off-centre Issue 1

Issue 1

What we did on our lockdown

Somewhere off-centre Gary Carr Welcome to off-centre, a magazine for the arts and artists in the Midlands. In terms of content we will mainly print visual art, poetry, very short fiction and, by prior agreement only, reviews of books, exhibitions or spoken word events.

Why off-centre? Geographically and – I would like to think – philosophically the people of the Midlands are exactly that. We have a mix of large population centres and remote rural hamlets, industrial towns and market towns. The Midlands is a huge area but in most people’s minds the borders are nebulous. I am hoping that as the magazine develops it’s borders and the writing in it will be just as difficult to pin down. A bit off-centre, maybe.

This trial issue is packed full of surprises, which I hope you will find entertaining, thought provoking and occasionally challenging.The quality of the submissions was such that I would have loved to print more by many of the writers. Sadly, a paper magazine is limited in the number and layout of it’s pages, so difficult decisions had to be made, getting from the long-list to final copy. I hope that the magazine will grow and that we can be much more flexible in the future.

Work produced during lockdown was the overall theme.There was an element of trust involved in this, but I think it paid off. Naturally there were several on the subject of COVID and lockdown, directly or indirectly, but people seemed to be using their time to consider nature, memories and relationships. These are some of themes you will see running through this issue.

Thank you to everyone who made this magazine possible.

Contributors, my editorial team, Kirsty (the Anonymiser!) and those who submitted but we were unable to publish. Especially thank you for buying, browsing or reading this copy.

Cheers!

Gary All work © credited contributors, magazine and cover picture © Gary Carr.

Contact Gary Carr at spoken.worlds.burton@gmail.com Facebook group: offcentre off-centre Issue 1

Contents (Contributors) Mark Goodwin

2

Helen Gunn

5

Andrew Button

6

Deborah Tyler-Bennett

7

Marjorie Nielson

9

Mark Watkins

11

Susan Wood

12

Rebeckah Tobias

14

Derek Hughes

16

Sarah Dale

18

Phil Binding

21

Ben Macnair

23

Lisa Johnston

24

Janet Jenkins

26

Jan Hedger

27

Emma Lee

29

Daniel Kay

30

Jayne Stanton

32

off-centre Issue 1

Mark Goodwin

To Utter come sit with the black treed vast at your back ( that ob scure woods -past ) feel fire’s gaze on your face as deep dark’s eyes rake your nape see this hot ring of a city in flames sit to off-centre Issue 1 – Page 2

watch hearth’s furious glow eat trees ’til the king dome of coal

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Helen Gunn

After the Exhibition I was in my sunny kitchen, clutching a wetwipe about to absolve the counter of olive oil smears and crumbs when a philosopher on the radio declared it logically possible we were a collective simulation generated by an advanced civilisation running a jumbo computer. Cripes! I nibbled at a Custard Cream – more crumbs – to raise my blood sugar having trotted back exhausted from the Tate’s Blake exhibition.

(Would this advanced civilisation retain stomachs, gender?

Would they pong?) Odours of ginger and rotting cabbage fugged the kitchen air. I felt more diaphanous than fleshy what with all that standing, gazing at Blake’s visions of buff white dudes winged, naked or rainbow coloured ̶ often tinted by Blake’s inadequately acknowledged wife Catherine escaping domestic responsibilities to assist William who’d be busy with notes-to-self and versification.

There again, the couple’s advancement of Art and culture could have been gamed. Some geek-like entity filling a quiet Tuesday afternoon, or its equivalent.

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Andrew Button

Guillot Haircut A basin head they used to call it when I was a kid and mixing bowls were multi-purpose.

Mothers of invention would use them to make a D.I.Y job look almost professional.

Barbers had no excuse to routinely take their scissors to our young heads and instead of a John Travolta or a dashing Lewis Collins, choose the easy option requiring no thought or flair as we emerged from their shops with haircuts just like the French sidekick of that Gallic hero from that oft repeated, ineptly dubbed television serial, The Flashing Blade.

Both were swordsmen, but of differing abilities.

