May 5th Moon over Glasgow

 Photo by Rick Adam. 

The Moon is a light at the end of a tunnel - Unknown. 

The moon is larger tonight, closer - looking at us, looking at its bald face - in a staring competition lasted well over a millennium; O haloed white whole in the tapestry of a black sky, O giant milky button illuminating the dark room of the world, sometimes I wish to switch between you and the sun repeatedly, like a child with a light switch. See you tonight.

Excerpt From The Psychosexual Sandwich Bar

 'We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but in the hearts of ordinary men and women who pass by without exciting attention, and who betray to the world nothing of the conflicts that rage within...' - Karl Jung.

Down town at The Psychosexual Sandwich Bar:

'I'll have a large ciabatta, please, with a hint of melancholy, and a few slices of sexual repression, over a bed of lettuce, spiced with the shadow of childhood and for sauce, I'll have a rich sense of perversion.'

'To go...?'

'No, no, the feeling of something not quite right, to remain forever in the pit of my stomach. Just wrap it quickly in a cellophane bag of truth, and I will discard of the contents before analysis, and pretend it never existed. I would like to name this sandwich, if possible.'

Yes Sir, what name would you like to give it?'  He passed a golden pen by which to scroll it.

'The Shadow, Sir. I would like to call it.'

'Sorry sir. Everyone has got one of those already. They are regulrarly eaten by them. But, we never go into the details. We only make the sandwiches.'

'How about - Shadows Strech Far Back Into Childhood?'

'Slightly verbose, Sir. Something more succinct perhaps?'

'Irrationality Sandwich?'

'Excellent choice, Sir.'

'Enjoy.'

*Rough and ridiculous idea but been quiet on this blog and it was mad enough to post.

Arthur's Seat.

I've been living in Edinburgh on and off for about two years now. I live near Leith Walk. I walk up and down it regularly. There is this guy who always sits around the street. Wiry wild grey hair, bleary red eyed, of African descent, wears dirty blue jeans, blankets tucked and wrapped around his waist. Face haggard and rich with lines and wear and ruin. His hands are tought, skin cracked clay and caked in grime or dirt. He sits in bus shelters, smoking cigarette doubts. I seen a man once hand him bananas.

Every city has these lone wild card eccentrics.  Lone ineffable homeless characters. Often an oblivious feature the street. This guy sleeps outside Majestic Wine everynight on a grate with some cardboard for a matress and a tatty sleeping bag to keep warm. He sleeps awkwardly on his side. I've passed by him while he sleeps. I always take a moment to look at him. What crazy world has he got inside of himself? What has life unleashed upon him? Maybe he escaped something far worse. Maybe he has gone a bit mad with indifference. This man with wild grey hair and a red eyes, who is he? His atmosphere is not hostile. He feels amiable, pleasant, yet his oddness is undeniable. He walks up and down Leith Walk. I've never seen him anywhere else. He has sat ouside the 'Sea Breeze' cafe (greasy spoon), and they don't move him along. He sits with a blanket over his shoulders. Sometimes fast asleep. Other times just waiting. Waiting for what. Waiting for the mercy of the sun perhaps. Afterall, he survived winter sleeping out here. Least I think he did unless he has somewhere else to go. I've seen him sleeping out there in ice cold conditions. He must have some strength. Some immunity.


He carries bags filled with other platic bags. Not sure what's inside. More polymers, maybe blankets. People know him, I'm sure. People stop to talk. I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to find out more. Somehow I found out his name is Arthur but I can't remember who told me. Did I make it up? I don't think so. Someone told me. I heard it. Somewhere. Some rumour. But that's how I see him - Arthur. I wanted to talk to him. Find out his story. Give him a cup of tea for his time. Instead, I have his name, and some photos I took one evening walking down. I never asked permission. I just wanted to capture him. Get something down.


I've walked passed him so many times and felt the urge to talk. He probably gets it all the time though. Strangers trying to be nice. Trying to be angel like. Thinking they will be the first person to really give him the time of day. And one evening he was walked towards me, our eyes met as eyes do, and we both said 'Hello' as we passed by.

