Autobiography (New Poem)

Coming apart like stitches
Memories break off
As you grow older
Dissolving into skeletons
Drained of fact.

Stripping emotions
Into stark instrumentals
Confusing Sian
The first girl you kissed
With Helen, the second.

Diminishing the 8 years
Working at Great Universal
Your first job
When then you wondered
If it would ever end.

Padlocked in broken gasps
All the way out
Carrying you constantly
Through your 3 years
At Bolton University.

Woven in amazement
Even now after that
Advising people at the Job Centre
Who recognise you
Ten years after you left.

Replacing the years
And all of the jobs
(never forgetting all of your partners)
that followed like footprints,

fragmented following Diabetes
which crashed into your life
like a train crash

tracing tears caked around your heart

constantly creating new
dramas slightly off key

dislocated across
half built promenades
in your imagination

blown apart every morning
in broken storms
looking at tablets lined up
in a row 
refusing to give up.





(From my upcoming next solo collection 'From the Diabetic Ward' which is a bit off before you ask)

A Means to an End @ Live at Cadence Cafe, June 2015

A few of us may know that my band 'A means to an End' (above)
recently played by the look of things what was likely our last gig live
at Cadence Cafe in Tydlesley.

We are currently pencilling in dates for recording an EP / album
as a finale, and whether this will involve some dates to promote
the EP / album, I don't know yet.

As a prelude to the album been recorded and released, here
is a live recording for you all to enjoy of that live gig.

Tissues at the ready (:

https://oceaninabottle.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-cadence-cafe-20-june-2015

Ocean in a Bottle - ‘Warped kind of ambient silence’ (Homage to the Aphex Twin)

The track listing for the next EP by Ocean in a Bottle ‘Warped kind of ambient silence’ out around the 1^st of July will be:

1.    Introducing the biosphere

2.    Stepping across footsteps

3.    Breaking into a pause

4.    Tracking movements in the snow

5.    Imaginary journeys into the heart of silence (Final Mix)

6.    Treasuring that moment

7.    Three layered jam at the heart of midnight

8.    Ambience with a dose of Aphex (Final Mix)

Two of these tracks undecided which will be if I can manage to work it out within the download option on the page only which still will be pay what you want).

For people who choose to pay me either a few pennies or if I am really honoured hundreds of pounds, they will also be some further exclusive tracks

Which I am still working on.

Demos of Imaginary journeys into the heart of silence are here and ambient with a dose of Aphex are here

Demos have already been done for my next ambient EP ‘Conversations with the Dead’ which will follow on 1^st August 2015.

News and Views - June 2015

Other writers operate in different ways, but as a poet more and more nowadays I tend to write my poems (apart from little poems which pop out with no place) designed to go into folders.

Some of these folders will likely never get finished into books / sequences etc and some have been going on as far back as my first book ‘Return to Kemptown’ or even longer, but thought some of you may find it interesting how my head works with my poems at the moment.

1)      Mystery Stories…. Last year, Orgiami Press published six short poems of mine into a tiny little chapbook, all stories in the framework of six little poems. Plan now is to write another six to send over to them later on this year (Currently have three done).

Completion date – Maybe end of Summer.

2)      Europa II. Just over a year, Nick Armbrister a fellow anti war poet like me approached me to do a split book with him on Anti War Poetry called Europa. After a long break, I am now ready to write a second book with him called Europa II. My plans this year are to write around 20 to 25 short poems, all based from research on stories in the prisoner of war camps in the Second World War.

Completion date - Currently I am on my 7^th poem for this but I reckon another year or so this should be done and maybe out for next Autumn (2016).

3)      From the Diabetic Ward. This originally was going to be my second full length book instead of the end of summer inspired by Hugo Williams topic on his own health, but this book at the time proved very hard to write as it involved writing in more detail than I was really ready to write about it (It took some time to accept the changes Diabetes enforced on me). However, it is now ongoing and I would like to write say 40 or so poems on it.

Completion date - Currently am on my 8^th, so some distance to go but would like to get this finished some day.

4)      Nightmare on the tracks. The plan for this to write an epic poem told in Chapters of what happens what a man stumbles into something he shouldn’t have done on a walk through some meadows.

Completion date - I think at the moment, it is around 25 pages or so so it’s certainly over half way (Aiming for around 40 pages or so) or at the end of Chapter three (Aiming for 5 Chapters), so we’ll see if and when this gets done but it’s looking good.

