Rob Stuart
Action Poem
Rob Stuart’s poems and short stories have been published in magazines, newspapers and webzines all over the world. He has also written the screenplays for several award-winning and internationally exhibited short films. His website can be found at www.robstuart.co.uk.
Read More
Amy Kean is our Pick of the Month Poet for September 2018
Our Pick of the Month poem for September 2018 could only have been written in the 21st century and the depth, wit and brilliance of Amy Kean’s ‘I put make-up on for the Deliveroo driver’ resonated with many voters
Amy is an author and advertising creative from London. Her first book – The Little Girl Who Gave Zero Fucks – is out in October, and she’s had work published in The Guardian, Disclaimer magazine and Litro amongst many others. www.shitsandgigs.com
Amy has asked that her £10 ‘prize’ be donated to PDSA, the charity that offers reduced cost and free veterinary care for pets in need.
I put make-up on for the Deliveroo driver
Pornography implies this a fruitful strategy for lonely women.
Often their husbands are out of town, but you could be anywhere.
I put make-up on for the Deliveroo driver, hot ribs and bang bang cauliflower hint at my intentions.
The miso aubergine and Chilean Malbec brazen, our language: body and artisanal oriental fusion.
I put make-up on for the Deliveroo driver, barely-there razzmic berry shorts simmer on my thigh tops.
These neatly boxed breasts ready and protein-heavy like five days of meal prep in airtight tupperware.
I put make-up on for the Deliveroo driver, painted my lips crimson as a blood clot five centimetres in length.
Pinched my cheeks so hard the rest of my body forgot how pain feels.
I put make-up on for the Deliveroo driver to prove my fruit is not forbidden. I am Eve, original biblical MILF. I am the childless witch in a gingerbread house, I am his stepmother, I am your cracked, overheated induction hob.
I put make-up on for the Deliveroo driver but the helmet hid his face. It might have been you. He might have been wearing make-up too. A woman with appropriated braids was vaping in the car. He was late, forgot my spring rolls and the sticky shredded chilli beef still breathing. I imagined it was you. Delivering sustenance in disguise to check I’m alive.
*********
Voters’ comments included:
I thought that its structure seemed effortlessly worked and loved its ‘killer’ humour which belied such pain. Great poem, seemingly light but full of deep emotion.
Bold and vivid imagery, long lines, primary colours, unashamed sexiness and brilliant that the braids are “appropriated”.
Very heartfelt poem
Amy is corky and [a] brilliant writer. She is super intelligent and [has a] great sense of that old traditional English sarcastic humour
Inspirational and motivational magic
It’s so real – it really landed with me.
I love the idea of non judgemental cosmetic application. I agree, when I wear lippy & mascara it shows I value me!
It’s honest, sad, real, in-your-face and ultra modern. Love it.
Loved the humour.
Human, fallible, wonderful writing
It’s funny and fresh and oddly real!
It’s hilarious
Quirky. Funny. Relevant.
Just brilliant
Resonating themes.
We all do it
So original.
I love her sharp incisive wit
Read MoreMartyn Crucefix translates Federico Garcia Lorca
Tamar and Amnon
for Alfonso García Valdecasas
Moon wheeling across the sky,
no water on the plain,
hot summer now scattering seeds,
talk is of tiger and flame.
And miles above the roof beams,
nerves of metal squeal,
a twisted breeze comes blowing in
with the bleat of wool.
And spread-eagled, the earth shows
its barely-healed hurt,
or it shivers in incandescent white
of cauterising heat.
*
In her dreams, Tamar was lost,
birds in her throat,
with the swish of cool tambourines,
a moonlit lyre stroked.
Up in the eaves, her nakedness,
North the palm grove,
she wishes for snow on her belly,
on her back, hailstones.
How Tamar loves to sing her songs,
stark-naked to the roofs,
while scattered around her feet
are five chilly doves.
Amnon is slim and definite
in his tower, gazing,
brimming, full, his frothy groin,
his beard swaying.
Her nakedness is all lit up
on the terrace below.
The whispering between his teeth,
an arrow striking home.
And now Amnon shifts his gaze
towards the rising moon,
but finds his sisters’ firm breasts
only obscure the moon.
*
It’s half-past three and Amnon lies
sprawled upon his bed.
The whole room is an agony,
wings crowd his head.
