Tim Brenan

Biography

Exeter where dates and coconuts are endemic. There Tim does a bit of writing, a bit of painting, a bit of Exeter City FC and plenty of musing on the past and on the future. Sometimes some of this is done whilst travelling by train or whilst drinking a glass of homemade cider – rarely both. Regrets include not playing enough pinball when machines could still be found in pubs. A first book ‘Returning Channels’ published in 2012 is a collection of poems written over the past years, many inspired by places in Wales. Previously Tim has stood in elections for the Green Party – and yes we must amend our ways to reduce the impact and extent of climate change – not least because of the very real human cost of not doing so. Is the opposite of a denier an assayer?

Samples

Ocean Reach Two rectangles abut and separate, carpeted floors kindly lead. Locked doors demarcate, but a circle completes. Basement cold and basement gold, Welsh hugs flow in bottles green. Dough without salt or onion on the circle we eat. Bernard lies within the Packet setting test and taunting brain. Two together are more than two, circling to the Street. Yellow shines the inner beauty, yellow shines the outward gleam. A rightness abounds you and a circle complete. The stream, clear bubbled from the ground, reaches us larger and more mixed. Winter water looks not un-different from containing banks, green in parts, grey in parts. A bottle floats. In general people do not make it better – Open the sluices, breach the barrage, Let the channel return. Seven Ages of Potato (Truffles, John Street) From the loam we rise, new born waxing Jersey Royal; in greased, touch-greedy, pockmarked youth, the curly fry spits and knots; separate now exotic, flighty, plastic wrapped beauty, a crisp blooms. Fierce tasting, best eaten when wrecked; triumphant, gravy profiled, muscled – no Desiree blush, roast and replete with family; to reconstitution mash-up croquette, free-styling in Dickenson’ blaze; then bloated, first wrinkles under jacket, homely relaxed in beans; the flesh eroding browned skins crease in sour cream; craven, bitter, surviving; ending in the hash brown sandwich - coffin-cold, abandoned, kitchen-undertaken. Not all believe, but after, maybe, the floaty light, part vacuum, part hope, part cheese. Glamorgan Coast I step more heavily than them but the land records their mark. Centuries more than fingers are fixed upon this coast. A younger sky and virgin land first was settled, found home and love; food from sulky tides beyond, food from cliff top earth above. Others came across the water Nash Point saw invading wars. Stock and kin stuck close together fortress banks of earth secured. Just. Friendlier folk carved rock at Llantwit, Saints mixed softly in fertile soil. Well and stone homed ancient spirits foregave ejection from the soul. Soldiers made the walls at Ogmore collecting grain from peasant fields. Foreign court and foreign manor took away the good earth’s yield. Barry grew along the shore fat from rock shipped over sands. Yet the fiery black at Aberthaw now is bounty from Silesia’s hand. Film stars and Irish gentry had cliff built castle sold. Paid for with fossil plantings Dunraven burnt just like the coal. Today St David shades a shopper, under Friend of Freedom’s gaze. Alchemy changes gold to copper, Batchelor stands on hidden brass. Scars show healing but the wounds are deep, slow nature sculpts and re-carpets all. Few greater wonders than water sparkling from the sun over Merthyr Mawr.

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

Blog entries by Tim Brenan

Billy Joel's rejects (27/09/2012)

Fast food in Sussex (19/09/2012)

Poems on 45 (11/09/2012)

Bickeigh (11/09/2012)

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