Issuu

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      

  

                         

John has attempted four degrees, and failed the same one twice.

mab_jones@lycos.com

When Noel Gallagher discusses why it was that "Wonderwall" was such a massive success, and why Oasis subsequently went on to sell hundreds of thousands of tickets for their gigs at Donnington, and why he subsequently became a multi-millionaire, he talks about the square factor. He talks about how once "the squares" got involved, this guaranteed the band their success. Now, I don't think he was talking about contributors to this magazine, or its readers, but if having the squares on your side is a guarantee of success, I'm hoping by calling this magazine Square, it'll have a knock-on effect. The real reason for the title, however, is that this mag has come out of the once thriving Square Writers’ Circle, which was so-called because we met at the house of the wonderful Chris Brooke (poet, DJ, wearer of hats, and provider of (square) hangover patches), which is in Adamsdown Square, Cardiff (see cover). And perhaps I'm trying to be clever, in that now popular "reclaiming" the word way. Not that I've ever really thought of myself as square, but I suppose it's a fairly common assumption that people who are "into" poetry must be a bit square. Hopefully, the poetry, and also short stories, contained within will help you to re-assess the squareness of such writing – although whether it’s better that the conclusion you reach is that reading and writing poetry is square or isn’t square, I’m not too sure. Included in this issue, along with 4 former regulars at the Square Writers’ Circle, are three Johns – John Brookes (bard of Cardiff, and erstwhile editor of Yellow Crane magazine), the comparatively famous John Hegley, and valley boy John Davies. There is also the marvellous Mab Jones, prizewinner at the last John Tripp Award for spoken poetry, and other fabulous people who have had work published elsewhere, or performed at prestigious events. If you too see the beauty in, if not all things, but at least some things, and would like to contribute to future editions of this magazine, please contact square@post.com Next issue should be on sale August/September. Nick

Mab was on the chess team at school and loved it.

dlfmorgan@hotmail.com The biopic of his life has not yet been released in Mongolia.

clarkstein@hotmail.com Wonders if you can afford a new jag. Supports Luton Town.

info@johnhegley.co.uk

Gets high off chilli.

hangetsu_is_a_lush_kata@hotmail.com

johndavies1976@btinternet.com Has not attempted to inject heroin and cocaine in the same vein at the same time.

nickfisk@email.com

The heroic champions who compromise Paul Yoward’s influences are: Eliot, Bunting, Reading, Harrison, Dylan (both), Thomas (both), Hughes, Lowell, Larkin and Williams, although he is not yet on first name terms with all of their work.

c/o square@post.com Shelagh lives with a husband, a cat and three retired greyhounds.

shelagh.middlehurst@ntlworld.com

c/o square@post.com

J Brookes has declined to contribute a square fact.

printed by autoprinters, 107 penarth road, cardiff, cf11 6jt

The Owl and the Pussycat

The Lottery

(in a strong Cardiff accent)

Woke to our hearing fireworks, the day the lottery was born, but saw nothing, the sun already having risen.

The owl and the pussycat went to Splott In a beautiful stolen Mazda They took some beer and plenty uh gear Wrapped up in a bag from Asda The owl looked up the skirt of his love And put both his wings in her bra “Oh lovely pussy, oh pussy my love What a beautiful pussy you are You are, you are What a beautiful pussy you are!”

That afternoon we bought tickets, dripping with luck, and walked up through the rec. and the graveyard and down to the river, secret and elated, counting our stash. That night we watched as someone else‟s luck came in, and next week, next week was when we found that car-struck dog outside the Claude, the one whose convulsive little body I picked up and placed to die in the gutter, it‟s two eyes popping out like something being surprised in Disney.

Said pussy to owl, “I smell summin foul A bi‟ sweet bur also quite sour. I‟ smells like a curry, c‟mon less „urry An‟ ge‟ one before closin‟ hour” They drove away to a cheap takeaway In the land where the bong-pipe grows But there in a hood, a druggie was stood With a drip at the end of his nose His nose, his nose With a drip at the end of his nose.