Guillot was Chevalier de Recci’s accomplice in their mission to save a French garrison from the Spanish in the seventeenth century as depicted in the 1970s TV series, The Flashing Blade.

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Deborah Tyler-Bennett

Captive Sonnets For Magi McGlynne, Ballad Singer

Old enough for witnessing them hooked nearby squat rabbits in a Butcher’s shop, cuboid and sinew become cropped nail-bags, pheasant hued fur ruched by custom breezing in. Heads crooked, unlike the live ones, Kirkby Top ran with. Here recollections stop – ghost memories stay land-locked.

I phone my Father:“Did I dream that hare? Trapped in our house?”

Replying “no” he outlines it for me.

Tufts, blood, manic eye, shared past quickening, to very life, at last.

Quickening, our very lives at last, that awry living room. We’d been out, come back. I’d be five, by all accounts.

Implicit burglary had us ‘shook’, aghast “Something’s in here”, Mother gasped.

Then we saw him, clawed toes drumming fast against oak table leg. His state clouting my system. Rising, nausea’s acid taste …

“Get out!” Said Dad,“poor thing’s dying of fright.”

We went. Kept close. Hearing soft threshing.

“Rabbits?” Mum told,“Pets. Hares never tame.”

Quick as pooling flame he’d gone.

On smeary door glass, tawny blood marks shone.

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On smeary door glass, tawny blood stains smear.

In dreams, hares, flinty standing stones, hold rigid. “Poems get in our bones,” my Ballad Singer said:“and you, be clear, I’ve witnessed Faery Folk.” Seer of Marsh Light, crower of old tales flown, forgotten … inhabiting both now and gone.

Sing me childhood’s elf struck hare, entrapment forming in a living room unlikely on a semi-urban street, door snecked … hard edged … potential tomb … this refrain’s ancient winding sheet … give up a crow’s call, chorusing through dark explain his coming, witching, stark.

Explain his coming, witching, stark (isn’t this, heat poems get forged from?)

Singer, delve with me, let’s plumb a sonnet’s heart – give lines a walk.

Elongated feet, drumming a devil’s mark into a table’s oak, catch Dad’s:“Come on, home time!” Then:“Oh, he’s gone.”

I’ll gather rook calls, echoing through bark, let the hare run, wishing him a field, watch Mum pick-up a green, erasing, cloth, wiping the door, as traces of him yield, then vanish. Suddenly, all loath to see his last. So, Singer, conjure rhyme, bring hare, house, Mother, back through time.

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Marjorie Nielson

Broken Dreams (inspired by the painting Room in New York by Edward Hopper)

Her dress is the colour of desire. She moves delicate fingers over the piano keys but plays no recognisable tune just a series of discordant notes. She makes no eye contact with her husband as he sits behind her on a plush red chair.

Buttoned-down he’s intent on reading the newspaper.

There’s a quiet chasm between them reinforced by a small round table topped with a genteel lace doily crafted by her mother.

Once they were like clams in a roiling turmoil each touch, each look filled with the fire of desire.

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Now, life has morphed into a soft sigh of boredom, and marriage has become like a Tennessee Williams play viewed through an open window on a humid New York summer night.

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Mark Watkins

Held #1

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Susan Wood

Love Match On a summer's afternoon We played tennisYou and I, Love Fifteen, Until Deuce!

Your serveA hefty overhead shot, Ringing with malice across the straining net.

My return, softly wrought Caught you off-guard Love Thirty!

Retrieving balls That zinged like lemons, From cool corners of the court, We played on, Hitting volleys, backhands, lobs.

Time ticked points As the scoreboard crunched.

Fault!

Out! In! The afternoon expired into shadowNo Game, Set and Match, Or resounding victory, But impasse, StalemateCatch 22. off-centre Issue 1 – Page 12

Held #2

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Rebeckah Tobias

Pick of the Day Carly Simon sings quietly from the juke box in the corner The wooden door creaks; flames flicker in the draught.

Feet pointing slightly outwards he strides up to the bar; tight lips smile lasciviously at the landlady.