5)      The Beast within. If I complete Nightmare on the tracks, I do have an idea brewing for the above which will be a sequel set on a camping trip.

Completion date – watch this space.

6)      A Means to an End II (Or Songbook). Now my band ‘A Means to an End’ is almost finished, it is looking likely an album will follow before the end of Summer. If this goes to plan, I will release a little book (Only Short) containing the lyrics to a lot of the more well known lyrics the band has done including ‘Return to Kemptown’, ‘Leaving Belfast’ and ‘Tandle Hill’ been just three that I wrote either the lyrics for or the bulk off it and offer it free as a download from where you can download the album from. Watch this space for this baby.

Completion date – Autumn maybe.

On-top of this, I will carry on with my podcasting on http://andyn.bandcamp.com/. Plans include currently to do podcasts monthly for my split book with Jeff Dawson (aka Jeff Dawson) from 2011, A Means to an End, a selection of pieces from my love songs for Cathy (done with permission) and Europa (with Nick Armbrister). Once I have got these completed, I will then move onto some of the above and would like to do eventually do podcasts of new and older revisited poems on a monthly basis.

I am also carrying on with my Ocean in a Bottle eps on a monthly basis too, (https://oceaninabottle.bandcamp.com/) although it is looking less likely they will be less Piano for the next few months as I want to do some ambience based material for a bit now as the next two will be called ‘Homage to Aphex’ and ‘Conversations with the Dead’ (Demos have already been done for both).

Audio Poesis (https://audiopoeisis.bandcamp.com/) has been quiet but it’ll pick up again. We both have been busy.

Sadly my band ‘A Means to an End’ has finished but not before doing a nice gig as a goodbye the other week which I do have a nice recording off (Will upload soon) and also will record an album over the summer.

And I will want to keep submitting to magazines / journals etc.

The End of Summer book now out!

The End of Summer, the second full length book by Andy N (Author of ‘Return to Kemptown and ‘A means to an End’ with Jeff Dawson and ‘Europa’ with Nick Ambrister) was wrote over a near four year period from 2011 to 2015.

Originally started to show how the writer was dealing with a newly diagnosed major change in health, the book developed over time to talk about the change in season, in this case from the end of Summer into the beginning of Autumn, mirroring much more than just a change but an emotion that overcomes us all at major turning points in our lives.

Told often in taunt, short little pieces, the book invites comparisons with the poet Hugo Williams but also shows a love of music through two of the Author’s own favourite music groups with July Skies and Epic 45, which explores the Englishness of the countryside in sparse, echoing brush-strokes which often need more than one read to breath the images he portraits.

With an Introduction by noted American writer, Amanda Silbernagel. ‘The End of Summer’ is a book that tunnels into memories creating new emotions at the end of it.

A few words said about Andy N’s previous work:

Jeffarama!

Andy N writes with the power to deliver right across your doorstep

Leanne Moden

Mystery Story' guides the reader through richly atmospheric places. Andy reveals the stories hidden in landscapes as familiar as the dockyards, a wintry lake and the 7.39 train, discovering the depths that they conceal.

Yvonne Reddick

Andy N romances the reader, even his words about war, poverty or suffering are gentle on the ear. A gentle raging that fills each story, that poetry was made for. Poems that sing to you, up close, intimate. Please excuse him, his intentions are purely human."

John G.Hall

Bewitched and bewitching, Mystery Story is a poetic scale model of a haunted house – a model composed of words instead of plexiglass, images instead cardboard. Though the house may be small, it is masterfully built, rich in detail, and replete with surprising twists and turns. It is the home of dancing apparitions and mysterious dancers, ghosts of lovers and lovers of ghosts, 'blown out streetlights // Breathing in and out slowly', 'shadows // Entombed in splintered ice.' A must-read. Praise to Andy N for delivering yet another 'portal // Of forgotten bed stories.…Crying for a way out // In broken poetry.” '"

 The book can be brought directly from Andy N (aen1mpo@yahoo.co.uk) £5 plus £1 P & P (E books free).

Or on Lulu at: http://www.lulu.com/shop/andy-n/the-end-of-summer/paperback/product-22086369.html

Or read here for free (I don't mind) https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3Sm9CQAAQBAJ&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=andy+n+the+end+of+summer+lulu.com&source=bl&ots=I-pY3vBOUe&sig=0OfcxV4VvOhfsMDXjocHgTkxEAM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nn1vVeTRC-m17gbo4YHYDQ&ved=0CDgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Dropped Phone Call

I ring you in the usual way
During a early lunch
But you drop the phone
When you hear my voice
Leaving me with nothing
But the droning ambience
Of a lost call.