Conditioner Now the blonde is growing back after the small disaster of brunette, which means you‟ll be in bloom in time for spring. See,

Said owl to the bloke, “d‟you fancy a smoke? I owes you”; said the druggie, “I do” So they went to his place and gorrof their face By smoking a reefer or two They dined on a balti with chips very salty While the druggie cooked up on a spoon Then they went racing, and when the pigs started chasing The pussycat gave them a moon A moon, a moon The pussycat gave them a moon. Mab Jones 28

by the bath, „Autumn Rêve‟ is being crowded-out, and „Party Girl‟ and „On the Town‟ are being upturned and squeezed again. All things gutter and go out, then come round in a different light, or, as the blusher put it to the pot of glitter, if the shoots are showing through, how long the full-on curling tongs, pink Stetsons, Dusty Springfield songs?

The Dance

Beautiful Girl

I have this picture of an ardent suitor marking his dance-card in advance and letting himself in at the end for a knock round the face with a fan and a slow walk home alone.

People supposes that under her clotheses This beautiful girl has a body like Venus

Dance-cards? Fans? Wrong scene, I am at the bar of a Wetherspoons pretending to read the Echo and you are busy sorting cutlery, yonder in the field of mustard pots.

They look at her from top of head down to toeses They see this great swell of two bosoms like roses They note her fine boneses and feminine poses And think: „what a beautiful girl‟

What no-one knows is that under her clotheses This beautiful girl has a very large penis

But if she don‟t shave for a month then her nose is Choked up with hairs, she is bearded like Moses And if she uncloses her legs then her hose is Proof, she‟s no beautiful girl

But my heart has gone to a ball, it is putting its little pointy toe out, prinked and pomaded it is feinting and falling back for you to step, one, two, and forward again, banquets and golden carriages to ensue.

But people supposes on clotheses and poses Their ideas are based on our outer regalia

Marry, but that‟s a merry tableau I‟ve got going on down there between the breast-bone and left arm, between the left arm and where you stand pleating paper napkins into swans, or maybe fans, I can‟t see from here.

What the girl knows but will never expose is The fact that down there she has male genitalia On external looks people make diagnosis Their eyes see some things and their mind then imposes An idea on which it then somehow closes And which it will never unfurl

J Brookes

And if this is true, men, then what I propose is Don‟t feel obliged to wear doublets and hoses If you want to oppose this, wear the right clotheses You can be a beautiful girl

did I have? Did we have similar personalities? Why did he not want to get in contact with me? Why? Did he ever think about me? Did he ever think about contacting me? Did he know that mother had died? I just didn‟t think that this fat oaf in front of me knew any of this. “Well, yes, yes, you do have the, the same….eyebrows, yes I see it now.” She stuttered. “Yes you see it now, YOU SEE IT NOW, YOU SEE HIM! YOU SEE ME! HIM, ME - THE SAME!” And I snatched the picture out of her hand and strode out of the reception, pleased and satisfied that no-one gets the better of me, no one gets the better of the daughter of John Jones. The internet was fruitless - it was impossible to find information without a National Insurance number, birth place, or some history on my father. All I had was his name and the photograph. So I decided to change my approach and try some locals at the public houses around the Cathays and Roath areas of Cardiff. I‟d thought best to walk into the bars, order a gin and slimline tonic – I decided that I did need to go back on a diet after all, I didn‟t want to look like that heffer in the University – and ask the barmen, and barflies if they recognised the picture of my father. I conducted my search, bar after bar. Shake of head after shake of head. Each bar, a new barman, a new rejection, another polite G & T. Finally at The Poets Corner, I hit a breakthrough. The bartender thought that he recognised my father, he thought that maybe he‟d seen him in here drinking a couple of weeks back, but he was ever so busy and couldn‟t remember right away. He said, if I hung around until the end of the shift then he would have another look at the picture, and maybe he could help me out. Well this was the only breakthrough I had. I knew that he was probably trying it on, but I was desperate and tired and I couldn‟t face another day of traipsing around Cardiff‟s pubs. So I took a chance and stayed for another couple of hours until the punters were kicked out and I was just left with the barman putting chairs on tables, cleaning and restocking the fridges. He wasted no time, pulled me towards him and kissed me hard. I didn‟t bother putting up any resistance, I was still feeling frustrated from last night and I thought what the hell. As he jacked at me like a rabbit on the bar, he screamed at me “I‟m your daddy, I‟M YOUR DADDY!”….to be continued in the next issue of Square! John Davies

