R.I.P R.C. (New Poem from Janice Stephens)

I am a novice poet who has a lot to learn. Having discovered in later life the real joy in poetry, I enjoy all types, particularly contemporary work.  I have attended several one day and longer courses on writing poetry and am currently attending a course at Citilit in London.  I self-published my first collection of 50 poems 'Fifty First Timers' last year with KDP.'

R.I.P. R.C.

Corpus Christi.

A sultry June day.

Bees buzz midst dandelions on the lawn

beneath the convent chapel.

Long before they learn how to swear

the five year olds,

hands clasped,

in hand-me-down white dresses,

fall onto their knees

on the gravel steps to pray.

Black robes swish up and down

the rows of white statues, keeping order:

“Don’t fidget”.

Then Benediction.

“Examine your consciences children”

And like troops for Jesus they march

to get a blessing.

Bedtime in the dormitory offers solace

as long as they hold their tongues and avoid the strap.

Adults now, they no longer go to church.

By Janice Stephens

Fur flies in Fez (eyewitness account of a cat fight)

Description of a cat fight in the Medina in Fez.  

Underneath the tablecloth the two cats inched forwards, pulled back their ears till neither a cuff nor punch nor hiss was left in them only a violent spasmodic side attack as if they were two skewed rhinoceroses about to battle for their calves' lives. They soon flew till intertwined, twisting, fur flying in clumps while Arabic teenage lovers watched in fascination and subdued alarm; underneath a cup of hajjira my wife, tilting to the side and raising her menu, was a picture of fear while the pair of combatants scratching at each other, face gripping to a point of puncture, twisted in the dust in their violent embrace and  - looking for purchase at horrendous cost to themselves - went at each other for round two with kangaroo style scraping and punching till they were co-joined like one giant camel pillow or white ginger fur ball, a fleeting sinewy leather purse with no head  - as it was now clear they were deeply biting each other; in the melee, this shapeless leather orb was topped by two separate sets of testicles and a clear red anus pulled in every direction. The waiter came with a menu or other and walloped the padded shape of cat/cats very hard, thudding at them like he was trying to remove a mushroom growth from a tree with a shovel, till like an oblong soccer ball the frenzied orb was pummelled into the back kitchen where it screeched and bawled and growled like a demonic entity that had manifested itself into fiery being. I never saw them again and do not know the final ending of those two cats because the noise stopped suddenly and I hope one ran away. At around this time another cat fight ensued above in a tree and two male cats, one like a black cougar and the other, a beige puma, chased each other up the overarching branches growling at each other with an inner deeply disturbing engine sound not possible to mimic which belied their size as adolescent cats. They faced off and stress clutched the tree completely oblivious to any danger of a fall or chance to fall into the busy lane below. The image in the dusk was akin to seeing the image of a cat against a skyline on the eve of Halloween crawling along as if stalking. Both cats remained oblivious of all other motion or affairs of trade below, singularly focused on each other, in limbo tails flicking neither willing to move till dusk when they may have come down or retreated and skulked onto the tops of the soup kitchen and restaurant.

Leaving MCHNCT

‘So long Mr Wozniak…’ We can’t wave goodbye to Mr Jobs either for he is already off so we are left with the cautionary view of the poet, Paul Vermeersch, contemplating a future with a runaway computer typing along the screen and thumbing its nose at us NML (animal) creatures. 

As a vision which parodies this future Vermeersch gives us his fifth book of poetry, knitting together statements, diagrams and images of an altering universe. Vermeersch challenges us to respond to his poems, ironically like a eighteenth century man set to duel; instead of drawing out his blunderbuss to challenge the local official on diminishing rights and freedoms, Vermeersch sets the tech Lords in his sights. The challenge in the book is to see if the light is still on inside the mind of the thinking man and the candle still raised to the poetry cause.  ‘Inside a mirrored box,’ is a little test of commitment to this cause, an example of a poem cancelled out, literally with a line through it, repeated several times on the page and then offered up again as complete.  Is this the message of NMLCT, that we are relinquishing control on our own ability to think critically to challenge and take a stance, a decision? Accompanying these poems which self-reference older works, ie ‘Second Piggy’, are Vermeersches dim view on modern life which show his love of words and art and science; ‘alphanumeric’ responses and ‘misanthropes’ send up up the fearful tone. 