In its grave of dirt-brown sand,
a dull light inters
villages or unearths the brief
pink of rose and dahlias.
First-pressed lymph of silence,
dripping into urns.
On moss-covered trunks of trees,
a hanging cobra croons.
Amnon groans deep in the cool
linens of his bed.
The crawling ivies of his chills
obscure his burning blood.
In silence, Tamar tip-toes in
to the noiseless room,
the colouring of vein and Danube
distantly traced and dim.
—Tamar, my eyes, erase them,
in your certain dawn.
Threads of my blood have hitched
ruches in your gown.
—Leave me, brother, leave alone.
Your kisses on my neck
are like a twinned swarm of flutes,
a wasp and wind attack.
—Tamar, in your swelling breasts,
two fishes bid me rouse
and your every single finger-tip
speaks of locked-in rose.
*
In the courtyard, the hundred horses
of King David neighed.
Against the wispy vines, in slabs,
still the sun remained.
Already he’s ripped her dress,
her hair in his grip.
In streams, a warm coral’s daubed
over a pale map.
*
O what commotion then was heard
from the upper floor!
What a thicket of blades they found
and her clothes torn.
Slaves, on the dismal staircase,
hurrying up and down
as if they played, thighs and pistons
under stilled clouds.
Beside Tamar, the gypsy virgins
set up such a howl,
while others gathered up the drops
of her martyred flower.
The pure white cloths turning red
in the shuttered room.
Rumours of shifts in vine and fish
and then tepid dawn.
*
The frenzied violator, Amnon,
flees on his horse
with black bow-men loosing arrows
from watch-towers and walls.
And when four hoofs were echoes,
nothing more to hear,
King David took a pair of shears
to the strings of his lyre.
Martyn Crucefix’s most recent publications are The Lovely Disciplines (Seren, 2017) and two chapbooks: O. at the Edge of the Gorge (Guillemot Press, 2017) and A Convoy (If a Leaf Falls Press, 2017). He has also translated the poetry of Rilke and more recently the Daodejing – a new version in English (Enitharmon, 2016). Cargo of Limbs will be published by Hercules Editions in 2019. He blogs regularly on many aspects of poetry, translation and teaching: http://www.martyncrucefix.com
Read MoreKate Noakes
I can feel trouble in my bones
In my red, fringed bow ballerinas
I can feel surfaces again
hardness unyielding
to my toes, each pebble
conglomerated in the stub slabs
of the business district
each trip cobble defining
my quartier’s streets.
This week the road menders
were out fixing winter’s siege
the actions of frost and thaw
stones cemented into place
just in case they’re plucked
and smashed, a ready arsenal
to launch against false order
righteousness against women
and those, oh so many, causes
touching us these spring days.
Kate Noakes‘ seventh collection, The Filthy Quiet, is due from Parthian in Spring 2019. Her website, www.boomslangpoetry.blogspot.
Jamel Hall
Clash
On nights like this May air strokes skin
like lazy fingertips, familiar sounds
nonchalantly step through speaker boxes;
his voice rough and unsteady hangs comfortably
in her air. She remembers she has a husband.
Bodies agile against the newly knit moon,
his hands become pillars, supporting her slightly
inebriated frame. She remembers she has a lover.
They sway, dip, turn to face, grasp for glances
and hurt. Consuming the hours before the tempo
tumbles and language begins to falter;
bodies flustering accents in the silence.
A procession of feet like a Cartographer’s pen.
Empty bottles hum songs to coax the morning.
Their embrace, a wistful glance, a heavy sigh,
come –a– part.
Leaving only the drunken float and stumble;
the beginning, of the short journey home.
Jamel Hall is a writer, art curator, event organizer and freelance everything else living and working in Kingston, Jamaica. His poetry focuses on the small, complex and common stories that make up human existence.
Read More
Christian Brookland
microscript
At a tiny table, by a tiny window
I play hangman
(where Robert Walser composed
one too many stories)
We are guileless – like the spearhead
of an army. One that sends its fellows
by the thousands. Fodder. (or guileful-
it works both ways) We are either all
or nothing by name and repute and
get this – by the orientation
on the toilet door. I was once told
it’s easier being two-dimensional.
Christian Brookland likes to type very loudly on his old Olivetti. His writing has been published in Ambit and 3:AM Magazine, and he’s just finished his first novel.
Read More