London Grip New Poetry – Spring 2016
(The website that thinks it’s a print magazine)
This issue of London Grip New Poetry can be found on-line at and features new poems by:
*Eve Pearce*Phil Kirby*P A Levy*Gareth Culshaw
*Grant Tarbard*Robert Nisbet *Katherine Gallagher
*Shadwell Smith*John Harvey*David Flynn*Utsav Kaushik
*Norbert Hirschhorn*Jared Carter*Caroline Natzler
*Elizabeth Smither*Greg Freeman *Cal Freeman*Robert Etty
*Mark Carson*Jack Houston*Clive Gresswell*Adrian Green
*Jane Frank*Ian C Smith*Ed Mycue*Yuan Changming
Copyright of all poems remains with the contributors
London Grip New Poetry appears in March, June, September & December
Image:Andante 1, 1980 © 2015 Bridget Riley.
Please send submissions to ,
enclosing no more than threepoems (in the message body
or as a single attachment) and a brief, 2-3 line, biography
Editorial
Your editor has recently been interviewed for an American on-line literary magazine. The interview has not yet appeared, but here’s the gist of our answer to an interesting question about what we look for in contributions to London Grip.(Of course we do try to avoid hard-and-fast rules because a good poem should be able to surprise us into liking something we might not have expected to like.) A poem accepted forLondon Gripis more likely to be a narrative involving people than a meditationabout ‘nature’; it will probably display some structure rather than being loose and free-form. It is likely to feature some surprising images and metaphors but will also tend to understatement rather than extravagant or clichéd poetic language. We like work which displays a sense of humour; we enjoy ekphrastic poetry (s exemplified by Shadwell Smith and John Harvey in this issue); and we are sympathetic to political poetry that is neither manifesto nor rant. (Readers may care to check how much of the current issue falls outside these guidelines…)
There are a few things that we do not care for in submissions. Two common ‘errors’ are: sending in too many poems at once (we ask for no more than three); and not reading the magazine before submitting and hence offering work that is either wildly experimental or ponderously old-fashioned. It does not create a good impression to send in poems without any kind of covering letter and perhaps a short CV. (On the other hand, a lengthy and boastful biographical essay does not create a good impression either!)
The above is offered by way of friendly advice; and the most important thing we have to say to our contributors is that we are mightily grateful to them for keeping London Grip in business.
Michael Bartholomew-Biggs
Eve Pearce: Lost
First of all I lost my heart.
When he went I lost my mind
then my liberty – my shoes, my belt –
no belts allowed in the asylum –
then my appetite went.
(I’d lost my own clothes of course)
lost weight, lost sense of time.
Eventually they let me out.
On the first day I lost my drugs,
wandered in here, having lost my way,
my sense of direction.
They happened to need a dishwasher,
thought I’d come about the job.
I nodded when they asked me,
having lost my voice.
No, since you ask, I haven’t losthope.
Eve Pearce has been an actress for over sixty years. She started to write poetry at the age of seventy and has a pamphlet, Woman In Winter, published by Hearing Eye in 2007, and a Collected Poems –Capturing Snowflakes(Greenheart Press 2012)
Phil Kirby: Messages
We imagined your bottled message –
name, address, ‘write back’ request –
making landfall on a distant shore:
Scandinavia at first, then further still,
where some wide-eyed fumbling child
would marvel at your note having
bested tides, survived the roil and spume
to fetch up in the foam at their astonished feet.
Sunlight on the water scattering fool’s gold
through the waves, we wondered
if the world might change when others
spread the news that someone somewhere
had cast adrift a string of words encased
in plastic, like a sea-purse full of inky pearls.
The morning when that letter came
for you, we stood amazed and hung
on every revelation, learning how
your bottle had beached on a coast
no more than six miles from the place
where we stood and hoped and threw it in.
