Mr. Chaos

What’s the trouble with Mr. Chaos?

He is a cold, doomed man 

in need of a miracle.

Most men everywhere feel betrayed 

by the witty and sexy Miss World,

and yet we’re still waiting 

for heroes of iron to save Paradise.

This small town is dazzled 

by the final days of violence.

As Dusk Falls

The Beauty Of This Island

An Artist In Space

My young friend, the creative and talented Louis, gave me a list of words to write into a poem. His words are in bold and this poem is for him...

An Artist In Space

Wrapped in my space suit,

I am a Panda Picasso,

trying to sketch planet earth with my pencil.

So far, I'm doing a pretty good job.

Things look different up here than they do on the map:

Indonesia is a small bird bathing in the sea.

Italy doesn't look like a boot when it's upside down;

it is more like an alligator opening its great jaw.

Scandinavia is a piece of cheese on a fork.

That's pretty funny, I think,

and when I laugh,

my breath rushes past my ears

like a red tiger's roar.

There is no room for a lunchbox up here.

Instead I suck on sugar cubes

like a horse after a race.

Sometimes the whole of space

looks at me and twinkles a question:

"What?"

- as if I have the answer,

as if I represent all the people who ever lived

and can reply for us all.

Apart from the sugar cubes, and my pencil,

the only things I carry with me are words.

Weightless, unaffected by gravity, and very satisfying,

I nibble on them whenever I'm hungry.

My favourite one today is "flabbergasted".

And so I sing it out into space -

"Flabbergasted!"

- an answer to the question,

with a million tiny answers inside it

like stars packed into the galaxy's pocket.

Lottie Loves Cake

My young friend, the magical and creative Lottie, gave me a list of words to write into a poem. Her words are the colours of the rainbow and this poem is for her...

LOTTIE LOVES CAKE

Lottie loves cake.

She loves it so much that she eats it all day long.

For breakfast she eats Moon Cake,

silver and round and full of the wonders of her dreams.

For lunch she eats Sky Cake,

big and wide as the clear blue sky,

with puffy clouds of icing on top

and a bird or two for decoration.

For dinner she eats Jungle Cake,

a very exciting cake,

covered with great leafy plants and bright pink flowers.

It is also a very noisy cake, 

with tigers growling and parrots squawking.

When her friend, Matilda, comes over for tea,

they play the viola and sing songs about cake

such as "every cloud has some silver icing"

and "there was an old woman who lived in a scone".

They eat Rose Cake together and paint their nails the colour of Roses.

Sometimes, they magic the cake into a real rose.

Then Felix, the dog, runs around in circles 

trying to catch the rose with his nose, it smells so good.

Barack, the cat, sits like an emperor, 

calm and majestic, and sips milk from a golden bowl.

Lottie asks her brother, Louis, if he would like a piece of Rose Cake

but he prefers to run around chasing Felix

and, anyway, Louis loves ice cream.

The Promotion

The Mosquito

While I munch 

my sensible snack

of carrot sticks 

and cheese,

the ambassador of hunger

sucks what he craves

from my hot blood.

An Emotional Bake-off

On The Menu At The Witch's House

Cigarette Break

He leans against the trunk of the winter tree,

holds his cigarette like a Tibetan horn,

and trumpets his breath into the frozen air.

His old life burns, becomes ash,

becomes the snow at his feet.

He is readying himself to return

to the world of buildings and cars

and, most of all, to the world of people,

with their red faces and their smiling eyes.

Haute Cuisine

Folding The Twilight

Hands circling,

gathering the ancient air,

my mother folds the twilight

into night.

Village Rain

There is no rain,

my grandpa said,

like the rain in my village.

It made diamonds out of cobblestones

and turned the rooftops silver.

Reinvented As Bedouin

My Grandfather

She Will Be A River

The father drives,

distant as a mountain, 

silent as a mountain is silent,

rich with the secrets 

that sit beside him.

