strangers
give me
complex
directions
in linear
time
there is
not a
single
vacant
room
thru’out
the infinite
hotel

stand still
you will hear
them

wild birds

My third twitterbot poem thanks to e_horse books. If only I could write so eloquently as this spambot. Please check out the joint Tuesday Poem Birthday Masterpiece.

th answers
I had
shared
with
flowin
arms
& soft
hands

“gas is
high -
travel is
time
byond
mortality”

some were
told
whether
they
wanted
to hear
it
or not:

I was
excited -

I
knew
like
I
knew
like
I
knew
like…

you
know
when
you
just
know

For more Tuesday Poems click on the link below!

“certain” people
seem to run
comfortably
all the time

and they run
all the time
with their friends
and all of them
seem very comfortable
running
all the time

The shaded rear
window lowers
with a near
silent glimpse
into some possible
future

you walk into your house
and see a new chair

you say goodbye
to yet another
dead plant.

I am a fan of uncreative writing and I found these tweets from a twitter account, @horse_ebooks, which is fed by a spam bot. These tweets may be lines from an actual poem, or from one of the books that the twitter account is promoting. Most of them are fairly random. This poem here, I feel, still needs some work – consider it in progress.

Two, a cello

Three, a basket of plums.

They are not ripe,
not yet,
but
they will be.

The cello
makes the air
afraid
of pretty
things.

Come
over here,
you young girls.

Show us your necks,
and the insides
of your
wrists.

Joan Fleming is a pretty thing that writes pretty things about pretty things that makes other pretty things feel pretty things. She is wildly read, widely published [Snorkel, Takahe, Blackmail Press, Turbine, and The Same as Yes - VUP], wryly charmed, and Derrida-ly ensorcelled, inveigled, beguiled, wowed by the poetics of iterability.

As always, click on the icon below to see some more alluring, enticing, mystifying poetry.

less than arterial, the pricks of gorse,
bright brilliance we could burst, skin’s checked force.

Lost in the bush, I was calm – now I wake
charged with a crazy person’s worry shake,

while, undiverted, you work hand and fist,
milking tight stems into pots, grip and twist,

whitely biting fruit to make juice. Firefly!
now maddens with flung orbs the magnet sky,

tiny red planets sucked up, hung in luck.
Count the clustered stars, blood points of our trust.

Red juice pools soft in the well of your lip,
sweat beads your bare feet like clear berries strung.

Wading Roti’s hot skies, ocean soaked locks,
drookit, mealie meal, arms spears, board a shield,

heart bursts. Rapt children run so fast from you,
their feet leave redcurrants on the rocks.

Loveday is a published UK poet and a 2006 recipient of the Derek Walcott Prize for poetry. Believe him the gardener is a self-contained unit of a wider conversation on poetry, the rest of which can be found at the Like Starlings website.

For more Tuesday Poetry please click on the icon below.

My music teacher is
Jack Body. He’s asked us
all – one by one – to come
up the front and press
our fingers to the ivories.
The boring kids are hesitant,
The bad kids saunter and squint,
The sporty kids are all embarrassment.
I cover 6 notes
two chords
Major and Minor
Black and white.
Press lightly.
Jack looks up quick, walks forward,
says
‘what did you just do?’

2. I was a middle aged Zombie

I was a middle aged zombie a while back
carried my crutches all day on my back
with my white contact lenses
and golden syrup blood
talking movies with the other zombie’s
braking for lunch
The Heroine and her Shining axe
that matches Jack’s axe
chopping down doors
with Kubricks love -
I was a middle aged zombie
it was awesome fun
I’ve never worked so hard for love
I got to lie
on a pile
of dead zombies
my leg left leaning against the bus
while the Heroine stood above me
with her Shining axe -
the golden syrup blood encrusting
my crutch
I’ve never worked so hard for love
I was a middle aged zombie and I’d do again
in a minute although I’d take a spare pair
of trousers cos golden syrup drying in one’s
pants isnt the most pleasant
feeling – but i did it for the love
of movies we all love -
like a Clockwork robot
named Hal and Barry Lyndon’s
gloves
I do it again in a minute
I’d do it for the love
of the movies
we all love.

Since I had a marvelous response last week, here is another poem by Rob Lamb of The GumTree Press. More Rob! If you haven’t done so, please check out his beautiful publications! You can also view some letterpres poetry by Jenny Powell at the press’  facebook page.

And as always, please click on the icon below to view even more Tuesday Poetry.

Capped and gapped, laid down,
on the dirty alleys ground
‘it’s the spaces between –
the notes not played’ –
‘it’s not what you say –
it’s how it’s sayed -
and those other musical
titbits you keep in your
pocket with your outfit.
And your chops are a white boys –
no Gatemouth here, no Miles –
just a skinny white junkie boy
who can blow so sad . . .
Oh Chet – play me something
new ! . . . A drug deal gone bad
your front teeth kicked out -
Laying there gold capped on the ground, a little worn down
aahh Chet – those teeth were the foundation of your sound!
for sure your embrochure!
but your habit was catching up and now old Chet’s teeth are
lying down on the ground and old Chet – he’s coming down,
poor Chet –
lost his teeth, his health,
his ear, for fear,
for fearing,
coming down
and losing his
sound.

I love the smell of fresh ink; I love the feel of paper; I love the weight, the downward pressure of a book when I suspend it from my hands. Perhaps as a digital writer I feel my relationship to paper more keenly since I am aware of this strange distance from my body to cyberspace’s ephemeral electrons and microchips.  So it was wonderful to finally meet Rob Lamb, poet and printer who runs The Gumtree Press, one of the few surviving letterpress outfits in New Zealand. Rob is old schooled trained and his books are testament to his keen detail and aesthetic craftmanship. Together with bookbinder, David Stedman of DutyBound, Rob forms a trinity – printer, binder and poet – that recalls the heritage of collaboration with the artistic process. It is unfortunate that with the advent of ebooks, writers and would-be writers can cloister themselves  and lose sight of  the systematic actions which are critical to the  printed page’s materiality.

Likewise as an accomplished poet, Rob’s works infer a raw tactility that words themselves create a physicality beyond their ink. I was fortunate to hold Rob’s own book, A New Zealot on Saturday (“Don’t drool on it!” he said), which exists in my mind as a paragon of eventualisation. Through letterpress, poetry is THE process.  Rob’s poetry is delightfully visual which marries well with the poetry of letterpress. I’d certainly suggest that Rob’s creativity as poet and printer, deserve a strong place in our literary consciousness. Be sure to check out The Gumtree Press‘ website and facebook page.