the electronic zeitgeist cables and plate steel. electronic eyes. their skin is metal casing. an infection blooms inside. cops watch me from control rooms, each glassy lens their spy. shielded and mirrored, cunning circuitry disguised. bionic chipset system. sinister, precise. sinews, veins and diodes, retinas and wires. my every keystroke‟s monitored from the moment i‟m online. my every blog is analysed, line by fucking line. my d.n.a.‟s to be databased, labelled and defined. my children will be tracked from birth, their first moments scrutinised. genetic i.d.‟s compulsory. anonymity‟s a thoughtcrime. biometric is eugenic‟s bro, and they want me to comply. autocracy, technology, bureaucracy and fear. this is where we‟re heading; the terror grows each year. and when i‟m in my seventies with dreadlocks down my back, i‟ll still be shouting at the tv, and i‟ll still be on the attack. but now crosslegged in the desert. and the storm is yet to arrive.

i‟m counting seconds before thunder claps as lightning sears the distant sky. my future‟s cast in shadow. and i can see that old dread die. but while he still had life he still despised the electronic zeitgeist.

The food was lovely. She showed me my room in the house. It was pink, very pink, pink walls, pink ceilings, pink duvet cover, pink wardrobe, pink carpet, pink book case, pink television set, pink bean bag, pink lampshade, pink curtains. “Your Friend, she likes…” “Pink!” She replied and we laughed together. Oh she was such a sweet thing, and so intelligent. She told me everything about her degree, and how she had to work part time in the university just to pay her way. She was charming, and my mind totally wandered from the reason why I came to Cardiff in the first place. But what was I thinking? I had travelled to Wales for a specific purpose, and I removed my hands from inside my knickers and turned off the pink lamp on the pink bedside table next to me. I would tell her in the morning that I had to go and get on with my search and that would be that.

drum n bass / blind a pool cue that thrust me in another direction, she trusts me with sensitive information, nonplussed me.

So that‟s what I did in the morning. I was very efficient, and her reaction, well, was more of surprise rather than anything else and I knew that I had done the right thing. The whole situation was ridiculous.

drum and bass struck me dance like we busking we bust the atmosphere open, fires be stokin‟. stoners be smokin‟. cannabis tokin‟ explode from the lighter if the valve is open. gotta treat it right. we are never outpsyched, the only people in the room who will remember tonight. everyone is wasted. inebriated. alcoholic-sedated. i am spaced out my brain, but our energy‟s a conversation, and the vibrations from the bassline‟s breakin‟ shit.

I knew that Leanne wasn‟t in work for the rest of the week as she was studying. So I returned to the reception to enquire on any progress. The boy behind the counter asked me to take a seat, which I did. Only ten minutes had passed when the overweight lady wearing the same caftan as yesterday waddled over to me and told me that they had no records of my father and that they had also tried the Central Libraries records to no avail. She told me that I was free to use the internet in their library for as long as I wanted, and also that the Salvation Army often help in missing person cases. Well I was grateful that they gave me internet access, as I had decided to stay in Cardiff for the rest of the week, but I told portly that it wasn‟t a missing person‟s case and maybe she didn‟t quite understand who I was looking for and showed her the picture. Well she became quite flustered and mumbled, “Yes, yes, sorry, I didn‟t mean that. I just meant that the Salvation Army help people with similar cases to you.” And I shoved the photograph in her hand and shouted, “This is my father, and I will find him, whether you help me or not.” “Yes, yes, sorry madam, I, I, didn‟t say that you wouldn‟t” The students in the room stared at this kafuffle, and it only egged me on even more so, and I thrived off the attention. “Look! Look closely, look at him! That is my father whom I have never seen in my life and now I must find him, find out about him. Look, look at him; look at the resemblance. Look!” She didn‟t know what to do. I had her - how dare she not understand what I had been through, my entire life not knowing who my father was? What characteristics of his 4