Perhaps you are still in bed
In the middle of a deep sleep
After a late

Late

Late night

Talking

I had forgotten you mentioning
With a few bottles of wine
At your friend Jane’s
And couldn’t be bothered
Staggering out of bed
To answer the phone,

Or maybe your Cat
Has instead of missing
The dressing table
After jumping from your bed
Has leaped over the suite
Onto the window
And knocked the phone flying
Cutting me off into oblivion.

Perhaps it was a BT error

Or you are on the phone
To your mate, Steve
For one of your epic
Three or four hour calls
Which frequently has me thinking
What the hell
You could talk about
For so long
And is meant to feel minor
When Steve says he sometimes
Talk to one of your ex’s
All night long
Sometimes,

Or maybe you are rushing off
To the shop
Across the road
To pay your lottery ticket
Before rushing off
To your doctors
Then asda up the road
Before it closes
And really
Really
Could not be bothered
Answering my call
At least then.

Whatever reason
It still hasn’t clouded
Over my love
For you.

(NB. A Short Poem from a ebook of poems I wrote for my then partner Cathy called ''Love Songs for Cathy V', of which a hard copy can be bought here - http://www.lulu.com/shop/andy-n/love-songs-for-cathy-v/paperback/product-21381711.html. I will welcomely send over a PDF of the book to anybody if interested free of charge. Email me onaen1mpo@yahoo.co.uk or PM etc.)

Diabetes in the workplace

The article included below in a rare break from fictional writing 
has been wrote specially for my works as a big feature on Diabetes
as a few of you may or may not know I have been suffering from 
this condition since the summer of 2011, which ironically came 
just as I was starting to make inroads with my writing in general.

Without going into tons of detail about where I work, there is 
a big group within my workplace called the Health and Well Being
group whose aim is to educate people about health conditions etc
and when the focus moved onto Diabetes, it was only natural I
volunteered to write the article below (which I believe will be 
getting published on their intranet in a reduced form in April
or May 2015).

Andy



Borrowing shamelessly from www.diabetes.org.uk, Diabetes is described as a condition where the amount of glucose in your blood is too high because the body cannot use it properly that over a prolonged period can lead to serious long-term health complications eg. causing cardiovascular disease, stroke, kidney failure, foot ulcers and damage to the eyes to name but a few.

Until I contracted it in at the end of the summer of 2011, I dismissed as something that mainly affected elderly people and very young children. My father contracted it in 2000, and I know both his father had it and his grandfather had it, but in hindsight I still knew very little about it until I collapsed at work unexpected and woke up in hospital. I had been having some problems going to the toilet and was over-heating somewhat with a little weight gain, but I dimissed as the beginning of a middle aged spread which I would soon work off when I joined a gym (which I was planning to do so).

I was totally wrong.

At hospital, when I woke up, I was told I was now Diabetic telling me I had a reading at around 28.9 mmo/L (Non-diabetic peoples readings according to  http://www.diabetes.co.uk/s are recommended to be 4.0 to 5.9 mmol/L before meals and under 7.8 mmol/L two hours after a meal)) and told simply it could have easily done quite serious damage or at worse, actually killed me.
In the near 4 years or so now since that day and I contracted Diabetes, I have met a number of other people who also have to live with Diabetes like myself including some who were a lot less lucky than me. I know of one person who lost their eyesight almost totally, another a foot and a third who refused to pay attention to medical advice, and died within 18 months of being diagnosed.
In my case, it forced major changes to my whole life in particular upon returning to work.

Admittedly, I am far from perfect in what I eat now, but the changes I made included  eating food in the right proportions, balancing what I eat very carefully (keeping an eye glucose levels and eating as low fat a diet as I possibly can), and generally learning to look after myself.
Instead previously of just buying food in supermarkets if I fancied it, I learned how to pay more attention to everybody I bought, mapping out with a attention to detail on some days it actually felt like I was mapping out a chapter in a novel, which I guess is probably very close to the truth.

Without doubt, it is a constant struggle, that goes without saying but it is not a condition that I let hold me back in anything I do. I certainly cannot live the kind of lifestyle I used to live, but with some adjustments it has made me much more aware of myself and the way my body works than I ever did.

I still miss those Cheeseburger and chips treats every lunchtime thou – lol.