He flicks his fag end into the embers Expecting to be noticed He places one cuban heeled boot on the brass rail below the bar.

With an elbow resting on the beer stained toweling mat he orders a pint with whiskey chaser.

From the inner pocket of his polyester jacket he releases his wallet; Off duty yet his warrant card falls on the counter.

Swigging beer, he surveys his audience over the rim of the glass.

Hooded eyelids half cover steely eyes.

His tongue slowly licks the foam moustache.

Slightly shifting his stance, showing stretched trousers, he hutches up his cords. Inspection over, He strolls over, tonight’s choice made A click.The record changes Sting wants her to be his girl

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Held #3

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Derek Hughes

Porthor This is how it seemed.

We had fish and chips for tea.

My father drove us to the beach.

My sister played in the sand.

Mother looked on.

The sand squeaked. It didn’t whistle.

My father and I walked to a subdued sea.

We selected flat pebbles to skim.

He was good.

Three bounces, five bounces, more.

I got seven but he won.

His last throw pinged the horizon.

We walked back to the dunes.

No one spoke.

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Held #6

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Sarah Dale

Niobe’s Child Metamorphosis book 6, Ovid

Sky falls continuously, as waves curl, crashing to shore, but on this particular day he, her lovely boy, is struck asprawl by all that wicked weight of air pinned as a flung stain to dry ground, nor can all her tears float him alive, nor can her tears stop flowing for all she knows she cannot float him alive, for all she knows is salt seas of sorrow, split from herself by love’s bitter miracle of transformation that monsters and marvels us into as many forms as imagination can bear.

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A Circular Story So I polished the silver – an egg cup and two fancy spoons – good for nothing, but they shone like the moon.

And my memories were polished too – they shone moon bright, but I don’t want them.They’re bad memories, I’ll give them to you with a silver egg cup and two fancy spoons, if you like – an unfair offer and a bad bargain.

So I cleaned out the cutlery drawer – I counted the knives (small and large), the forks (small and large), the spoons (three different kinds).

There were eight of everything, except one of the small forks had turned itself into a spoon (for eating pudding). “That’s not natural,” I said, but no answer did I get from knife, fork or spoon.

Things change into other things all the time, when you’re not looking – you can’t watch everything around you all the time. People change into other things too – I wasn’t looking when I changed into something else, and you didn’t see me do it.

So I got everything out of the cupboard under the sink – even things that I couldn’t remember what they were for. The boggart had to move out. I made him some cheese sandwiches and gave him the train fare to London. I said,“You’ll like it there – the streets are paved with gold.”

He knew I was lying, and gave me some fairy gold. I knew he was lying, and threw it out into the garden as soon as he’d gone – it became butterflies and flew away.

It happened to be May, so the butterflies were fine, but suppose it had been November – would they still have been butterflies, or something more seasonally appropriate – dead leaves, for example? That’s the trouble with changing – it happens whether it’s appropriate or not.

So I sorted out all the fabric, kept what was usable, chucked out the rest. Ironed it and folded it and colour co-ordinated it – a rainbow in a box.

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The thing about rainbows is that they’re really circles – that’s why they promise you the crock of gold at the end – because there isn’t one.

So this is a story like a rainbow, it goes round and round without any moral to it, just like me, just like you.

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Phil Binding

Sagittarius a Star Return tickets are not available on journeys to Sagittarius A, an impossibly infinite gangster bloated beyond the laws of physics.

It gorges matter, sucks suns dry like dead flies in a web of gravity, crushes matter out of existence as it drags time to a full stop.

Its hungry horizon strangles space in twisting storms of gamma rays, hoards swarms of hot-headed stars praying tribute to a black space the mass of four million suns, voices soaring in Orphean oratorio as one by one they are flayed of their headlong hydrogen fires.

In isolated singularity it lays bare the galaxy’s bones, binds and breaks atoms, a ravenous lighthouse spewing beams of wild x-rays.

Careless journeys will end in supermassive death, matter strung out like bloody spaghetti.

