ablaze. I sigh, watch the feathered clouds disconnect above us. You give a tug on my sleeve, “We’re a clumsy version of a good idea, like pterodactyls.” I freeze-frame, see you entwined in bringing defeat, deaf to my melancholy. I stare at the chip in your front tooth. A Tribute To The Stray It was just beginning to hit me how lonely everybody is when a woman with extraordinarily tweezed eyebrows, like birds seen in flight from miles away, bumped into me and told me I resembled a friend of hers from high school. She reminded me of my Mother, who struck up conversations with strangers on luminous Spring evenings when the clouds smudged the sky. The woman with the two birds winged away and I stared at the onion flowers spangled out across the grass and breathed in. The air was fresh and tight, like rain. Sounds of laughter blew down the street showing the distance between them and me. I pictured the only time I saw my Father cry. It was ugly and limp. I ran to him and put my hand on his and guided the phone back to its cradle. His voice sounded the way it gets when he hears a song he loves sung perfectly. I placed him in his sad bed and told him not to worry. Then I forgot all that and moved my thoughts to another town. One where I rage against the heated winds and act like the son they wanted.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.

Blog entries by John Togher

Slam Poem (25/06/2018)

Vanishing Point (25/04/2017)

Animal Cruelty (10/11/2016)

Selected YouTube Comments from Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk, Ft. Bruno Mars (19/10/2015)

The Lines (30/09/2014)

Everything Is Documented (29/05/2014)

To A Lover, Overcome (31/07/2013)

Supercilium (10/06/2013)

Caroline (10/09/2012)

Growing Flowers By Candlelight (07/03/2012)

Read more entries by John Togher…

Blog link: https://www.writeoutloud.net/blogs/johntogher

Favourite Profiles

Wigan WOL Open Mic at The Old Courts

Laura Taylor

Martin Togher

garside

Dave Carr

John Darwin

chris stevenson

Cynthia Buell Thomas