So I decided that I would just have to fight the hunger, after all I wasn‟t starving like those poor children on the BBC news. No, I would just sit and wait. At 6pm the work experience girl told me over the reception desk that she had to lock up, so I pulled on my trench and thanked her for her polite manner, then left. I felt disappointed, but not despondent. After all they had very little information to go on, just a name and a picture. I was standing outside the university, looking up at the seagulls circling the big white buildings, calling after one another, and sometimes swooping down to pick up food, when the work experience girl came and stood next to me. “Sorry that we couldn‟t do anything for you today, but maybe tomorrow we‟ll come across something for you? You never know.” Well I was shocked that she wanted to speak to me and so thanked her for her politeness; after all I had been in her peripheral vision all day - surely she was sick of the sight of me by now? But then she continued “So where are you staying tonight?” I was quite taken aback by this remark, thinking she was very intrusive into my business. Then I looked at her egg face, and her quiet mouth, and realised that she was just enquiring, being polite. I then thought to myself and realised that I hadn‟t planned this far ahead and I had nowhere to go, so I concluded that I‟d seek the nearest reasonable hotel, when the girl on work experience opened her small pale lips, “If you have nowhere to go there is a spare room, with a spare bed, in my house. I share with another girl but she‟s travelling at the moment, and actually since she left it‟s been a bit quiet around the house, I could do with the company, what do you think?” Well I dithered and dathered for a while, stumbling over my own words. I wondered what this work experience girl was doing living with a friend, not with her parents, and anyway it would be terrible to bother the young girl with my problems, and besides I‟d only briefly met her today and I didn‟t even know her name. “My name is Leanne,” she said, “and I know it must seem a bit funny, but honestly, I‟d love the company and you‟ll save money on a hotel, and it‟s not that bad a place.” Well the look in her eyes, staring up at me like my cat when he‟s been without food whilst I was working a double shift on the ward, I couldn‟t but agree, on the condition that I was to take her out for a meal. A wind picked up and blew leaves over my shoes and her trousers. She smiled and that was that.

our language doesn‟t fuck around with accents and gràves, it is the real oasis, behind the mirage. communication is a function? a logical progression in societal creation? i had to laugh. this shit is inbuilt, i understand it in my soul. blood is being spilt over the lust for control, but these years are ours for the youth of today and everything changes in 2008. and then i see you with him saturday night and you look so tight, like you‟ve got your lives all figured out just right. but whatever it was we shared there‟s no mistaking, and the energy we made we‟re still creating. as we danced the morning into light the floor was quaking with the dawn of y2k plus eight awakening, but all it takes to shake my brave new world is to meet you on the street as some guy‟s girl, and hold a conversation. and it feels like lightning flashes across the sky. 5

stark shadows hide my eyes and what a surprise! my dark and jealous side has suddenly been reprised. how can sweet synchronicity be so blind?

change roles when it suited her. She would tell me off for drinking and smoking “Your poor little lungs, so perfect when you were born and now you just do this to yourself.” Jesus! Like she never smoked a fag or had a drink. But most of all she was excellent at poking at wounds. She knew which buttons to press, she knew what would hurt, she knew the exact moment to bring up a failing just when I started to feel comfortable with her. Lonely old cow, I‟m surprised as many people turned up in black as they did. The University wasn‟t that far away. I decided that I‟d walk, not hop in a taxi like usual. Cardiff seemed tranquil, very quaint; and I thought how my father must love living here. Maybe he visited London. I suspected that he‟d be cosmopolitan enough to head for the big city. Maybe he had to liaise with other universities, for important meetings, at the head of the longest conference table in Goldsmiths, addressing senior lecturers, school deans, and governors on how to secure more funding, or informing them of new breakthroughs in scientific research. I hardly noticed the little shopping centre – what with my mind rushing through my dad‟s achievements - when I was passing Cardiff‟s civic hall, museum and then the university. Already I could see myself settling here, everything was so close together, and dad could come over for lunch and introduce me to all the important people in Wales, and we would laugh and have dinner parties and he would tell stories of his trips to Papa New Guinea and The Gambia, where he discovered new medicines for dying children. Maybe there was a hospital nearby that would take me on. I was sure they must be screaming out for nurses with big city experience like mine.

hangetsu

The young girl at reception was awfully polite. She had a cheap, but poetic rhythm to her voice. I think she must have been on work experience as she seemed to be overly concerned with my predicament. I doubted anyone who worked there properly could be bothered with such a request. I sat in reception, the water container gurgled like a new born in the corner. Students came in and out, collecting cheques, shaking hands with either the small gentleman with a ginger moustache, or the overweight lady with a flowery caftan. After three hours, my stomach demanded my attention. I needed to eat, but if I got up and left, no doubt that whomever was working ever so hard for me, would return to reception to find that I was no longer there, and that I couldn‟t really have cared that much for the whereabouts of my long lost father, and that person would toss the information to the work experience girl and she would immediately shred the documents. Not that it would be her fault, she was just on work experience, but because she was told to do so on her first day, and she just remembers that and doesn‟t want to get a bad report. 6

The Same Eyebrows

Someone to Watch over Me

The policeman‟s fingers hooked up my nostrils woke me. My arms flung in the air. He told me to get up - the last station was approaching.