Universes end here.

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The End Of The World Will Not Be On Facebook (With apologies to Gil Scott-Heron) The end of the world will not be on Facebook, imbecilic “friends” grinning in social ignorance.

Instagram will not feature Apocalyptic trite bites of carbon neutral self-delusion The end of the world will not be discussed on Snapchat by twittering Z-listers.

U Tube will become a cat-free zone as you zoom from womb to tomb.

Armageddon will not be on Fox News exciting pixels on your hundred inch screen, stimulating blood in your four inch dick as your freedoms are shafted senseless.

Revelations will not be available for download on your pointless I-Phone, I-Pad or I Couldn’t Give a Toss Pad. Ragnarök will not be trailed on IMAX. The seven plagues, four horsemen, six six six and two by two will not be calculated by QuickBooks on the keypad of your Galaxy.

The end of the world will not be on Facebook, or action replay, action replay, action replay instant download on your laptop.

So shave, dress, look your best ‘cos the end of the world will be fucking REAL! off-centre Issue 1 – Page 22

Ben Macnair

Yellow Brimstone It was the briefest of moments, A flash of Yellow against the bluest of skies.

A Yellow Brimstone, a Butterfly probably less than a week old, taking to the air.

It was rare, so we noticed, but a Cabbage White was flashier, a Red Admiral more photogenic, just for a moment, a Yellow Brimstone flew past, said I am here, notice me, and we did.

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Lisa Johnston

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Janet Jenkins

Liberty She gathered up nature inside her head.

Gave it strong wings to make it fly, to find great strength to forge ahead.

She gathered up nature inside her head. ''Discover a way to flourish.'' She said. ''Fight the destroyers who want you to die.”

She gathered up nature inside her head Gave it strong wings to make it fly.

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Jan Hedger

Ceiriog at Chirk: tween Wales and England Quickstep river bounces along on ball of foot under ancient Pont-faen bridge; stone crannies in desertion of dippers.

Lumbering sheep crop amongst chains of pearls on yawning field.

The Ceiriog, sharp cold, cha-cha-cha’s over rocks and smooth washed pebbles; eddies round wind snapped branches.

Sheep gather at feeding station, Land Rover cracks ice.

Crystal water salsa shimmies beneath towering arches of aqua and viaduct.

Jackdaws flash in wake of sprinting trains.

Narrow boats cross border in slow rumba, Through cast iron trough.

Zigzag river quicksteps on, quick-and-quick-and-quick, quick, slow.

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In a Whisper…

From labour of clouds, I am delivered in baby hush of new born snow.

Flakes showering like velvety talcum powder gently shaken on smooth slow-worm skin.

The air shivers in sharpness of silver daggers; tips of blades, like pin-pricks on peach pinched cheeks.

Crystals of popping candy taste on tongues, like iced water in summer.

Elastic bands snap on de-gloved hands as snowmen grow in height and girth into a Terracotta Army across gardens and fields.

Hot chocolate radiates heat, coursing through veins of cracking ice, in meltdown of thawing.

I am gone.

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Emma Lee

No Numbers Included "The ubiquitous poem about quadratic equations that trouble every slim volume of contemporary poetry" Jonathan Davidson

It felt like taking muddled sentences and playing with the word order until they made sense.Then paring, reducing until they looked like poems.

Yet they always remind me of a cloakroom bench.

A friend who'd just started at this school couldn't follow what to her was a cipher, a code that lacked a key.Two hours bunked off games and a bulb flickered as she discovered the possibilities in taking a received text, hearing its chord, tapping out its rhythm, tackling its clashes and joining letters to make them sing.

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Daniel Kay

Up the Ladder We climb to the roof, foot by foot, splintered steps carrying our feet, without the weight of the world gripping at our heels.

The town looks brighter from here, less complicated.

The yellow glowing window panes don’t tell the stories inside them.

One family getting five hours of sleep amidst the parents’ messy divorce.

Another, blowing out candles for their college-mate’s 32nd birthday.

It’s less complicated from up here.

