Poem: NUMBERS by Clive Oseman

New podcast coming up featuring well-travelled Swindon-based poet Clive Oseman. Here's one of his poems as a taster.

NUMBERS

As the numbers get bigger
barriers grow higher.
Some are real, ultimately insurmountable
others, illusions amounting to prison walls
confining you to your own time zone,
your mind trapped in better times
when you felt part of it all, finger on the pulse
and all before you.

It's a fallacy of course.
The tracks of memory are long,
will stretch to anywhere life takes you.
The scenery will change,
let it challenge your senses anew.
Visions of the past are mere images
which never return and are rarely true-
yearning for them wastes your later years. 

It's easier for me.
The darkness i have come from holds no sway,
just spurs me to disown the scars and travel far.
My barriers block my past,
the present and future are my manor.
You, you're in reverse,
can't move on from light that burns only in your head,
will never illuminate where you are.

Let go, look around, listen.
Young and fresh does not equate to hopeless mess.
This day is just as sharp, just as bright
as any you have known.
Immerse yourself, be bold,
don't let numbers lock your doors
with impenetrable codes,
because if you do you've not grown up.
you've just grown old.

Poem: The Remote Console by Des Mannay

 The next guest on the podcast will be Newport poet Des Mannay. Des only started taking his poetry seriously a year ago but he's not the only one having had a succession of published and prize-winning poems since then. There is anger, humour and affection in his work which often highlights social injustice and looks to a fairer, better world. It is not hard to see why his poems have struck a chord with so many.

The Remote Console

Sometimes I look at you
And think -
Just dreaming really....
Then I listen
And start to sink
When you pour out your troubles
I want to drink your heart
But that's kept away
With the silver wear
And crockery
For special occasions
And special people
Not me....
I'm the invisible man
In your estimation
But I'm real
And I'm here
And I care
When things are fine
You run straight past me
To greet a lover
But when things fall apart
And there is no other
You can find me
Tired and alone...
The remote console

Des Mannay

Poem: Ordinary things by Christina Thatcher

Christina Thatcher is a poet, writer and educator from Philadelphia. She moved to Cardiff six years ago and is proud to call South Wales home. She will be my guest on the next podcast coming up shortly. Here is one of her poems:

Ordinary things

I'm reading poetry on the train -

it's quiet and, as the morning slips by,
blue and fleeting, you find me.
Even in the ordinary things
you find me. I buy a sandwich,
crumple its wrapper to drown out
the sound of your laugh, the sight
of your beer belly, the smell
of a piss-stained carpet. I gulp
some water and remember your
Adam's apple, how it bulged out
of your neck before I moved away.
I look around the train at the people

and want to be like them, want everything

to be quiet and easy again.

Poem: Sandstorm by Fran Smith

Fran Smith has written the following poem in response to Julie Prichard's prompt — a grain of sand. Fran is a regular at poetry events in Newport and Cardiff and it's great to have this wonderful contribution. I hope the prompts on these podcasts inspire many more original poems from listeners. You can hear my response to Julie's prompt on the most recent podcast with Will Ford who also has a prompt for you to try.

Sand Storm

Insignificant like grains of sand, molecules of

Shells crushed; a life living once, but now

Ground down to ground catching glimmers of

Sun rays mirroring unity with laser light

Significant for a moment, shining as a star in

Limelight; light moves on, and on and on into

Desert wilderness; deserted in ordered chaos

Blowing up storms of drought causing flesh to

Burn wretched and shrivel to flakes of dust to

Dust to dust: Lost in myriads of desert sand,

Deserted again.

Poem: Illusions of Grandeur

Here's a poem by long standing Headstand supporter Ralph Famularo. I met him whilst living in Osaka when he was running an internet radio station that was very much on the same vibe and featured works by myself and other creative artists in the city.

Illusions of Grandeur

He's so cool
When he takes his shoes off
They shuffle for him to walk among them again.