He was there again this morning. Every morning for a fortnight he's been on the corner, watching. I'm not going mad, he really is there. Every day, all day, or so it seems. Anyway, every time I pass by he's there. I leave the house at 8.30, home again by 5.30, or sometimes not until 6 depending on the buses. And he's there. What does he do, hang about and wait for half an hour? He never speaks or tries to attract my attention. He doesn't try to hide either. Not that there's anywhere to hide on that windy corner. He must freeze when those cold gusts come tearing along the avenue.

Six days earlier, I‟d decided that it was time for me to search for my biological father, or as I called him my spunk dad. On my mothers death bed, she told me the man I knew as my father wasn‟t really my father, that she had married another man when she was 17 and this man was actually my father. She showed me one photograph of him and told me his name. Then she passed on. I cried. The ward manager at the hospital I worked in gave me a week‟s compassionate leave. Two days after the funeral, I packed my bag and headed for Paddington Station. I had the photograph of my father, his name, and an address that my great Auntie gave me at the funeral. It was the University of Cardiff. This was where my aunt told me that he last worked. I arrived at Cardiff Central just over two hours later. The journey was pleasant enough, but I couldn‟t help thinking about what he looked like, what colour his hair was, whether I looked anything like him. Was he tall? Was he fat? Was he still alive? Was he well educated? Did I have any half brothers and sisters? The questions chugged along in rhythm with the train. I was hungry when I left the station; the sky was clear and blue, the air was crisp. I pulled my shades off my head and placed them on my nose, and strode towards the closest coffee shop I could find. I was dying for a skinny soya latte. The caffeine on the train was like drinking hot flat cheap cola. I needed my proper fix. It was just past eleven; maybe I could treat myself to a muffin, or a pan au chocolate. I decided at the lovely Coffee Number 1, that it was time for me to have something sweet, something to keep me going. I had been on a diet before my mother died, but when I saw her emaciated figure, I figured what the hell, and I‟ll eat what I want to when I want to. So I ordered a full fat latte and had a large double choc chip muffin. God I miss my mother, even though we fell out during my late twenties. She was always the daughter in the relationship, I was the mother, looking out for her, telling her off, bending over backwards, but what really got me during this period was that she would 22

This evening he was facing away from me, hands in his pockets, almost like he didn't care. I was half-way down the path before he turned round. Nearly missed me, I had to bend down to fix my shoe and sure enough he was facing me by the time I stood up. „Do you want me?‟ I put the question politely, no point in getting his back up. „Er, no, err… yes.‟ He raised his shoulders, hands in his pockets and made an apologetic little moue with his mouth. „Well either you do or you don‟t.‟ His lack of confidence boosted mine and I took charge of the situation. I‟m good in a crisis. When people are flummoxed it‟s me they turn to. Josephine will know what to do, they say. „Is it this house you are wanting, number 41, because we‟ve only lived here six months, maybe it‟s the previous tenant you‟re after?‟ „Could be, you see I used to live here and sort of left something behind but now I‟m in need of it.‟ „Couldn‟t have been that urgent.‟ I was almost brusque. He was getting on my nerves standing there, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his body leaning towards me. „Aah, well, I‟ve been out of circulation so to speak, in this neck of the woods at least. I‟ve been away if you get my meaning.‟ „No. I don‟t.‟ I was positively rude and didn‟t care. This man was seriously starting to annoy me. „I left it in the shed, could I look? Only take a minute, it means a lot to me.‟ He took a step forward as he spoke and instinctively I took a step back. I‟d read about the hairs on the back of people‟s necks prickling, but never actually experienced it – well now I did. Up close, the man was pasty faced with wishy-washy eyes and nondescript features, and he had a smell. Made me wrinkle my nose. Cleaning fluid, the kind that catches the back of your throat, Jeyes fluid, something like that.

