This show opens with guests from the last show The Breaches and features poetry by Mark Niel from Milton Keynes - www.akickinthearts.co.uk
The Breaches - Vodka Jelly
Savages - City’s Full
Hour Hands - Design The Colours
The Handsome Family - Flies
Oh Standfast - footsteps
Tim Clare - The Girl From Donkey Kong
Mark Niel - Poetry
Teen - Paradise
Shawn Waters - Get on Home Mama
Tom Adams - A Sudden Break in the Clouds
Steve Moore - Light Echoes 1
The show this Sunday features a set from Milton Keynes poet Mark Niel recorded at The Fountain earlier this year. He shares some poems and talks about how he came to be a full-time performance poet. Here's a new poem from his website blog: www.pawhouseboy.blogspot.co.uk. Also check out his website: www.akickinthearts.co.uk
Stealing sweets from Jesus
Was this my first sin or the green shoots of
entrepreneurship, and is there a difference?
I still claim God is somewhat
culpable: of all the places in all the
world to site a sweet shop next to
a church.
So here’s the scam in easy
steps, (for storytelling purposes
and not to encourage a new generation of
Fagin’s friends).
1. Spend all your pocket
money except for two shiny new
pence and take this gleaming
conspirator to church.
2. When it’s time for the
collection ask Mum with innocent puppy eyes,
“Pennies for the plate”?
3. Mum, panicked, would
rummage for silver. Usually ten, sometimes fifty
pence. SCORE!
4. Use your best Penn and
Teller French Drop to substitute
copper for silver making the result. Jesus 2,
you 48.
5. As soon as the last Amen
sounds slip silently from the
blessed hubbub, check for a tail, meet your
dealer at the shop.
6. Launder the cash for kola
kubes, midget gems and only on
cooler days, curly wurlys.
7. Repeat as often as you can without arousing suspicion.
These are the seven steps from heaven, forgotten for many years
until the new, old sweetie shop opened
on the High Street.
Fifty pence doesn’t even buy
a quarter now, but the sugar-laden oxygen takes you on a journey money
can’t buy.
To when Mum was close by and there was no greater
feeling than the rumpled, paper twist of sweets in your
pocket.
I'll be doing support duties at a couple of poetry events this week. On Wednesday 13th it's the next round of Hammer & Tongue with a headline set from Hollie McNish who needs no introduction to poetry fans in Cmabridge and listeners of headstand and support from Stephen Morrison-Burke winner of the Cambridge heat in last year's slam. If you're a poet you might just be able to squeeze into the slam though last I heard there was only one place left. That means it'll be incredibly exciting! Where do I come in? I'm kicking of the slam as sacrificial poet, not competing but setting a bench mark for the competitors. For full details and tickets click here.
Next Sunday it's the Rhythm Method tour headlined by Mark Niel and The Antipoet, both terrific acts who don't get to Cambridge often enough. Check out the videos below. Leanne Moden and I will be supporting and Fay Roberts is hosting. More info here.
If I hear of anything else worth recommending in the next week I'll let you know on Twitter via the show's new feed. Follow @headstandradio