When he drops beans
They grow into dreams
And everyone snaps his
Fingers in his sleep

He's so cool
He makes asymmetrical objects
Form well-balanced
Leaning towers and vases
Quiver and shake when he is near
And become an audience of none
My friend Joey saw him once.
He knew him before he was known
He signed Joey's autograph backwards.
That's so Scriptural

Mohammed once asked him to open up for him the time he moved the mountains
And being so cool
He said, "No thanks.
I am not  a mere molehill. "

Joey once saw him jump from
A leaning tower
into a vase
Sideways
Joey says I could never be as cool as He.
But I think maybe I could
If We could just get real.

Poem: Unhinge - Afrodita Nikolova

Macedonian poet Afrodita Nikolova has became a distinct voice on the Cambridge poetry scene since coming here to study. Here is one of her poems, and you can hear more on the next show this Sunday.

Poem: Stars and Strings by Stephen Morrison-Burke

This Sunday's show features a set by Hammer and Tongue national slam champion Stephen Morrison-Burke. Here's one of the poems that won him the title broadcast on an earlier show.

Poem: Stealing sweets from Jesus by Mark Niel

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.

Poem: Jerry Gordon Reflects on the End of the World

As the end of the world allegedly draws nigh, Headstand contributor Jerry Gordon shares this poem:

If I took this
seriously, I would
write or call to each of
you, saying: After tomorrow
I don't know
if I will ever see you
or myself again. So,
while we are still sharing
existence with this chance
to exchange,
I want you to know I am
glad to have known you,
glad to have had you
turn my mind, eye and arm
towards where I could not
imagine alone, that I know
I could not have known
anything alone. You are
an extender of me,
an unfathomable
set of senses beyond
my self-serving 5.
I am alive through
the world I know through
you, saturated in our
mutual saturation.
Thus,
thanks for everything.

A bird flies up as
the train comes in.
The rails are bare
now,
for this moment before
the wheels make them
roar.

jerry gordon
12.20.12

Poem: Tomorrow by Suzi Shimwell

Tomorrow I will be good.
I will not smoke or drink
but instead floss regularly
in-between yoga sessions.
I will work harder,
write that article,
paint that wall.
I will concentrate on succeeding.
Eschewing all cakes
and trash TV,
I will sleep at ten
and rise at six.
I will walk 3 miles before having fruit for breakfast.
I won’t need breakfast.
I’ll be a machine.
Tomorrow I will be better;
the rest of today
therefore
does not count.

Suzi Shimwell

Suzi will be my guest on the show on 16th December.

www.suzishimwell.net

Poem: Lost Song by Grahame Johnson

Next Sunday I'll be joined by poets Grahame Johnson and Suzi Shimwell who will be sharing their poetry and talking about the writing group Free Inkers. Here's a poem by Grahame. Check back later this week for one of Suzi's.

Lost Song

Half-conscious
You stir in velvet light
Shimmering moments re-emerge
Without tether to time or place
Fragments from a lost song
A song of hope and happiness

But the cuckoo’s call
Breaks the spell
And you remember
What you have become
You try to cling
To that beautiful moment
Postpone reality
But it slips away
Beyond the cusp
Where memory blurs
And dreams fade to nothing

Grahame Johnson

Poem by Geoffrey Heptonstall

This Sunday I'll be joined in the studio by poet Geoffrey Heptonstall. Here's one of his poems about New Orleans.

JAZZ                                                                      


And only to wear blue.
When you talk about love.
Afterward.
When there is no-one
These days are out of time.

That we may begin
To see love’s changing.
I hear alone what you say,
How a sense of indigo falls
In base resonance
Almost motionless.

Scent of jasmine, wild
In the derelict square,
At once we name
Invisible moonlight.
The rhythm of water
Sighs false innocence,
The way a cymbal sound spins.

In the cool of first light
The river scenes shimmer.
What seems a city
Is distant sunrise.
Contraries of night pale
Into harmonies
As morning moves:
Every day a truth revealed.

How you catch the essential
Syncopation,
The stair well chorus,
Impromptu sensations
Of the world at work
Soon we see our masters
In seasons they cannot control.
Count the beat before they speak:
How many lies to Babylon?                                                      

And after music, silence
Days like these are uneasy
With desire all the way down,
Walking out from here
As the mood changes
With phases of love.
This way the waters
Can come no more
Once the heat burns
Every ocean dry.