Arthur has his own style. His own atmosphere, his wild wiry grey hair, his short limping gait, his just sitting watching time pass, people migrating to work and back. I might yet talk to him. Keep a respectful distance. Maybe this is enough, to acknowledge him here with some photographs, and keep that mystery which anonymity brings. I don't want to invade his space. He intrigues. That is enough. Seeking too much can destory a thing. So, there he is, Arthur.

Wrestling With Shadows.

Do you think I wrestle merely with goldfish
on an Icecream Sunday of the soul,
enduring the outrageous slings and arrows
of a pantomine dame during the dark night
of the lost remote control?

 - Wilhelm Spearshake.

Grandmother Earth Wise

(Grandmother Mother Aware Idealism)

Don't be such a cardigan, Son.

Get out there into the world.
Make it tremble to meet you.
Take great strides through crowds.
Don't be shepherded into enclosures.
Strike out and flame like a sure match.
Gamble your chances on intuitive charm.
Gather your skill as hidden treasure.
There are doors in the world that open
before you even push. These are the doors
of destiny, the doors of chance, the doors of a
God indicating possibility. Take it son.
Run with your spirit flaring in the dark night
of so many quiet lives. Do not be ashamed
of your peculiarities but do not let them own you.
You are not governed by a corporation of shadows.
You are a part of the fabric of the broad cloth.
Life is a table cloth Son, a clean sheet of infinite stain
and you must let all your limbs burst with the flowers
of your being. But you are not a solitary piece of biology.
There is so much love you have yet yo receive from those
who have already given so much. Take love as your task,
pour your waves of affection outward into good works
to the even sea of people surrounding. There is much
gold in simplicity. There is so much care
to be aware of in a quiet minute.

(Aye Gran...

Whitever you say.)

A Piano Burns And A Crowd Warm Their Ears By Its Sound.

Benny And The Jets:

Soldiers punch into each key 
a squad of ten crazed fingers

fighting the enemy of silence.

The lava inside the volcano erupts
and crowds run possessed to dance,
on a floor consumed by fire.

Clair De Lune:
Rain drops, wearing ballerina shoes,
pirouette slowly on the small lake
of a puddle rippling in the moon light.

Cheeky Little Article

Reviewing The Mermaid.

The Mermaid and The Sailors.

Askew means 'not in a straight or level position' or 'wrong, awry'. It's synonymous with 'skew' or 'skewed' meaning 'to turn aside' or 'swerve' or 'to squint'. Some name for a poet. For perhaps the requirement for being a poet, if there are any other than simply a mouth and a pen, it might be that need to 'squint' at the world, not follow the straight line, to turn things aside, upside down, and not be afraid of the results. Claire Askew, squints her eyes at experience - in curiosity in concentration - and takes her slant on the page with control and clarity. Allow me to squint with my short-sighted eyes at the poetry of Lady Askew.

Read on at Cheeky Little Article. Read more reviews there and wait for more to come, ya cheeky bizim.

Cat Fight 2 a.m.

Leaning out my open window late at night.
Two cats are fighting over territory in the back garden.
I cannot see them, only hear, and listen.

They square up to one another, prowling in circles,
Eyeing each other Gladiatorial, swiping paws cutting through air,
letting out piercing screeches like sharpening blades.

They want to kill each other.
They want to wound so there will be a victory,
until the next cat comes along with bigger, sharper, smarter claws.

I take off my boxing gloves,
shut the window securely,
And leap into to bed.

I have no idea who won.
No one ever does.

A Splasher

'Boys should be
strong enough
to keep
themselves
afloat.'

'But Da a canny,

I'll drown. Gonny
get us a pair
o arms bands.'

'You'll need more than that, Son.
You'll droon if yee don't stop bleatin.
A never got arms bands in ma day,
yee got flung in - sink or swim.

And that taught us.

None of this inflatable
life guard material.
Shower o splashers.
Wee safty.
Stoap yir gurnin fir Christ
Away doon the shallow end.'