The daughter asks:

Where were you born? 

What’s your favourite food? 

He answers with facts, 

each word a lie.

She hears whispers 

from the empty seats:

He was born 

on the outskirts of death.

His heart longs 

for honeycake at midnight.

She has decided: 

she will be a river, 

will rush along 

through the open fields 

like an oracle, 

telling everyone her secrets. 

They will look 

into her clear waters 

and see the pebbles 

and the stones, 

the piles of ash 

and the mounds of gold.

The Inspired Canadian Novelist

Origin

Blackout Poetry

One of my favourite new forms, which I am returning to again and again, is Blackout Poetry, also known as Erasure Poetry. I was inspired by the work of poet and cartoonist Austin Kleon and devoured his book Newspaper Blackout in almost one sitting. The idea is to take a newspaper article and to create a poem by choosing the words you want to keep, blacking out the rest with a marker. It sounds relatively simple. In fact, it almost feels like cheating! After all, the words are already there, aren't they?

I was amazed to discover how challenging it can be to work within such limitations: a selection of words in a fixed position on the page. But this sense of constriction also allows for a great feeling of surprise when something unusual emerges. It's also refreshing to come to the writing of a poem with no idea of what the poem will be. I feel less like a poet and more like an archaeologist approaching a dig, using a marker instead of a spade to unearth the fragments that I hope will make up some sort of whole. But what will it be? A king's burial chamber? Some ancient coins? A bottle of diet coke? The results can be silly and absurd or deep and profound. Often it is all those things at the same time. Why not grab a newspaper and try one yourself?

For more blackout poems, click here.

In Which The Poet Attempts To Say Goodbye To Poetry

When we part ways

the world will be

straightforward once again. 

A cup will be a cup. 

A shoe will be a shoe

not a soup ladle 

not a megaphone

not a submarine.

Mornings will not awaken 

as if they were creatures 

stirring after long sleep. 

Yesterday’s eye exam

should have been routine

but I saw the optician’s legs curl

round each other like snakes. 

I saw the back of my own retina 

as the cracked surface of a clay planet. 

This will not do. 

My eyeball is not a planet

for if it were then I would be

my own solar system

perhaps even a galaxy.

Just thinking about it

makes me dizzy.

When I am in your company

the whole world can shift in a moment. 

There is no solid ground.

When you and I part ways

the women will wear quite ordinary hats. 

Their heads will not sprout flowers, 

will not become bird nests. 

Trees will not grow arms or claws. 

I will be able to go 

for an ordinary stroll 

on an ordinary day 

in the ordinary woods. 

The green will just be green,

not a leprechaun’s shirt or dragon’s eye.

You were wonderful. 

You sang me songs 

when the train chugged out of the station. 

The tunnel was the night, 

was a route to the underworld, 

was the inside of my own mind. 

Now everything will go back to normal. 

I won’t cry. 

Only poems make me cry. 

They produce tears like jewels 

tumbling out of a treasure chest.

I am trying to say goodbye

but I can’t do it.

You see,

I think

I may 

have

fallen

in love,

with 

you.

Last Night My Heart

The Doctors

Apocalypse

Made in Italy

Double Date

When you avert my gaze

it seems as though you are shy,

as though I’m some beautiful girl

who wouldn’t want to know you.

Perhaps you are

star gazing,

divining futures from the clouds,

the tops of trees,

cranes, kites.

We drink our coffee

and still

you do not look me in the eye. 

Instead you gaze at the space around my head

as if I exist there beside myself,

another me 

to whom you can address your comments, 

another me 

who will hear you better,

will answer you in some enigmatic way.

I grow jealous of her,

knowing that to look into

the dark of her eye

is to be stripped bare

and once seen like that

you can never be clothed again

no matter how many brightly coloured shirts you try. 

The Spin

I live in the mountains

but you’re not gonna

find me there.

