Past Lives (A Series of journeys from past lives)

Breathing through the lines

Echoing across

The outer door

And the swallow shaped clouds

Each life builds

Like a wall

Branching out at interludes

Starting off

Somewhere near the South Pole

When you were a wanderer

Lying with orchestral cells

Of caves

Fighting for food

Each night.

A sickly babe

Born to a

Rich nobleman’s family

Not long after

The Romans fled

And drown in a river

Like a unwanted kitten,

A forgotten soldier

Loyal to Cromwell

Who gave no quarter

And died in

A blacken inn

On the verge of recruitment

In a vicious mugging.

The wife of a pirate

Whose name I can’t pronounce

At the turn of

The 18^th century

In Cornwall

Who was hung

For a crime she didn’t do.

A Soldier whose

Name I won’t repeat

Who fought all day

At the battle of Alamo

In 1836

And killed himself

In disgust of what he did.

Breathing through

Each of their experiences

And emotions

My soul falls

Into line with them

Across hungered words

And laboured ships

Across the depths

Of broken memories

Sinking under frozen grounds

And pocket marked voids

Pressing compounded feelings

Into your thoughts

Like secrets in tiny safes.

Clawing caressed emotions

In mumbled

And forgotten tongues

Curving into thoughts

Dancing in your sleep

Building on each life

One after the other.

(A audio version of this piece can be heard at https://andyn.bandcamp.com/album/andy-n-past-lives-live-spoken-passions-september-2016)

Holidays to Wales (II)

Walking in a waking dream
Our footprints led all the way down
From the edge of the caravan
Onto the pier about half a mile away
Like a long lease
In a symmetry of shadows 
Just past sunset

Watching the waves 
Trimming their flow in the air
Over the tip of the moon
Before holding their breath
Half stroke before poking through  
A imaginary broken window
And crashing back to the ground

Laced in broken crystals 
Hinged wide open 
Smeared in a lace of slight mist 
Shifting away from the past
And in a chattering future
Underneath clocks of stone 
And memories of first love 
Met on a sullen beach in Wales

In kiss that seemed that lasted
Over a decade  
Floating in imaginary theatres 
In a flotilla of paper boats 
Dim in a reflective gaze
Leaving us both breath-taken
Becoming the other in translation.

Pennies from Heaven (New Poem)

Returning to emotions

After running away 

For two weeks (or 10 days)

The tide hasn’t changed across

Where I used to sit

Once upon a time, 

Faint little lighthouses

Turned on at 7.45am

And turned out with a shrug at 4pm,

Compliance cultures 

Or moaning about life

Below the poverty line, 

Blackened chairs

Mourning in desolation

Grasping the lights,

Watching the sun

Leap across a blank page

On the back of an envelope

Erasing all that went before

Across digital powered

Security announcements

But never your words

That fall into my eyes

Like pennies from heaven. 

Sadness (New Poem)

Embracing sadness

You tell me

It is in your heart

As much as your soul,

Unstitching itself

On boat shaped stones

Underneath the pier

Lost in the sunset

Absent-minded like

Placing imaginary notes

Wrote in feelings

Across the wind

Changing directions

Within second

Swaying wearily

Back up the hill

Singing unwritten songs

On the other side

Of the ridge

In half kindled feelings

With no sails

On the horizon

No catharsises

In remains of churches.

Strangers in the night

Standing there like stranger at a bar

There are three Irish fairies

Tied together

Which clearly want to go home,

Three football figures

Of now retired Spanish footballers

And two pigs

Both of which I am convinced

Are odd little jokes

Friends got for me travelling,

A Edward Sissorhands figure

Which I accidentally nicked

At a bookshop in Brighton

And which I am too

Embarrassed to return

A tiny Cadburys Chocolate Van

Which is more years older

Than I know

That my Uncle gave me

A week before he died

And has followed me

Through three addresses since

(And four removal vans)

An Indian goddess

That I have no memory off

And am half convinced

appeared on-top

of my bookcase

almost by magic,

a Kabuki figure

which keeps falling

down the back

no matter what I do

leaving me thinking

it’s a ninja in disguise

really,

Pebbles picked up

From Poole Beach

At last 15 years ago

Which my then

Girlfriend

Said was a heart stone

And would give me

Endless luck,

Pens that ran out

Of ink years ago

Writing bad poetry

And now Shift uncomfortably

With each footstep

Wondering whether

I would throw them out

Like a bad afterthought

Or tinker with the order

Like members of

A rock band

Replacing each other

Brazen in the shadows

In forgotten

holes of memories

Running through

Imaginary fingers of my hair

Every time I look at them

Naked through journeys

Away from myself

And into time. 

Dreaming of a different kind of realism

catching silent pictures
across circular fields
suspended like a hammock
dangling between trees

floating in the mood
your camera snaps truths
feathered within
the early morning light

splicing feelings
beyond grey templates
and mashed up feelings
dreaming of silence

building footprints
in the shadows
or the mud across
each picture took

writing a different
kind of poetry
every time you press
that button.


(For Sara)

Amanda Steel - after the zombies (book review)

I used to read horror stories all the time when I was younger in my teens (yes, I know that was a few years ago) but quite quickly it became the same old rubbish, formulatic rubbish which I quickly out-grew.

Fast forward towards my mid to late 20’s, I got into more adult based comics such as Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing and Jamie Delano’s Hellblazer, both of which took horror into a very much mature way with characters which you could see and relate to much more strongly than the horror authors I won’t name I used to read in my teens.

Nowadays, of course horror has spun off into different directions, with a spell of horror been popular with the field of Vampires, and now Zombies.

Of course, thinking about Zombies it’s easy to think of the success of the Walking Dead, of which I watched the first three or so series and have read the comics at some point too.

Of course, thinking about the above – it is easy to dismiss anything that comes along in that field as a cash in etc which I think completely misses the point certainly in the case of Amanda Steel’s novella ‘after the zombies’.

This short novella is about a small circle of survivors suriving a zombie attack in my hometown, Manchester, UK. Although the central trio of characters, Grace, Mark and Luke are all very well wrote and developed which is a major plus certainly in any book of this genre, what really impressed me in particular was the flashbacks that came throughout the narrative and really added to the story instead of delaying the narrative.

The pacing is spot on throughout the book and considering how slow a reader I am with books nowadays, caused me to struggle to put the book with and certainly acts as a really good start to a series.

Recommended.

The book can be bought here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/After-zombies-Amanda-Steel/dp/1530093929?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&redirect=true&ref_=x_gr_w_bb&tag=x_gr_w_bb_uk-21

I met Amanda fairly recently and was gifted a copy by the Author. The review is not influenced by the Author and reflects my own thoughts and opinions only.