A Splasher

‘Boys

Should be

Strong enough

to keep themselves

a float, Son.’

‘B u t d a, a c a n n y s w i m g o n n y g e t s u z a p a i r a a r m b a n d s!

A

###

M

##

d

r

o

w

n

i

n

! ‘

Guy Fawke's Night. (a chorus of crazed baby chicks)

What radicals you are blowing up in suburban streets.
Startling the solemn households from their quiet Sunday
breathing, lighting up thousands of tiny troops of Civil War.

Anarchy! Streets run amok!

In flocks you burst and scream, a chorus of crazed baby
chicks being strangled, a thousand wild light bulbs sent up
into the air fusing,
exploding
bouquets of flowers, flying out
like burning feathers.

You fizz and whistle like sparks of fat.
Breaking the rude silence of safe
towns, reminding us of a war
just
round
the corner, or
to shut the curtains, lock the door, and always
blow out candles.

(An old favourite I've posted before.)

Parable Of The Fence.

'this went on for quite some time' from KickingParis on Vimeo.

McGuire reading in St Andrews, at Risk-A-Verse, with Inky Fingers and Stanza, Byre Theatre.

Thanks to Rachel McCrum for taking the footage.

Quiet night sponsored by the letters O and L.

Olaf aloof in his loft, loafing on his lounger luxuriating in lofty litigations with his lifeforce while looking through the skylight skyward, lamenting the final harbour of loss and snuffed love of all life. Then, laughing lightly, he licks his lips and gulps a glass of cloudy lemonade, toasting to longevity.

Peck Rechublic.

From a summer schooling.

I.

In Czech - fined 700korun on tram check, played dumb but ticket master not fooled, repaired a burst Jeep tire check, huge bananas check, off to teach tomorrow check. A cloud in a pair of trousers - check. The sun is made of honey and shooting stars are bees spilling with pollen - check. Packed verbosity and pretension - Check. Still gay - check.

II.

Teaching in Czech - check. Work with raging friendly Alcoholic pervert professors, eyes drunk on young possibilities - check. Teach in a style aloof yet caring, confused yet powerful - check. Drink too much, alarm bells drinking, God put me here to teach me a lesson. Not to drink like it's a practical skill. Watch middle aged men ruin themselves. Run around barking like a dog at the world and my own obviousness for being crazy. Life redeemed by hundreds of glorious young engaged and engaging with alien words, the breaking world, their secret selves and Mr Doe-Eyed Me.

III.

Back in Prague - more drunk days and mornings - my liver sings a dirge! Possible divorce proceedings. In love, out of love, who to love. Same constant state of inertia. Hours of A.A. footage to confirm my suspicions. Kafka's house is a tiny prison. Can't find Hasek's bar. Beautiful day of orange juice. Smack head off low ceiling. Too surround sound self-involved. Lazy cow grazing on Prague. Perversions need my absolute attention - Czech. New day - going sailing under a blue pallet of sky and bright people. Open all the windows let the air in and the fruit flies out - check.

My Father in the Sun.

Photo: August Sanders.

'Don't be such a fucking poof!
Be like me, Son,
Long in the tooth.

Why don't you go off
and bake a cake
with your Mum?'

He kneel's out of sight
continuing to cement the brick
wall he's building between us.

A Snail on Easter Road.

A patient God in the rain;
oblivious to the business shoes.

Like the gentle progress
of an ocealiner across the atlantic.

The smallest most slow of comets
glittering a trail across wet night pavement.

What I Say About Him: A Review.

What They Say About You – Eddie Gibbons: A Review.

Eddie Gibbons is a Liverpudlian living in Aberdeen. I've always liked the soft pudding like pud sound in pudlian and Gibbons is a Pudlian Poet and an accomplished one at that. He has the technical skill to weave his pen (or, press his key's) between form and formlessness with ease.

He has all the inventiveness a quality wordsmith should – juggling word play, toying with double meaning, jiving with associations, balling with rhetoric, scattered with allusions; the books buzzes with trickery, mischief and comedy.

Read the full (fool's) article by clicking here.

