Speak Easy @ Sheffield Hallam Hubs 28/9/10

SO I tonight I 'performed' at Speak Easy at the Hallam Hubs. A spoken word night for which the full details can be found on their Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=109264991400&ref=ts

It always strikes me as a bit strange that I can happily go and scream my head off as part of Northern Oak and yet the half hour wait for my turn had me wanting to vomit. I have a good idea why, the fact its just me on the stage without 5 outstanding individuals by my side, that it's blindingly obvious what I'm saying and I don't know the crowd so have no idea how I will be received.

Either way practice will make perfect and I'll be a King of Carnival Creation before long...

The first poem was written in the lunchtime of a Poetry Business writing day and the second is an idea I had on a trip to Chester in March, which I finally finished today.


Waiting for the ambulance

Everything is grainy and monochrome
like silent films from closed picture houses
so it’s fitting her begging tongue
can’t be heard over the crash of blood
hurtling toward erratic bellow lungs
forcing a birdcage of ribs to rise

shattered arm winds toward her
she grabs the barely raised hand
a tight knit of white knuckles
the connection that serves as axiom:
there is truth in everything

hold on...







Drive through Snake Pass



I gaze out the passenger window
into the plunging valley.
Wondering if I could
dispel those forces
that hold me together.
Skin would be lost to the winds
only to be caught in a tree,
fluttering in vain attempts to escape.
Blood would drain into the soil
returning as vibrant flora.
Organs falling and splattering
like unfortunate creatures
embedded in the road
‘til only my bones remain.

Bones covered in tiny chips and fractures
that reveal my past with rugged honesty.
Untainted by the distortions of memory.

I imagine my soul,
the vortex within them,
forcing to their surface
in flowing emerald script
the facts of my nature I try to deny.
What this body is truly capable of.
Guiding strands of promising futures.
Answers I yearn to witness...

but even if this were possible;
my eyes would have been lost as well.
So this whole exercise
would be futile.