I'm coming to the city

to seek you out.

I move like silk

smooth and cool

towards the district

the golden bucks

the business

where I’m gonna

pop some corks

and release 

my motorcycle roar.

What do I do all day?

I am planning your life.

I distract you with the high 

slit of my skirt

my perfect thigh.

Don’t try to chase me.

I am a red wheel.

I am spinning like a snake.

and I 

am following 

you.

Bread

Each time

I am amazed.

Flour, water, yeast.

Some salt.

Simple.

But then

our muscles mix 

the flour froths

and the bright bread 

starts to bubble.

Our aprons ache 

for more warm water. 

More!

Don’t be afraid!

The room lights

and rises

and the dough turns

in our high hot hands

to something 

as real 

as you or I,

miraculous

and alive.

The Last Storytellers of Cremone

I see them emerge 

from St John’s Wood underground:

the women of the bare feet,

the women of the crooked back,

the women of the shuffling step,

turbans huge as baskets

wrapped around their heads,

necks bent to the left as if listening

to the dreams of scuttling trains.

I follow them to their little room

just off Grove End Road.

They promise to tell one story

for each round of fabric 

that is unwound from their heads.

And as they talk, all that they have carried

falls onto the floor:

painted tea-pots, silver thimbles and spoons,

wedding dresses, candlesticks,

waistcoats and blankets sewn by hand.

We sit on the floor and laugh.

They strip the night from my eye.

They tell the story of the king of the wind.

They voice the jewels of my own wonder.

I ask them where their land lies.

I ask them why their heads are weighted down.

I ask them what they yearn for.

One story for each round.

But every piece of fabric they remove

must wind around my own head

as each tale I hear becomes my own.

I hear of the lost land of Cremone

and wonder how a country can be lost.

Each woman tells a different tale:

the trees grew too tall and toppled down, 

the borders stretched too thin and disappeared,

the people turned too proud and moved away.

I hear of a land that faded out of time.

I hear of a land now carried in the stories,

in the turbans, on the heads of these women.

One story for each round.

And when the night is through

I feel my own head

newly turbanned

filled with stories.

We are the women of the milky eye.

We are the women of the laughing teeth.

We are the women of the vanished land.

We are the last storytellers of Cremone.

Reality

These Old Cafés

Not the smart redecorated ones 

with mobile phone top-ups 

and take-home mugs. 

The archaic ones 

with walls that flake and puff 

where strange folk sit and pick 

their nails with toothpicks, coins,

the corners of matchbooks. 

A book of matches. A book of fire. 

A book of all the things that burn 

before your eyes 

and in that end regain their dignity 

like a viking warlord aflame in his boat 

pushed out to sea

lighting the night with his memory 

held in the minds of men 

who will drink long horns of ale to him 

and sing the ancient songs. 

In these cafés there are such things;

books of matches

books of the stories that cannot exist 

anywhere else in this world. 

Men who are not yet old 

prop themselves on the crumbling chair. 

A newspaper rests on the table 

but these men don’t read; 

they are busy with something else, 

some invisible work that eats up all their time. 

You wanted a take-away coffee 

but you have come to the wrong place. 

You have entered with too much speed. 

Your voice sounds too loud 

and disturbs the thick air. 

You realise it only once the words 

have left your mouth. 

This place doesn’t do take-away. 

It may take a while for any drink to come at all. 

Fame

A Vanishing Act

Susanna's Bath

After Nuno Júdice

I enter the water, which smokes

with steam. Then I fetch The Luz

which surpasses in value all our gold.

My sombreness evaporates, so

fickle immobile, sobbing on cue.

Under the stars of São Oleos

the reflexes of my skin dissolve.

My spirit lifts in accordance

with The Luz, like a quietness that

is whispered. And when The Whole

is explained, described in blazing detail

on my body, around each curve,

I dance inside like a wild snake.

And today the stars are brilliant

like our ancestors of the world.