Mick Kelly's News.

Twelve, May 1930, North Carolina.

Miz Colours is nice teacher. A real soft voice. Real smiler. Not as nice as Momma. Momma sayz neva play with peoples’ who lie or cheat or steal. Sayz the world is a danger untoitself and that each person has a devil inside thum equal to their angel. people are only people at the best of times and at the worst.

Dada works hard as hell and it's as hot as hell at the mill, like a furnace, he sayz, like momma's cooker on full for the bread. He don't beat me - and done more boys sayz they dada's hits them when theyz too hot or unhappy.My Dada don't hurt at all. He gone made me a swing, out back too. He is fast and hard when we wrestle. My idol. He doesn't cry.

Momma bakes pancakes with vanilla ice-cream and feeds Bubba scraps o' meat. It's summer. It's bright like all day, and sticky in da night, window open to let cool in, and i here the chip crickets and owl's call, and it sleeps me well. I play twist in the garden and the sun shines through the tress like one hundred swords.

I go school and learn to understand and make things and plus ones and twos and paint brilliant colours and listen to music on piana, which buils up side of me like a foutain. I play ball wit Joey and Sondra and everybody else who play. Momma and Dad sayz life wasn't prepared for me, thought they sayz I gotta make my own mark in thiz here world. Thiz is it a guess. My news for today.


Micky Kelly

Sing a rainbow.

The sun catches the glass vase
at 12:40 in the afternoon -
painting on the wall
a circular burst of rainbow.

Contractual Obligations.

Man, busy after work, scoops two goldfish out of the pea green pond.
Drives home to put them in a large skull shaped bowl
with castle, stone bridge, marble rock inside.

Time streches its long arm - hours, days, weeks -
until one day, by means of a wayward elbow,
the bowl fall to the ground, detonating, fragments of skull everywhere.

The fish writhe out of water, struggle and gulp for last air.
They are scooped up and flushed down the toilet
thrust into the ocean of the suburban sewage system
to die without any form of contractual agreement.

This Collection Friendly Slam.

'The holy miraculous difference between firstrate & second implies nonthinkable enormousness by contrast with the tiny stumble from second to tenthrate.' - e.e. cummings.

Aye Eddy, whatever you say son!

The inaugural ThisCollection FRIENDLY POETRY SLAM has been and gone. It was a great success, with consistent quality and entertainment, from a controlled crowd of temporary human beings and poets. It took place in the dark cavernous downstairs bar at The Banshee Labyrinth. It was hosted by the miraculous, relentless labourer of poetry Claire Askew.

1st place went to Young Dawkings: A quality controlled performance of orange juice compact passion. By that I mean, Dawkin's performance contained with the same 'juice' (energy/nuritional value in poetic terms) as a ripe orange. He was sincere, empassioned and caused the hair on my neck to stand on end.

2nd place went to Stephen Welsh: This was his first poetry slam and, I think, his first public reading. He was polished, confident, thoughtful, and gave us a poetic-lecture of the complexity and mystery of the universe.

3rd place went to Chris Lindores: A beardy man of quick wit and self-deprecating humour, and enough dirty realism to undermine the pretense of the far-too-serious of the night.

All three got money and booze and self-satisfaction, and what more deserved than that, on this shorttimespent-planet-earth! Well done to them.

Question: what's the difference between SLAM and a poetry reading? Anwser: SLAM (in this case) is COMPETITIVE, but poetry reading is not. SLAM involves score sheets, ten point scales of content form and delivery. It involves arithmetic/calculators. Time keeping. Stop watches. Shouting, reading, self-doubt, an excess of passion and microphone reverberation. It involves financial incentive and booze promise.

All in all, it was a quality night, and the three winners now get to go to St Andrews and read at an experimental poetry night. So, good luck on that wee poetry galivant. I think there may be more this collection SLAM nights to come. I hope so. Let there be mic!


End note: I came a tight, but not tight enough, 4th which astounded and encouraged me, like a child on stabilisers cycling for the tenth time and not worrying that you'll fall over.