Phil Kirby: ‘Light Blue’
Early evening, somewhere in between
his home-from-work and sunset,
the summer running and the house –
its rooms – thickening to an early dusk,
a break from chores becomes a treasured time
because he sits back in a chair
against a gauzy scarf of hers and,
as if he’s brushed against or bruised
some heady scented garden plant
or scratched the zest of citrus fruit,
releases perfume to the air; so strong
she could be standing there, the music
of her battered silver bangles briefly
halted while his other senses take her in.
Originally from Chingford, Phil Kirby currently lives and works in Gloucestershire. He has run Waldean Press, been an East Midlands Arts ‘New Voice’ and bursary recipient, has had several pamphlets published and his first full collection, Watermarks from Arrowhead Press, came out in 2009. More at his website: He can also be followed on Twitter: @pkk31
P.A. Levy: Moving To Cemetery Road
the room had stopped breathing
the boiler switched off then
respectfully
the windows were closed
amen
an estate agent
talking of the market in an unhealthy
state with the property requiring
drastic refurbishment
signed the contract at 11.08
all registered in his blackberry
a surveyor found the outer-skin
the brickwork the roof the guttering
all sound
but referred the interior to a specialist
he suspected something growing in the living
room that would need urgent treatment
we all gathered in the porch to ceremoniously
close the door for the last time
forwarding address
carved in stone
Born East London but now residing amongst the hedge mumblers of rural Suffolk, P.A.Levy has been published in many magazines, from A cappella Zoo to Zygote In My Coffee and stations in-between.He is also a founding member of the Clueless Collective and can be found loitering on page corners and wearing hoodies at
Gareth Culshaw: On Passing A Farm While On A Train
Rusting harrow lying still
over used pallets and broken slats,
tyres, tyres, tyres, tyres, tyres
two wandering crows
stack of old bricks webbed and mossed
lichen crawling yearly along fence rail
taking over what you know.
a boot flung away
unused chicken wire, still rolled tight
‘Not got round to it’
hernia hill waiting to pop
arthritis just waiting round the corner
two tractors, one in use other not.
jobs building up,
barb wire hanging, logs need chopping
wheelbarrow full
farmers grip loosening
leave it till the next life.
leave it for now
Gareth Culshaw is a published poet with various magazines across the UK. He loves Snowdonia and having a good read.
Grant Tarbard: A Walk Through the Shadows
This loam, a border to a world beyond
myself, a document of thin skip rats,
lilting alehouse brawling, kicking your door in
with a drooping fag end of blazing ash.
Them, a beak of tongues gossip like sea beasts
echoing on the black waistcoat of cobbles.
Their children buzzed like a hive round and round
they go, looping the girl that wouldn't be kissed.
There, a majesty of burrow holes with
every colour of empty beer bottle
swaying from the branches like hanged witches,
TV antennae from every house jut
out like the crucified thin arms of Christ;
she walks through the shadows, her hand in mine.
Grant Tarbard: Poets
Poets
have Aga fires
for hearts and a penny
on the chest of drawers for the
meter.
Grant Tarbardis internationally published. His chapbook Yellow Wolf, published by WK Press, is available now.
Robert Nisbet: First Snow
No longer scuffed quotidian, the town, the shops,
the terraces, coated now, pristine in promise.
Warm knots of conversationalists.
Word came back by hearsay’s pigeon:
the jams of traffic on theMilfordroad
(solid, so Rhyssie’d heard); somebody said
the Cartlett brook had frozen.
The story of the pensioner in Prendergast
who’d fallen, broken a leg. (Poor soul).
But later we heard it was a younger man,
just slipped, messing about,
went over on his arse.
People trekked the crunched half-miles
to ferry provender. Cars swerved in driveways.
Wellies and huzzahs. Kids slid.
We heaved great breaths of frost
for the tang of it. For hours,
the crystals were lit by midday sun,
until at three the thaw began
and the afternoon died on us, in banks of grey.
