Most recent 'Wizard' poem... GORGONS

Gorgons

“Steel your nerve adventurer,
be dexterous and wise.
Make haste to the Supermarket...
The tea bags are in aisle five.

Watch out! Milk spill, aisle three,
a fat white ocean wide.
Steer your trolley deftly lest
you wake the gremlin inside.

Should your trolley veer harsh left
you’ve just upset its gremlin.
I gift to you one SLEEPWAX spell
to soothe those wheels a-trembling.

Beyond baked bean tin avalanche,
behold- our goal- our tea!
But yet, beware the check out tills,
sat there are sisters three.

Foul Supermarket gorgon hags!
Their hook clawed nails forebode.
Spit fire if you pay with change
or buy food with no bar code.

I swear to you – one look could kill!
O mortal man-hate frown.
So judging should you shop barefoot
or in your dressing gown

whispering ‘Weird!’ and ‘Paranoid!’
with spindly fingery glee.
Can you survive these devil’s crones
to bring back milk and tea?”

Another 'Wizard' poem- this one's called 'Tea'

Brew for me a cuppa tea.
Fill to brim my mug.
Warm our bodies, brains and speech.
Internal, liquid hug.

Every word I form began
an undug thought to free,
each like an acorn in my skull
to feed and wet with tea.

You and me, together,
sharing tea, the world goes mute.
I hear a rumbling in my head,
our tea wet words take root

and grow, a thousand words tower tall
all branching inspiration.
Kettle’s boiled, tend our talk
with tea’s sweet irrigation.

Sheltered by these evergreen boughs
let's make another brew.
My mind’s a forest of great calm chat
with cups of tea and you.

First draft of a new 'Wizard' poem

*Snap* *Click* *Thwack!*
My heart armour... is intact.
Mission target sighted!
There is NO turning back...

It is a quest to retrieve
the most awesome treasure.
Most power-reaping life spark!
-yet most quiescent pleasure.
For its lure, a king could murder,
forsake riches, live in rags!
It's legend is sung in many lands tongue.
The magic of...

TEA BAGS!

Pyramid ones are preferable,
though square or circular's fine.
No nobler elixir flows
within your land or mine.
Without tea, I turn wild as wolf,
tea's name, I howl and bark it.
Tea can save if we can brave
the trials of...
...Supermarket...

O... ...Supermarket
where the happiest heart could crack.
For tea, I don my heart armour,
*Snap* *Click* *Thwack!*

O... ...Supermarket
enslaves her worker’s dreams.
Promised opportunity.
Most will never leave.

Supermarket gives her drones
a few loose pennies to hold
whilst hoarding for herself great piles
of diamonds, rubies, gold.
Supermarket's clones accept,
blind follow their leader's call.
If they didn't take her pennies, well...
they might have nothing at all.

Their withering queen, deflowering thought,
dictates when they should eat,
when they should rest, when they should smile,
free will is obsolete.
This isn't life.
These drones exist in undead misery.
How I fear their zombie touch
when I want to buy tea.

Watch flaking hopes decay,
fall wasted to the floor.
A zombie touch could shrivel your soul.

I can't go there no more.

Their stares en-flare fears I can't share,
shoot shivers through my blood.
One touch could shatter my heart armour,
*slash* *smash* *thud*

Friend, hero, valiant knight,
heart armour firm as metal,
survive these Supermarket ghouls
and I'll put on the kettle.

...

...





Honestly,
wish I hadn't gone.
Saw a different side to Earth that day,
ugly as coffin splinters.
No spring buds warm promise or flower tips lit that grass.
Earth had nothing to give me.
Quiet as monsters claw tapping under the bed
tap
tap
tap
stop
it came.

Still can't taste anything.
Feel drunk on absence,
a hollowing spirit
shaking my legs like chains
cursed numb my tongue,
double shot my words dead.
I don't believe in them anyway.
Words.
My words were only ever the ghosts
of someone else's thoughts.