 It is a collection of a gentle distopian reality, a slow burn, like dropping a frog in tepid water and then turning up the gas underneath. Animals (NML’s) previously felt the pain of living in the city (Between the Walls). Now the animals are pink of flesh, cowering in cubicles, programming Sat Nav’s to their final destination. I hail Vermeersch for writing to the Eden Fest to protest AI training and teaching of writing methods. During the pandemic it was hard to see how the writing industry would survive, how we would survive. But survive we do, revived we are. 

The message of Vermeersch is prescient.  When I saw the movie AI in the late 20th century I felt the movie was great because of the human nature of the robot played by Haley Joel Osmont. It occurred to me it was so good because of the human quality of the performance. Daleks do not reach the same level of human feeling, do they? Dr Who feels far more chilling to me now.

In the U.K. I attended a writers symposium that said that AI just simply turbo charged routine admin tasks so was a safe bet, but was no threat to creatives. Is this what it was like for the vaudeville acts and dance halls when television flickered on in the 1930’s? In the past living between two continents I have heard it said that North America, Canada in my case,  is behind Europe. In this case isn’t it better to heed Vermeersches cautionary voice; you still have time to say so long Mr Wozniak, to create the world you grew up in. 

High School Year Book Revisited Home Ec option

That boy with the faded jeans
(... high school yearbook revisited)

By John Stiles

Sulky is a word for a pouting, fourteen year-old wimp who sits in
his room imagines quibble bibble to say at Inter-School Christian
Fellowship Meetings. He`s a cross little tosser with bandly legs, hides
a dog-eared Bible under his pillow 'mongst eight tracks he`s pinched
from The Box of Delights. To say he is mean sprited, small-eyed
thief is not correct, he`s a scholar of Mad Magazines

and thinks

Desperate Dan is the bees knees. If he ever gets a chance to
chew gum he`ll stick it under a plate. There he`ll let it sit, forever.

If his mother finds it she'll lift stars off his chores list so
he'll have to vaccuum his room and stand in the shadows
in the schoolyard saying things - to himself - like My Mummy
and Your Mummy are friends till your another feller says something and I
call Your Mommy at home

she says

my son would never do that you greasy, good-for-nothing old bat.
Fourteen year-old boys with their hands in the odds and sods bins
at Frenchies can get worked into a lather trying to find an OP T-shirt
or a pair of Converse High Tops. Look out in the middle of the
pack of crowd pleasers on the dancefloor they`ve been wanting to move and groove for a long time, not bad looking for nearing

forty years-old,

some of them have flown half way across the world to take back things they said or scribbled in the High School Yearbook.

Antidote to Solitude?

 from Fair bodies of unseen prose,

Why do so few words directly contain the antidote to solitude?

One day, to be determined. Ecumenical.

In sound, in fragments. This raft, of 

inexplicable. In Orlando, withered. 

Holding shape in the hand. What kind of 

trees. The sentence, always. Whereabout. 

A preliminary phrase. Lodged. If but to 

bear witness. Translated, upon. Unwinds: 

a river of symphony. This torn ground 

will contain. It will not. This fiction of 

history. I wrote the first word.

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012 and 2017. In March, 2016, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour. His most recent titles include the poetry collection World’s End,(ARP Books, 2023), a suite of pandemic essays, essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022) and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). His collection of short stories, On Beauty(University of Alberta Press) will appear in fall 2024. An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics(periodicityjournal.blogspot.com) and Touch the Donkey(touchthedonkey.blogspot.com). He is editor of my (small press) writing day, and an editor/managing editor of many gendered mothers. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

author

Abdicted to Love

By Adrian Phillips

Imprint: Pen & Sword History

Pages: 240

ISBN: 9781399065412

The First Royal Media War examines the behind the scenes intrigue of a dynastic old guard of politicos trying to placate a love sick left-leaning new King of a crumbling British Empire. 

Dense in research and accomplished in portraying William Randolph Hearst, an overbearing Lord Beaverbrook, an evasive Prime Minister in Stanley Baldwin and a ‘swine’ of an Archbishop of Canterbury in Cosmo Gordon Lang, author Phillips is skilled at bringing to life the daily scuttlebutt and political posturing of press barons and politicians who circle each other like the dials of Big Ben while time ticks down on an unprecedented constitutional crisis and the King’s ultimate abdication.  