Robert Nisbettaught creative writing inTrinityCollege,Carmarthen, where he also acted as professor to exchange students from the Central College of Iowa. He has over 200 poems published inBritain, including The North and The Frogmore Papers, and publications in theUSAin Main Street Rag, San Pedro River Review, Provo Canyon Review and Constellations.
Katherine Gallagher: The Mountain
On sunny days, the mountain turns quite blue,
takes on the azure sparkle of the sky –
always a place to dream of coming to,
to feel that snowy-crunch beneath your shoe,
or soar across a piste that’s powder-dry.
On sunny days, the mountain turns quite blue –
you feel the silence is in love with you,
invites a quietude no one can buy
in this wild place you dream of coming to.
The snow melts earlier now, the view
quite changed, and not so lovely to the eye;
on sunny days, the mountain turns quite blue.
It’s clear that tales of acid rain are true
as ragged trees suggest they’ll surely die
in this wild place you dream of coming to.
Its hazy beauty strangely keeps it new,
helps you forget the damage or the why.
On sunny days, the mountain turns quite blue ̶
this special place you dream of coming to.
Katherine Gallagher: Refugees at the Aid Centre
The tapered fingers of her gaunt hands,
a version of her child’s . . .
She caresses him, his fists opening,
closing, drawing down the sun.
Her eyes beg, the face of one more parent
in the queue. She smiles into her hands,
arms enfolding the child as if
her carrying will never be over.
She will keep holding him, offering
water, milk, a spoonful of rice. . .
The child, innocent of the fight around him,
wages his own battle, whimpers,
sinks into his mother. Another day.
Katherine Gallagher is an Australian-born poet resident in North London. Her most recent collection is Carnival Edge: New & Selected Poems (Arc Publications, 2010). Her next book Acres of Light is due out in 2016.
Shadwell Smith: A Jungle Queen Takes the Train
Rote Frau, by Franz Marc (1912)
When the bricks smashed
through the windows,
it was time to leave.
Her fertile blush
of buttocks
was calleddegenerate;
the forest where she lived
pronouncedinsane.
They would have burned her
as a witch
that grew green hair
and wore red skin.
Each leaf
taken in for questioning:
And where are the rest
of your kind?
The yellow cow?
The blue horse?
Every colour
drained,
put in jars,
stored on shelves.
The Red Woman
wasn’t governed
by their machines
or painted by numbers.
Laid flat,
hidden in a sideboard,
she caught the last train
out of Erfurt.
Shadwell Smith is a school teacher who lives in Dunstable. His poems have appeared in a number online magazinesand he sometimes appears in pubs, clubs and coffee shops reading them.
John Harvey: Curve
Bridget Riley: The Curve Paintings 1961-2014, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill: August, 2015. For Lee Harwood & for Sarah
Late summer already
and the swifts that raced the canyon
of our suburban street,
criss-crossing from nest to nest,
have left swiftly as they arrived.
Our daughter is in France,
dreaming of becoming seventeen.
Out of the blue, news
Lee Harwood, whose poetry
I read and re-read
until I almost believed
his words were mine
has died …
Cast adrift
we catch the morning train.
through fields of yellowing wheat
towards the sea;
the light oscillating
on the water’s surface,
patterning across the painter’s canvas,
ever moving, iridescent,
rarely what it seems.
What are you doing? you asked,
when, walking beside you, I first
threaded my fingers through yours.
Evening, it would have been, the air
about us urgent, electric,
my shoulder brushing yours.
Now the sweet heat of nights
and insatiable afternoons
has ripened into this:
the accidental touch of bodies
and flustering of hands;
the lushness of late-flowering
blackberries, their juices
sticky rich upon the skin.
Feet bare on shingle, wearing
your black dress with its green sash,
you walk cautiously to the water’s edge
and stand there looking out:
the blur of motion on the horizon,
the far prospect of land;
the impossibility of leaving.
Have I ever said I love you and not meant it?
Yes, but not to you.