We smell the kebab house’s fresh pita bread, and the misty air of lost inhibitions.

The town looks calmer from here, less melodramatic.

As many times as someone tells you that everything you bite your nails over isn’t as big of a deal as you say it is, We’re still chatting down to our cuticles.

Using band-aids bought with cash meant for groceries. off-centre Issue 1 – Page 30

Up here, we can eat grilled cheeses alone in the dark and laugh at the honked horns until they fade out into the distance, the way birds fly to their next nest.

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Jayne Stanton

Survival Notes i My world has shrunk.

It suits the cat. ii I open the kitchen window to outdoor possibilities.

Leaves hold the light to account.

The birds have tenure.

I’m learning their language.

Longing for visitors I can live with weeds. iii It could be anywhere.

I mask my fear.

I throw neighbourly greetings over the fence.

The kitchen bin needs emptying.

I have buried the car keys. off-centre Issue 1 – Page 2

iv Oh face mask and hand sanitiser, protect me from all that is COVID. Oh shopping trolley thou art my help and my shield.

Oh one-way system and distance markers deliver me to an empty till.

Oh contactless payment card thou art my salvation from key-pads.

Oh automated exit doors release me, let me out.

Oh car, thou art my fortress.

In thee I take refuge. v Field poppies – I’m sick of those super-spreaders.

Give echinacea a chance!

I’m crick-necked, cranky from tracking the light.

Aren’t we all craving it?

Each day misses the point.

I wake part-way through, find it’s left me for dead.

I hanker after a different view, send out suckers under the boundary fence. off-centre Issue 1 – Page 3

vi I envy the sky its reach.

Fat balls ply the birds for news but their calls are cyphered.

The garden path: hot coals.

Pollen clogs my airways.

I am unmasked.

Is the vacuum between panes of double glazing any less suffocating? vii Days have forgotten their names and the weeks run away with themselves.

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Contributors Mark Goodwin Mark Goodwin has books with various poetry houses, including Leafe Press, Longbarrow Press, Shearsman Books & The Red Ceilings Press.

Publications forthcoming are: a full-length with Shearsman called At, and a chapbook with American publisher Middle Creek called Erodes On Air, both focusing on mountain travel. Mark lives in Leicestershire.

Helen Gunn Helen Gunn is a Fine Artist/Writer based in Rutland and has had poems published by Shoestring Press, Kent & Sussex Poetry Anthology, Mslexia magazine and competition, Leaf Books and Artemis, From 2005-2015 she had poems published by Soundswrite Press and was invited to contribute poems and artworks for The Nature of Change exhibition 2016, Attenborough Arts, Leicester. In 2019 she contributed a poem for Leicester cathedral’s artwork project, and was published online by the Poetry Society.

Andrew Button Originally from Nottingham, Andrew Button currently lives in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire. He has had many poems placed in magazines and a pamphlet, Dry Days in Wet Towns, was published in 2016.To date, he has had two collections published by erbacce Press,The Melted Cheese on the Cosmic Pizza, (2017), and Music for Empty Car Parks (2020).

Deborah Tyler-Bennett Deborah Tyler-Bennett is a European poet with eight poetry collections and three books of linked short fiction to her credit. She regularly performs her work, currently on Zoom. Current publications include poems in the London Reader, Imminent, and are forthcoming in Dear Dylan,Wet Grain, and others.

Marjorie Nielson Marjorie has a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from the Open University and has edited two anthologies for charity on behalf of Lichfield Poets. She has had poems published on-line, in magazines, anthologies and has one on display at Polesworth Countryside Park in Warwickshire.

Mark Watkins Mark Watkins is a collage artist based in Staffordshire.

His collage explores the minutiae of human existence inspired by the worlds in which we dream. Ideas and themes are realised through the juxtaposition and layering of vintage imagery, papers, colours and text which are reconstructed reflecting on how memories can recede, become lost or randomly re-surface.

Susan Wood Susan’s inspiration is from nature, reflection, and whatever catches her imagination. A member of The Lichfield Poets, her work has been published in a variety of anthologies, she is a regular at Open Mic events.