My thoughts are all wrapped up together,
haunting sheets of guilt
rip,
can't untie them,
this guilt holds closed a body so full of nothing
opening up could shatter any heart
under its empty weight.
My heart has sucked space inside out.
I've got the vacuum of the universe in my gut.
People ask questions,
they don't want me to share,
I'm sick of hearing their honey and mud.

Wish I hadn't gone.
Wish I hadn't seen Earth so hungry,
scavenger scheming,
whistling maggots, slobbering soil.
Before that day the Earth I knew just
grew fruits,
shared roots,
I'd never seen it eating.
Earth doesn't eat fruits.
Earth eats death
and grieving.
Feasts on grieving.

That day, Earth opened up,
cold, dry gums parted,
gaping, lipless mouth crumbling
as men I'd never met before
fed it the left-overs of your body.

Wish I hadn't gone.
Sorry.

I stood silent as Earth devoured your scraps,
toothless jaw closing over your bones
to never let go.

Wanted to kick ground,
yell in its face,
punch out these fists so tightly plunged
in black jacket pocket
but didn't.
I did nothing.
Listened to strangers talk like that was you down there
falling apart in Earth's full belly.

Spoken Word All-Stars at Contact

Hey ho, hi dee hi and general happy greetings from my good self, the poet dominic. Cheers for reading! I've been writing this blog for a bit now (infrequently, i know) and have thus far used it exclusively for my poetry. Well, today is the grand unveiling of a blog that is NOT a poem (gasp!) but.... a blog about upcoming poetry nights!! Big evolution yes i know :)

tomorrow i'm very excited about going to watch SPOKEN WORD ALL STARS at Contact theatre on Manchester's Oxford Road. SPOKEN WORD ALL STARS is exactly what it says on the tin: a stellar cast of talent from the UK's live poetry scene, performing an original live show alongside one globally acclaimed musician - the sophisticated saxman, Jason Yarde.

SPOKEN WORD ALL STARS include:

El Crisis - his unique style combines a hypnotic mixture of rap, spoken word, song and chant.

OneNess - spoken word soulsista from Grenada.

Kat Francois - slamtastic, superphysical storyteller.

Ventriloquist - wordsmith wizard from the west.

Kate Tempest - hellfiery powerhouse of socio-poetry

and of course Jason Yarde - the king of improv sax.

The SPOKEN WORD ALL STARS National Original Tour - will be winding it's way across the country, September through to the end of the year, and there are more dates coming up in 2011.

But Dominic, I telepathically hear you cry, where can we hear your work next in this fine city of Manchesterford?

The following day, Friday 1st October, half seven at An Outlet on Dale St, I will be co hosting the prize poetry open mic POETRY PILLOW with the marvellous Cathy Bryant, who will be performing a guest set of work from her imminent debut poetry collection. £3/2 in. If you would like a slot on the open mic, it is first come first on so just get down nice and early and you'll be all good. The venue is right in the middle of where they're filming the new Captain America movie but us poets are special and will be let through the sets in order to express our inner demons and the like.

Fab!

By the way, hope you enjoyed the previous poem I posted on this blog, the 'Snail' one- that's the first of the poems completed for my current Arts Council funded development project malarkey. Watch this space- more to follow...

Love and light,

Dominic x

Snail

Snail

When Rain calls the snail out
of sleepy, snail dreams,
sliding out a restful place
no human eye has seen,
silent Snail calls to Rain
'Let's wash this city clean'...
Trail wraps paving cracks
and litter in between.

Rain is calling Snail
through the greying of the street,
through a swollen puddle
stretching out its concrete seat,
to a green-red apple,
naked core torn indiscreet...
Apples travel half the world
to fall, crushed under feet.

I sit, dry, inside my flat
as Rain calls out to Snail.
People caught out in the storm
will curse the sleet and hail.
Flail back to brick high homes,
locked strong against the gale...
Trapped inside big, brick shells,
so wrapped in our own trail.