The popular but obdurate King is less a stoic people's champion more a tragic figure here. The idea of subordinating a future wife to a diminished rank compels the narrative forwards and the various attempts to parachute an unpopular American divorcee into the title of HRH bring to mind the current state of the British monarchy and weirdly echoes Prince Harry’s and Megan’s current travails and fragile media relationship. 

The relative innocence of 1930's media society is clearly overshadowed by the doomed fate of its lovers. The morganatic right of ancient aristocratic houses to accept lower born paramours into their circles is shuddered at in every level of 1930’s society and situation: in Welsh miners meetings, Canadian colonial outposts, through the halls and corridors of Westminster and the Cannes Riviera. The constitutional crisis facing twice divorced Wallis Simpson and the well-meaning but naive King reads as if it is happening now and the story is prescient in that is showcases a generational divide. The popular King is a success in the flesh at photo calls where he doesn’t lecture but is he is simply outmanoeuvred by self-serving industrialists, business magnates and stodgy empire loyalists who understand how to use the media to advantage. Knowing this dynastic terrain well and drawing on earlier writing Adrian Phillips has written an erudite, scholarly work which serves as an updated companion piece to earlier books on the subject. 

Cherry Cola Juliet

Not down in old Soho 

If Juliet and Romeo woke up in the 21st century and obtained research fellowships after uni then they might well be reincarnated in post pandemic London as ‘caramelised’ 'boy' and 'girl' in poet Mara Nkere’s ‘Cherry Cola’ . So intense is the passion of these modern day lovers in this erotic and doomed tale of two opposites who don’t quite trust their tryst. So potent is the depth of feeling that it might be remiss to think of London as anything less than romantic purgatory. This is not a couple who meet down in old Soho for a laugh. 

These vignettes and soliloquies written in a variety of forms show modern dating as a simmering and 'atomic' love assault. The union which starts as a cagey game of chess soon begs the question: Does ‘girl’ truly believe she can withstand her own misgivings? The Romeo and Juliet theme transcends time and hyperbole is also used with devastating effect. Planets fall from heights, overdoses loom, there is much here that echoes Shakespeare’s secondary school classic. Religion plays a part as well as ‘the girl’ tells ‘the boy’, there is no contest between him and Jesus, 'because please don't let me choose boy, because it'll always be Jesus' . 

The war of words intensifies as the passionate pair use their work or post university scientific leanings to dissect their relationship. If Juliet Capulet's stars don’t quite align in time to save her life in R and J then the lead character 'girl' is a prisoner of her own blood moon and is ‘transfixed’ by the boy as he is a pendulum of a clock that stops her natural time. 

The book is divided into halves, each narrator has their own POV and love lament and the book is written in a variety of narrative styles (letters, diary entries, statements) that work so you seek for clues to the mysterious  ‘boy’ nicknamed Cherry Cola. ''Boy' meanwhile is more watchful and cautious but also feels himself being seduced into the bad torment of love.  ‘Girl’who loves her blond blue eyed young lover’s ‘extraordinary mind’ commits early and with sexual intensity but perhaps predictably isn’t far off considering ‘cutting off his dick’ and grinding it into a potion. This exotic or more grown up ‘girl’ is less needy than  Shakespeare’s innocent Juliet and will clearly make  her own choices. However this reference to potions with body parts has literary echoes of Shakespeare’s other  landmark Macbeth and Nkere’s book buzzes with personality. Funk, fusion,  modern day riffs this poetic lament has a musicality with some classic cat fight put downs. This is Romeo and  Juliet’s  spicy 21st century cousin with no Benvolio to keep the peace. It is as if 'girl' has taken a page from cousin  Tybalt in this 21st century love tango. 

Lust for Learning

Fall of Troy

Cambridge mediaeval literature scholar Charles Moseley brings us his philosophical and engaging memoir ‘HUNGRY HEART ROAMING’ which is now available through Black Spring Press. 

The Lancashire native and passionate fen walker begins his personal journey (of sorts)  by describing the singular starling that traces the dusk skyline before swooping back into the murmuration. This metaphor for the solo traveller is evocative because Moseley next  introduces  his impressionistic student self trudging in the dusty footsteps of Saint Paul through Greece, Corinth and Rome.  Soon we are transported into this ancient holy world by a backpacking Cambridge Scholar who confesses to a 'hot lust for understanding ever just beyond your grasp.'