„Why should it still be in my shed? Anyway we threw all the rubbish out. I don‟t like being reminded of people who used to live in my house.‟ I turned away, ending the conversation. „Wait.‟ The word was imploring, and of course, being me, I softened. I walked him through the jigger to go in the back way – wasn‟t going to let a total stranger, even if he was a past resident, walk through my hall, through my kitchen and out into the garden. „Hasn‟t changed a bit,‟ he sounded relieved and headed straight for the shed. „Well we haven‟t had much time to update the garden just yet, but come back in another six months and you won‟t know the place.‟ „Lucky I came when I did then.‟ He rubbed his hands together in a most unpleasant way and opened the shed door. „Hang on; you don‟t go in there without me. We‟ve got tools in there, worth a few bob.‟ „Oh good, have you got a chisel or a crowbar?‟ „Whaa…?‟ „Need to prise up the floorboards, here,‟ he pointed to the far end of the shed, „it‟s okay, I‟ll make good after me. I only want what‟s mine.‟ He flicked the light switch. The naked bulb glared overhead, casting murky shadows into the shed‟s cramped recesses. I stepped in after him. I was curious I must admit. I passed him a crowbar and without getting too close waited for the stolen loot - jewels, gold bars, counterfeit notes to be unearthed. The cold wind that travels up the avenue took a detour and slammed the shed door shut. The acrid smell of cleaning fluid in the confined space was overpowering. I put my hand up to my mouth and tried not to breathe. With a tearing sound two floorboards gaped open over a dark space. „Can you see? I‟ve a torch somewhere.‟ I wanted to know what had been left under my shed floor. Wanted to see for myself. He was on his knees feeling around in the space. Arhh. A sigh of satisfaction and relief and he pulled out something wrapped in a piece of cloth like an old curtain, one of those heavy brocade types. The fabric glowed dull gold in the harsh light. He held the parcel of cloth to him for a moment, cradling it. „That‟s not …‟ I whispered through stiff jaws. He stood up, still cradling the bundle. His nothing face, his empty eyes had darkened and taken shape. I was aware of being a speck in a lonely shed with a maniac. „It‟s mine.‟ He pushed past me and was gone.

Hound Dogs Noon and Ian‟s killed his quota, a five year old brown bear under cover in the truck. He stops at mount Guitar-on, ready drench in its waterfalls. Hot with capability, hungry for more Nature. The scent of sweet apricot drifts through the pines. His dogs slink off; follow their noses into the wood. In the water a young woman is swimming. He stalks her, gives her one of his high testosterone hellos.

Running The Bulls An old man on his way, pain in his hip, but one step follows the other. Los Torros some children shout, Los Torros to the slaughter. Hands for horns, they run rings around him, finish their game with a stick. Then bow to the seats reserved for heroes of past Corrida. A bell tolls and the people run for cover, crowd behind the barricades. Yip, Yip, run straight Los Torros, Los Torros do not fear slaughter. Blow and bellow, a boiled eye‟s centre, the stink, then a clatter and trip. Stunned, a big-calf stands, turns four ways, and trots on to the arena. On the sand a young man practices his moves like a dancer. Los Torros the chant grows from the street Los Torros, Los Torros. David Foster Morgan

Shelagh Middlehurst 8

Flyers

Bury St Edmunds

My sister is moving with lullaby feet, rocking her first born in movements that speak of the pain in the marrow of her fragile bones, so soft and so careful over hard and cold stones.

Getting dark near closing in the park of the abbey ruins I enter the recreation ground. It has been raining off and on, all the children are gone and I am tempted by the swings, things I spent hours on when my trousers went no lower than my knees. A small go would do no harm I decide. Settled into the ride and aware that I am breaking the rules I prepare for the possible appearance of a hostile parkie. Why shouldn‟t I be here? I‟m no more danger to the apparatus than ten stone three of heavyweight child might be! How strict is the authorised age-range anyway? If you‟re one second past fourteen does that mean you‟re banned? And if I had a mental understanding age of nine maybe that would be fine, would it, eh? Some way off a figure rounds the corner with some keys, before the shape gets any bigger I spill from the still swinging swing and scarper for the trees.