Rebeckah Tobias Rebekah Tobias is a former teacher who took early retirement to enjoy writing. She is a northerner presently living in the East Midlands, a book lover and proud mum of three.

Derek Hughes Derek describes himself as “a grizzly old poet and one of Charles Lauder’s flock in Leicestershire Stanza”. He has had a number of poems published—by selection, commendations over the years, the odd second prize and was Winner of The Magma Short poetry prize 2019. Nature is important to him.

Ben Macnair Ben Macnair is an award-winning poet and playwright, with several produced plays to his credit. As a founding member of The Lichfield Poets and The Smart Poets, poetry has become an interesting addition to his writing practice, which has also included working for local newspapers and specialist music and art publications. Follow him on Twitter @benmacnair.

Janet Jenkins Janet Jenkins is the leader of The Lichfield Poets. She has poetry in several anthologies including ‘Maligned Species’ and 'Diversifly' (Fair Acre Press) and ‘Eighty Four’ (Verve Poetry Press) She was featured on Brum Radio Poets in 2019 and was part of the Wolverhampton PoArtry project in 2019/20.

Emma Lee Emma Lee’s publications include “The Significance of a Dress” (Arachne, 2020) and "Ghosts in the Desert" (IDP, 2015). She co-edited “Over Land, Over Sea,” (Five Leaves, 2015), was Reviews Editor for The Blue Nib, reviews for magazines and blogs at http://emmalee1.wordpress.com. FB: https://www.facebook.com/EmmaLee1.Twitter @Emma_Lee1.

Daniel Kay Daniel is a poet, music maker and story writer who also writes articles and makes music. His passion for writing poems, began in 2017 as part of his path of recovery from alcoholism.

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The Team

Sarah Dale Sarah Dale comes from London and has lived in Lichfield, where she works part time in a local museum, since 1992. She’s a member of the Lichfield Poets and Runaway Writers. She writes to reflect on experience and for the fun of it.

Phil Binding Phil Binding is a poet and writer gently sliding into decrepitude in Burton and a member of The Lichfield Poets. He is all over Staffordshire like a rash at open-mics, despite friends begging him to stop.

Jayne Stanton Jayne Stanton’s poems have appeared in numerous print and online magazines, anthologies and exhibitions. She has written commissions for a county museum, University of Leicester’s Centre for New Writing, poems for International Women’s Day 2018, and a city residency.A pamphlet, Beyond the Tune, is published by Soundswrite Press (2014).

Kirsty Carr Kirsty anonymised entries as they were received and did much of the background administration connected with entries. She distributed 75% of the submissions to the team ensuring that none evaluated their own work.

Kirsty denies any connection to writers or artists, being much too organised (and cool) for any of that.

Gary Carr Gary Carr has been trying to organise writers for around twenty years, on committees of writers’ groups, national organisations and local projects.

He has both organised and delivered workshops, mentored writers and for the last eleven years has run Spoken Worlds and Distractions open mic events. More than sixty of his poems have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies, several articles have appeared in specialist magazines. His book In a Town is due in the autumn.

Longhand Issue 1

In this Issue: Poetry from Phil Binding, Andrew Button, Sarah Dale, Mark Goodwin, Helen Gunn, Jan Hedger, Derek Hughes, Janet Jenkins, Daniel Kay, Emma Lee, Ben Macnair, Marjorie Nielson, Jayne Stanton, Rebeckah Tobias, Deborah Tyler-Bennett and Susan Wood Prose from Sarah Dale Visual art from Mark Watkins and Lisa Johnston Next issue Theme: Grain/Granular

Cities, condiments, civilisations and people, poisons, the human race, are emotions granular?, atoms and Molecules, sand. The interpretation is as wide you can imagine it. Off kilter and off-centre (of course) writing, photography and artwork very welcome.

All submissions will be considered anonymously.

Issue 1

£3.50

Longhand Magazine is edited and published by Gary Carr Printed by youloveprint in Rockwell and Gill Sans Typefaces