Watch the green-red apple,
tender innards battered, split.
and watch Snail call the Rain
then face the apple pip.
So easily killed. A small life spilled
by just one similar hit...
This snail braves the rain's call
whilst my warm shell I can't quit.

Time Travellers

Jocelyn Brown,
Jazz Cafe, Camden, 2008,
teleport... here,
ear to ear,
roof to floor,
the air's gone solid with bass
- bm - t-t-t,
bm bm bm t-t-t,
bm bm bm t-t-t,
bm bm
and the crowd's turned liquid.
We've had to!
Everyone's melted into one sweaty, sing-a-long throng
bubbling song.
Simmering lips and shimmering hips
slip slide between
the tightest slices in concrete sound.
Funk bound.
We are profound dancers,
barely touch ground,
too important for 'ground'!
Jocelyn sings 'Keep On Jumping',
you and me, keep jumping,
my heart, you've tugged it to pieces,
when i jump bits hit walls like jelly.
Splat!
...I'm steaming,
heart's all wibbly and everywhere,
splish splash crash
our arms collide,
your tongue
on mine.
Squish!

Swinton,
Salford, 2006,
teleport... here.
Homo home owner, DIY.
I always wanted a man who could hold nails in his teeth
and you look dead sexy holding nails in your teeth.
You know how hammers work,
understand screw drivers.
Your arms... strong enough to lift me when
I fall apart in Tescos,
sat crying in the biscuit aisle,
my chewed up nails spiking my teeth,
screaming fat, ugly tears,
don't know why,
just Panic...
Just Panic.
You're a man who can hold nails in his teeth
but never tries to mend me.
I'll never make sense like spirit levels make sense.
My wood and bubbles are all wrong.
Sometimes I'd love to twist how I stand,
pretend I'm right angles, proper straight
but you love me crooked, weird and bent.
I don't look great with nails in my teeth
but I do look dead sexy in fishnets.

Bedsit,
longsight, 2003,
haven't met you yet,
*don't* teleport here...
This universe is divided in two:
outside and inside my flat.
I chose the wrong side.
Outside, people put their hands on each other
in ways I don't get.
Don't yet believe any man could love someone who
owns more than six albums by
Kiki Dee
...and listens to them
...all the time.
"Call me camp again and I'll gouge your fucking eyes out."
I do have some anger issues
and only glance in mirrors.

Anywhere else, anywhere else,
streets emptied, 2010.
Teleport... here,
dead night, sky numb, stars gone,
you, me, outside, yelling
broken words, broken yelling,
Stupid words, breaking,
not while I'm yelling!
My sentences are punctured, commas puss,
i've severed colons...
I'm talking shit.
You look like the sky, open, still,
Why was I yelling?
Do people yell in Kent?
You used to be from Kent
but we've rewritten our pasts
so now I've known you since forever.
You tell me that Kent would love a good yell,
to connect so heavy it don't make sense
but Kent can't touch without apologising,
can't just let us be us all sexy and loving and yelling!
Hey!
We've yelled so hard
we've erased Kent from time and space!
It never was. Never will be.
Fab!

One last time,
twenty-forty-something,
teleport here,
yes, here.
People say you look like Dr Who
so I know you can do this.
Show me Jocelyn Brown,
900 years old and still jumping.
Kiki Dee reuniting antimatter
and you can go the pub in pyjamas.
Kent can only exist if it wears a fez
and supermarkets have designated areas for Panic attacks,
little rooms where they play B-52s,
give you stuff to make with glitter, pritt stick and potatoes.
Show me mirrors.
Show me us old but still dead fit.
Show me younger gays seething jealous
cos we're fitter than them.
Immortal fit.
Make our love keep regenerating
and I've still got hair.
Immortal hair!
Show me youl love me beyond end of days and
I love you.
Show me we're forever.
This is Sci-fi epic love
where the heroes
will never die.