My sister who flew with fairytale grace, as a star of trapeze dared the spotlight to trace how far from our help she could stop in mid-air, how long she could shine, all eyes fixed on her. My sister who fell with apocryphal plight, left unable to look up, afraid to catch sight of a star, while in darkness she relearned to walk, withdrew from her friends, refused to talk. Our Father began it, sang us nursery rhymes, held by our wrists like swings we‟d climb, up past his shoulders, until with a flick he‟d let us go and catch us with one magic twist. While I accepted my parable weight – by six or seven too heavy for flight – my sister, the addict, couldn‟t stop then, finding stronger, braver, reckless men. So my sister is moving with lullaby feet, rocking her new girl in her arms as she speaks: these small steps I make with my painful bones are summersaults over these cold breaking stones.

The imagination the only nation worth defending a nation without alienation a nation whose flag is invisible and whose borders are forever beyond the horizon a nation whose motto is why have one or the other when you can have one the other and both a nation whose badge is a chrysanthemum of sweet wrappings maybe a nation whose laws are magnificent whose customs are not barriers whose uniform is multiform whose anthem is improvised whose hour is imminent and whose leader is me

Jimmy Greaves it‟s not much of a planet that everybody leaves there‟s not a lot of faith about but I am someone who believes that what we need without a doubt is more of Jimmy Greaves imagine Jimmy‟s picture in every picture frame imagine all religion praising Jimmy‟s name the world is just a candle and Jimmy Greaves is the flame won‟t you gimme Jimmy the more I get of Greavsie the more my life achieves so give me more of Greavsie and more of Jimmy Greaves it used to be his turn of speed, he left defences in a daze 10

submit it to the message board! – but although I did tape it, I haven‟t used it. I don‟t think anyone else on the message board had the same enthusiasm. But, like meeting a pop star, it was nice to have finally seen the whistle blower. And although that phrase has other connotations, this whistle blower was definitely one of the good guys. Nick Fisk Two men have told me The Meaning of Life one a Lecturer in Metaphysics, the second a burnt out case. The Case walked into the University asked to see the Professor of Philosophy while he waited he told me the Meaning was two bus rides away, under a bridge he had diagrams that would help. Though I never studied his many pentangles the college porters insisted he keep them as they walked him out. This happened every year or two: a new thinker his influences‟ chemical. The Lecturer‟s logic followed Aristotle. He told me how he woke one morning in a New England hotel room to realise all our acts of waking are indistinguishable not the facts of linen and street noise but our encounter with Consciousness and the same with our common touch on any of our planet-large abstractions not the one we trust but Trust not the beloved but Love shared, undivided all one. 19

Bob Bank Whistler When I went to watch Cardiff City when I was a lot younger, when you‟d be lucky to get a crowd of about 6,000 (now, the average attendance is about double that), if I went in the Bob Bank, there was one thing I could guarantee, and that was hearing a frequent, extremely loud whistle coming from somewhere behind me. Like one of the regular chants, it added to the atmosphere of the Bob Bank. It would always be six notes, usually heard after a particularly wild shot, or poor play, by the opposition, in a mocking way, as if to say “just because you‟re losing”. In the last couple of seasons, athough the crowds have been bigger, and the chants have continued, the whistle has not been heard. I submitted a message to the Cardiff City fans‟ forum asking if anyone else had noticed this, and there were a few replies saying “yes, I remember that whistle”. At least one person even claimed to know who the whistler was. There was a general consensus that the whistler had probably now settled down with his family. It‟s a common cliché used to explain the absence of a once ever-present fan. As Cardiff had, remarkably, reached the FA Cup Semi Final, to be played at Wembley, it was announced that anyone who was not a season ticket holder or member could increase their chances of getting a ticket by attending the next home game after the announcement of our place in the next round of the competition. No-one would have expected earlier in the season that, given our mid-table position in the league, we would draw a crowd of 17,500 for the game against Hull, and scorn was poured on many of the “glory hunters” who‟d turned up for this game. However, not long after I‟d taken my place amongst the ranks in the Bob Bank, I heard that long-absent whistle! I didn‟t see who it was immediately.There was a guy a few rows ahead of me (recently, I‟d taken to standing at the back), there with his wife and child, who stood out because he was wearing a camouflage jacket. Although he was singing along, at first I took him to be another of the glory supporters. But then, Hull scuffed a shot, the whistle went out, and I saw that he was the whistler! It was like spotting a rare bird! Immediately, I was happy to have finally seen who it was, after all this time.