Whether traveling for pleasure in the great museum of life that is Europe or as a sought after (but unknown) specialist guest lecturer in South America, Moseley is blessed with the poet’s eye and writes comic descriptive passages; as a young student in Crete he dodges a seismic 'twitch of the earth's skin' and later quietens as his wife tells him to stop talking and simply look out at the sea. Far from being ‘tediously loguacious’ the writer delights in piecing together world history. From Greek mythology, to European cultural appropriation, critical writing about the Bizantine empire, to saluting ancient poets such as Pope, Wootton, Donne, Dante, to witnessing the gloom of Tuetonic Tallin and then on towards symposiums in Albania and back, the old adage that once a 'lecturer, always a lecturer' rings true. What recurs is we are given insights into the dark natures of human existence which have plagued western thinking since the downfall of Troy.  Moseley is a kindred sage to the poets he so admires. 

There are serious undertones into these darker epochs as the author describes the nonchalant rise of power in Vienna of a failed art student by the name of Adolph and this insight into cultural and historical Vienna,  Prague, Bucharest and other parts of Europe re-visited from the 60's till now describe a scholar and soul who is not blind to the atrocities humans commit in the face of the most civilised, noble or religious pursuits. Moseley's writes about Franciscan Friar Michele De Cunheo on the Columbus mission to St Croix in Antigua in the seventeenth century and the research is singularly harrowing and critical of man's willingness to indulge in sadistic pleasure. 

Equally adept at mining a darker theme, the philosophical style also serves to ridicule the emptiness of the pursuit of power and a comic aside (of which there are many) imagines the lonely Greek gecko as if a childless old man, who 'contemplates whatever geckos contemplate'. 

Fans of an off beat travelogue will not be disappointed. There is loads which will appeal to those who look for clues and secrets of ancient civilisations on obelisks hidden in the museums and libraries of the Bizantine era. Also there is an understated but mordant British wit and irony in this book including how friendly local Cretans in Greece preferred Brits to German tourists in the 1960's. 

Moseley can sometimes get carried away with digressions but this is all part of the charm and we feel that we are in the hands of a wry observer but also a passionate and spiritual man on a quest for understanding life through history and world travel. Equally important is this role as a Cambridge scholar and poet who continually pushes to understand more.  

In much the same way Claire Tomalin cast her meticulous eye towards Charles Dickens in 'A Life', Mosley shares his own inimitable interest in life in 'Hungry Heart Roaming'. 

'Me and Lio' Reader comments

Extracts of reader comments from ‘Me and Lio’ up to the quarterfinals of the 2020 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting in Los Angeles. Valued feedback and for those who have tried to adapt a short story to screenplay. #nichollfellowship

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A Pandemic Poem of Faith and Hope

The Stations of the Cross 

(for Fr Phillip Lemon,

Our Lady of The Assumption, Bethnal Green, London)

By Mike Parsons

“After the first death, there is no other.”  Dylan Thomas

1.Jesus Is Condemned To Death

We adore thee O Christ and we praise you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

                      “ after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors”

                                 Luke 2. 41-52

Death. Do I fear it?  I am terrified, but  there are moments, when in giving, you gain the incalculable.

So much is wrong, so much unnecessary.

Let me give.

 

We live lives dedicated to change.

“Ce petit monde est a refaire”  says Emmanuelle Billoteaux

(This little world must be remade).

 

Who is to blame?  

We can talk of specifics.

We should not talk of blame, but of understanding, 

Evaluation.  

We must identify the problems.

 

I take a walk with Christine's children in Umoja, Nairobi.

Flowers grow along the path; purple and yellow.

The corn has been harvested though there are still some ripening.

The whole field has been cultivated since I was here lst October,

Women were preparing the ground then, and planting.

They have worked well.

 

Some people are secure with their money and posessions.

Do they care only for themselves?

 

What Impels?

 

Please, help us with our lives.

Help us overcome our faults,

understand and change.

Forgive us our trespasses.

 

Lord Jesus, you are condemned to death a million times by greed and self-interest.

By power compounded with fear

in this vicious cycle of survival.

 

Condemned to death

and yet going beyond death.

Unstoppable.

 

You will not die,

“I will not die”.

 

We are left with the question, “Why does life destroy life

                         Why destroy that which will take the fear away?”

But their fear is not our fear.

We are not our bodies,

We are more than our minds, 

more that our sense of “I”, Tyranical, fragile, fearful…