Enter. Fetch the water. I invite you.

Enter the bath, and we will do well

in the salt of the three courts, the

teeth of the caravans, those boxes that revolve. 

We will hear the chimes of the two sisters,

quiet as The Luz is quiet, 

whose cost is above all else.

Then freshen your skin with the sponge

for the hours have traversed us.

The NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to choose a poem in a language you don’t understand and then translate it into English based on the look of the words and their sounds. I have attempted a translation of O Banho de Susana by Nuno Júdice of Portugal. I did not look at the proper translation until I was finished. But when I did, I was rewarded; Júdice's poem is beautiful and worth reading.

The Furnace Man

The Furnace Man 

barbecues 

people for dinner

picks them up like logs 

stokes his mouth full

doesn’t have to chew 

the flames in his belly 

flicker hot and fast

vaporize the bones

until nothing remains 

no skin no eyes 

no diamond necklaces 

not even dreams. 

But one day 

the memories of the girl 

he has just consumed 

evade the heat

flip-flop in his mind

salty and fresh.

He separates them out 

from everything that burns 

and keeps them 

in the cool of his head

just behind his left eye. 

She swims along the beach 

she and her brother 

they bob up and down 

in the waves 

sink into the depths

imagine they are mermaids

shipwrecks seaweed

then the sky lifts them 

into the blue

so much happiness it brings 

this rise and fall rise and fall.

The Furnace Man 

loves the girl’s memories 

of the sea 

will not burn them

plays them over and over

until he loves her too  

and wishes she could 

be there with him. 

But that can never be 

for he has gobbled her body 

until there is none of it left 

no flesh

no eyeballs

no eardrums 

no pink fingernails 

none of it.

All he can do 

is drown 

and the salt 

cleanses the air 

the water bathes 

the red cheeks 

and the laughter rises 

from the water

like a song.

Lune

The football moon

someone kicked up a tree

never came down.

My Waitrose Bill

It was Friday the 14^th of March and I had just come back 

from the dentist on Carnaby Street. My face was still half 

numb but I wanted to eat something, maybe something 

that didn’t need much chewing like a smoothie.

I popped into Waitrose, the big one on Finchley Road, 

it’s the best one. They have everything there. 

I saw Bill Nighy. I was so siked! I acted all normal. But then

he dropped his loaf of bread. I ran after him and picked it up. 

Hallo! Hallo! I said. You’ve dropped your loaf! He was so cool.

He was wearing a stylish dark blue coat like in a film. 

But his basket was too full. He needed a trolley, didn’t he. 

But I had interfered enough. I could have said I love you I love 

your films but I was all anonymous and didn’t suggest 

anything. Should I have got him a trolley? They shouldn’t 

let people walk around like that all laden with stuff. 

I should have looked more carefully at what was in his basket. 

What does Bill Nighy eat? Was he having a party? 

He probably knows people like Jude Law and 

Michael Caine. Would he ever invite me to his party? 

He doesn’t know me. Maybe I should have talked to him 

some more. But I was all anonymous and I rushed off. 

Later when I was at the till I kept looking out for Bill. 

And as I stood there I realised he probably wouldn’t want 

that loaf, not after I had touched it with my fingers 

and hands, and certainly not after it had been on the floor 

which is touched all the time by the underneaths of peoples 

shoes which have also been outside. But maybe he didn’t mind. 

Do you think he would have minded? I wish I would have 

talked to him some more. I looked him up on FaceBook 

when I got home. I wanted to friend him to thank him to say 

Hallo! Hallo! I was the girl in Waitrose who picked up your loaf. 

It was nothing. Don’t mention it. But listen, do you want to come 

to a party? But I couldn’t find him. There were all these Bill Nighy’s 

and none of them were the real one. None of them were my Waitrose Bill.

A Penal Colony For Poets

I committed a crime when I was young:

I threw my poems away.