now he rents his turn of phrase and when I turn on my TV and Jimmy‟s there my spirits raise and when I‟m in a blazing row and I‟m in the process of rolling up my sleeves I just think of Greavsie and he relieves me more and more of Greavsie is what this country needs he‟s the man to sow the seeds of sanity he‟s off the booze he‟s on the ball he‟s got a message for us all he can help humanity to heal itself to haul itself from this self-destructive stupor he‟s what you call a trooper I think he‟s blinking super he‟s a trooper super duper so please don‟t give me Henry Cooper he isn‟t Jimmy Greaves people say that I‟m loopy they think I‟m nothing but a Greavsie groupie but I tell them you‟re not fit to wash Jimmy Greaves‟s moustache John Hegley

Perhaps I should have gone to speak to him, but for a lot of the time, he was quite cosy with his wife, so I thought it better not to disturb him. I decided I could possibly record the whistle on my mobile – it‟d make a good ring-tone, I thought, or perhaps I could 18

Street Incredible

The Whale Showed Up

Two ladies reminisce of a time when spats cut a dapper shocking strut on high-streets and that the cut of the trouser, favoured on a zoot suit, was the high waistband quite different to this: baboon arse-display of a skater-boy; whose loose pants are so low you can spy on his colon how it is that fashions change how strange they stay the same The same women grant it that men are violent and that world war two can only show that but why out of the Council tax do those boys have to take spray-paint to bus-shelters? Alright, it’s not bombing Dresden, but it‟s also not fighting fascism, even with phrases that go “you can spy on his colon”

I followed the fortunes Of the Thames Whale Avidly on Sky TV, But what they didn‟t say Was that that whale was a Buddhist. Don‟t know what he was In his previous life, But next he turned up As a daff – I know, I picked him, And chucked him in the Taff. Next life, what‟ll he be? Where will he show up? I don‟t know – maybe as A bee in Zimbabwe, And it won‟t be long Before he‟s floating down The Zambezi.

how it is that fashions change how strange they stay the same Those funny As they use as well, what the hell are they? no respect for typography or how to spell - no wonder the educated have given it in and have started speaking patois to “fit in man”.

Coventry v Stoke In fog. Old man produces Torch and shines on screen.

Music

We’re losing generations to noise now - no direction moving like endoscopies through to web action: where, you can spy on his colon

Music, You are my head cleaner

how it is that fashions change how strange they stay the same?

Keenest when you beat me up to surf The sound waves that lick your cones Music, You are my recorded deliverance Come dance me when the speakers‟ corner From your revolver Music, You are my landscape to escape rape Where my face is free from egg And my head cracks the shelling

They call it news but it’s not: suicide car-bomb in Basra; a cessation would be newer - no one exploded anything today, armament production has ceased and a healing has begun let no one tell you - it is a con - that this war is to end all wars, it is more likely nowadays that, friend it spells the terminal point for everyone where big globs of shit will hit the cosmic fan

So sample an example of perfection A bunch of people in a scene or setting Growing an atmosphere Forming routes to roots All moving in the relief of arrival All cruising with friendly check points

but none of you have the guts for that idea you’re all scared in your foxholes & digging deeper. Paul Yoward

Neil Clarke

A Welshman in West Africa

I, as an actor In this giving action Feel a combustion of guilt Which tilts me towards Another disgusting depression Anointed by the gung ho gravity Of the great western rip off Gluing me super to its western „Box‟ of tricks

In a living sense It‟s so difficult to rest in peace In this place of death by insect To savour a sleep as deep as a debt Or even forget for an instant The crawling poverty The creeping wealth The pathetic suggestion of system At home We may be crippled by the stick of progress But at least we‟re blessed with some limp ability To deny or denounce This enforcement Here In the hereafter Long after I‟ve departed This incredible sense of same Will bite and blame another trying teacher Into tossing coins on corners To patients left out of the speeding scheme of things Stuck in their dusty days They will never pave a way Other than to meet The next coming act of charity That gives them the clarity of hope For another few moments

Whenever the biblical „Beeb‟ And my echo member sees fit I‟m warmed me to reason About another giving season Under the still drenched cliché of sacrifice Type-casting no doubt About a post-Christian way out So I‟ll just run home Through my well rounded Window of pain Minding the Art of entertainment Embodying the homage to waist Clasping the precious dirt cheap Through the gauntlet of customs And exercise my programmed given right To forgive myself For sensing too much From a safe distance