For an instant it’s as if my breath has stopped:
then you turn and come back to where I’m waiting,
small shells like keepsakes tight
in the palm of your hand.
A prolific and award-winning writer of crime fiction, John Harvey is also a dramatist, sometime small press publisher and poet. His New & Selected Poems, Out of Silence, was published by Smith/Doorstop in 2014.
David Flynn: A Pity
It's a pity you are glorious. Sad
to think you're so grand. In the morning you
are the sunrise, night a black dress
sequined with stars.
It's so awful you are lovely. A crime
you look that way. Your eyes: their blue
makes the sky look faded, cobalt
seem bland. You gaze, and stallions run wild.
I'm depressed that I love you. Can't sleep
that you love me too. Your kiss before bedtime
makes me flinch with happiness: lips redder
than sunset, more liquid than cabernet.
You'll be my death, from this joy I can't kill,
an electrocution, strapped to romance.
David Flynn was bornin the textile mill company town of Bemis, TN.His jobs have included newspaper reporter, magazine editor and university teacher.He has five degrees and is both a Fulbright Senior Scholar and a Fulbright Senior Specialist with an upcoming grant in Indonesia.His literary publications total more than 180.David Flynn’s writing blog, where he posts a new story and poem every month, is at
His web site is at
.
Utsav Kaushik: Leaves
Leaves
Rustling outside the window;
A sound – whispering;
The wind flirting
With the sunbeams.
This calm
In the scene outside. As if
As if, it wants to; but can’t.
It is soothing,
My mind down and down
The air
In which, I feel like gazing on and on.
A smooth sheet of soft silk
Suddenly stretched away and gone.
A kiss
Leaving a cool impression
On my lips. Oh if I...
If I could hover like that kite,
For hours in this quiet
And sleep
On clouds and never look down
Let the evening pass – living
This pleasant dream and would never wake
But then .....
Utsav Kaushik studies English at Zakir Husain Delhi College (Evening), University Of Delhi. He has conducted research in wide areas such as: Literary criticism, 17th-18th Century English Poets (Including Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson and others), Victorian Era, etc. He is currently working on publishing research papers in the field of Post-colonialism. Also, has a deep interest in writing poetry, songs, short story and plays. His poems have been published in the college magazine, entitled Vesper. He has participated in theatre activities at district and state levels.
Norbert Hirschhorn: The Call
4:13 by the bedside alarm,
jangled from a chaotic dream,
blankets tangled – has someone died?
A muted voice, echoing,
one he’d heard before.
I know why you’re calling. Who are you?
Irrelevant.
I’ve tried to be good.
You only think you’re good.
Everyone deserves to be held.
Don’t presume.
The moon hung over the high-rise opposite,
frozen like a tombstone.
I’m generous, all my friends will tell you.
You never bought Big Issue from the homeless person.
Stop. Stop. I hate this.
I’m sure you do.
Who are you? Is this a nightmare?
Jagged clouds eroded Orion.
Are you prepared?
Maybe an angel I’m supposed to wrestle?
Throw out my hip, become a cripple?
You’re already crippled.
Wait! You’re my muse, right? Bringing me a poem?
Nothing so pitiful as a failed poet.
You make me feel like a worm impaled on a hook of indifference.
That’s pathetic.
A sharp wind blew up, tree limbs beckoned.
Please, give me some ease.
Not to be had.
Then let me ask you something.
Go ahead.
Why does it take me so long to leave the house?
You know, forget this, forget that, recheck the hob,
go back for the umbrella…
You’re afraid you’ll die.
But don’t most people die in bed?
Precisely.
Norbert Hirschhorn: Two Old Men Remembering
Based on Tales of the Hasidim by Martin Buber
An old man in an old century remembered:
As long as there were no roads, and wolves roamed the forest,
you had to interrupt a journey at nightfall. Then you had all
the leisure in the world to recite psalms at the inn, open a book,
have a good talk. Nowadays you can ride these roads day