Matt Dalby, Paving Poems

                                          Rust

                                                                         

                                          Hang

                                                                         

                                          Flower 1

                                                                           

                                                    Feature


                                                                                                             

                                          Crack

                                                                     

                                                    Correction

                                                                       

                                          Cartograph

Jack Nouveau, Letters to Verlaine

i)

You let that little turd manipulate you again

didn’t you Paul? Well without him you wouldn’t

have amounted to much, that's for sure? Even taking

into account that time you smashed a jar with

your stillborn brother pickled inside. The stench

must have been a weapon. Think of your poor mother 

staring at the foetus, wishing it was you.

Pigs trotters. That’s what you thought it looked like,

didn’t you Paul? And your wife, did you make her

take it up the arse, or was it a strictly 

missionary affair?

I can see you now, holier than thou preaching

scripture to her in the midst’s of one of your 

catholic breakdowns.

I know you might liken me to the gut of a hung dog,

but I’m here for you Paul. I’m waiting for your reply, and 

you know the funniest thing happened to me today -

I started drinking again.

I knew you’d be pleased.

I was thinking of you sat in the Maggots sucking on absinthe.

I was green with it Paul. 

Green with it.

ii)

I was going to kill myself to teach her a lesson.

A sticky bloody heart pumping lesson of plasma and

white cells, but we’re going to my dads tomorrow 

and I cant really get out of it.

Please write back

I helped you - 

Remember?

iii)

Hello Paul 

It is I

Are you seriously

telling me you have

not at least met her 

bath water?

Well are you?

Coz we could mud up

the windows into a sea of mud

like mud is what you do with daylight

I have described you as moss

YES

the laces in the sky

Don’t you know? 

Its my sunglasses that 

make me act differently

iv)

I’m not surprised your having hallucinations again.

I mean your brain is run through with those flat

white worms that made the skyline seem like old 

fogies frowns to you all those years ago.

I hear your teaching in Stickney Marshes. Is that true?

You cant get a drink for love nor money there can you?

Neither of which you ever have anyway, but it’s the 

thought that counts Paul. The thought that counts.

Lincolnshire’s as flat as a Frank I hear. That’s a lot

of sky for god to see you with. Are you really willing 

to lay yourself open to that level of scrutiny?

And on that note, should you really be around all

those young boys? Because pulling yourself off discreetly 

under the table probably isn’t your forte.

Your more likely to stand up and shout -

STAR JELLY

STAR JELLY

WHO CAN TELL ME WHAT STARJELLY IS?

v)

You dick! How dare you?

I have been sleeping on the stairs for days

a pear shaped bagpuss

set amongst new species of moth

ALRIGHT! I admit it

you had me pegged from the start

it was yours truly

who shat upon your kitchen unit

even threw it to the air like money

and whats more

I want none of it matters

nothing less than a plaything of

brothers, a Dover Mechano set drowning in ale

to say it again

that your acne is an acme leopard

and the puss

issuing forth

is an unbroken chain of footsteps 

kinned with unsteady plates

hand in hand

with the stumbling stuttering 

saint of spots before the eyes

(AND YOU THINK I AM UNKIND)

vi)

Pauline

we must be patient

for I have been delayed 

due to discrimination

the police axelrodded me

and it appears I am dumped by fate

charged with nothing

be you can clean 

and begone me

they do not yet tell

naked-hotel

the cooking tomorrow 

has work

to arrive in your country

& ingest this very small letter

vii)

Being adept

in the art of bullshit

I am immune to 

your dungarees

rain

& metal

if lit

paint              wishes

be gone

no longer haunt that which is dead

so every man should fuck 

his best friends mother

tell me

do you really think a hem

would make a difference to an apron?

A frozen Charlotte

who even if we phoned 

it wouldn’t matter

I 'm so utterly unimpressed 

by your longing

& your marriage no doubt will go tits up 

so memorise my new address

viii)

I am living in an adobe abode

& abide by mineral law

black Fahrenheits  of the stars

through which their missiles & missives 

cannot undo

any bridge which removes its bricks

and walls up with mortar 

our latent hero’s gob

tho you liken me to lichen

certain characters are turned to quartz

as though words issued 

abolished are stone

with all misgivings abridged

Sarah Edwards, from 'harmon-ies brokehn'

Sarah Edwards lives in Montreal, Canada but comes from somewhere that is so opposite from her current world that it's surreal. She has been very lucky to have work published in many wonderful places by many wonderful people. Currently she is working on a book length project that explores Asemic writing. Her blog: http://artwordscribble.blogspot.ca/

Tom Jenks, from levers

got some knock off vouchers for Burger King
                         down the mall with all the brutalists
cunning like a cat she hoards the stationery
got a letter printed in Take A Break

*

sexy when she dresses like that like Kim Jong Il at a power plant
on the working model a crumb is a boulder
I'd play you maj-jong in the caravan
                                  but the big rook bent the aerial

*

riding her blue tricycle down the green lanes of Avalon
there were three cheese triangles there were two cheese triangles
                       on the ides with a trembling hand
got a top hat you can borrow, Margaret

*

                                    like a mash up when the moon is in the trees
                                    like eating pizza in a hansom cab
avoiding ideas in the first Chinese restaurant
                        in the evening, when the leaves are falling

*

this does not require a shift in the logic merely a change of emphasis
his father invented a new kind of duck
skate on, Fibonacci but the bees
                                              aren't listening

*

         down the Champs Elysee with a ruined croissant
the donkeys unmolested, as at Rhyll
the trembling, redolent blossom dismissed:
                       "no straight ship could sail so crooked a brook"

*

Tallulah Soup: a girl invented
his hand on her knee in the walk-in centre
a muskrat, capricious, on the weak bridge,
                                                                       fie

*

Cameron the blue in a purple bottle
a white cat recoils at the seminar
they put an event like this on pineapple high gloss
           like a Romanian in the pommel horse final

*

this rain a slant, slant of rain
                                            of curving shelters
she was drinking flavoured water on the escalator
on the day I finally gave the prisoners yoghurt

*

you can never go too many times to Nandos
after 8:30 when it gets a bit naughty
             down the water slide with Jasper and Olga
eating peanuts in a frappuccino high chair