The poetic police caught up with me,

they said I’d have to pay.

When I asked them how they found me,

they said I had a haunted look

from the ghosts of words discarded,

enough to fill a phantom book.

The colony was on the moon,

the mode of transport: ladder.

I had to build it myself with words;

this only made me sadder.

I had thrown my words away, you see,

so I had to go door to door

asking if anyone had spare words.

My cheeks burned ’til they were sore.

Eventually I had the words

like toaster scuttle marmalade.

They weren’t my own but they would do;

I had none that were homemade.

The ladder hooked the crescent moon,

I climbed in my bare feet.

Hands snatched at me, knives cut my skin,

how I wished I could retreat.

When I got there all I had were years

mining words from the white dust,

words from my lost writings,

words I did not trust.

The first I saw was corridor

then travel dream and trees

always time skies flown and child.

They brought me to my knees.

Happy I was to see them again,

I would reclaim my poems at last.

But they had dissolved into each other,

stray phrases floated past.

Let travel you me with always

I couldn’t piece them together

of the through the labyrinth night

my sorrow had no measure.

But whatever I found was mine to keep

so I made a little garden.

With autumn sunlight meadow and rose

my heart could now unharden.

When my time was up they found me,

said I was free to move to Mars,

but I told them I would stay here

in my hut made out of stars.

The Staircase

The staircase 

appears

one day

bursts 

through

the middle

of Mrs Weinstein’s

pampas grass.

First one step 

sprouts 

then two.

It grows

towards

the sky.

By the end 

of the week

it has reached 

the sun.

No one knows 

what 

to do.

Then Benny 

her eldest 

starts 

selling tickets.

He has 

a fortune

to accrue.

What’s up there 

neighbours ask.

End of the world 

he replies.

I’d get there first 

if I were 

you.

To boost sales 

up he goes

with nothing 

but

a jacket and

a bagel 

or two.

From the street 

they watch

as he coils 

into 

the blue

becomes a speck 

disappears.

Suddenly 

everyone 

wants a ticket

wants to follow 

too.

So Jake

the second son

takes over 

family trade

he doesn’t want it

to fall 

through.

What’s up there 

neighbours ask.

Rubix the collie 

Grandpa Max

Grandma Sue.

He says, 

I’d get there first 

if I were 

you.

The street

is one big

spiralling 

queue,

caterers set up 

a marquee

offer fresh 

baked bread 

and stew.

Reporters

bring their own

news crew  

ask Jake:

Are you 

the brother 

of the hero guy

who pioneered

into the sky?

That’s all Jake 

needs to hear

to get him up 

those stairs 

too.

What’s up there

neighbours ask.

But Mo

the youngest

prefers his dreams

has no mind 

for ticket schemes.

Most of the street

he says.

My brothers 

too. 

Other than that

I haven’t

a clue.

He says, 

I’d go home 

if I were 

you.

When they insist,

he let’s them 

travel free.

And off they go

in two’s 

and threes.

Kids rest 

on shoulders 

sleeves flap

like wings 

in the breeze.

So many 

people 

walk 

into the sky.

None return

from out of

that blue.

I shouldn’t 

have taken up 

gardening,

Mrs Weinstein

cries.

I think my heart 

will break 

in two.

Sky, Cloud, You...

I sit on a bench

in the lamp-post park

and make notes 

on the world.

Yellow jacket skaters

baby pram pushers

fence talkers 

and coffee cup whistlers

scoot along the path.

I write it all down:

how the hawthorns 

have almost fallen over,

how the dogs

fly into the open arms

of clouds,

and then I see

the long hair tied back

the gentle face of a lion

the eyes like water.

The women are calling:

Come on! This way! Come on!

But we sit on the bench

you and I 

and talk 

ten years worth of tales.

Old friend,

you stroll like a miracle

out of the shoe lacers 

and the rucksack joggers

out of this green painting

and into the day.