Schöne Name (Nice Name)
Easter Sunday in Karlovy Vary waiting for the bus to Prague. It arrives with a resurrected sky, blue skin scarred with white trails. Bus driver, bald buttery head surprised at my family name, laughs affectionately, amazed. Schöne Name! I agree, grateful for gentle humour, not playground mockery that still punishes, every consonant a stigmata. He spots my wife’s Polish origins, no laughter, onboard, away. The Music Played Under the arches of the portico, pressed against the back wall, so that her body becomes stone, she watches the three-piece band, a much taller crowd gathering in front, blocking her view but not looking down at her, at a cruel discord in her DNA that jangled her fates, played havoc with cell division leaving her stunted, her face mud-slipped on one side, her limbs twisted like a wind- bent tree. These guilty words have no right to express her peace and beauty as the music played, her bobbing head, her enjoyment despite the Life dished out from scraps. July 2017, The Brasilia Review.
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Wake up early in Karlovy Vary
to a surprise: the Dawn Chorus, a daily voice from my childhood of climbing trees, wandering woods, holiday sun stretching into inky infinity, unheard for several deaf years. Why? Last two springs spent in Guangzhou, living twenty stories high in a concrete tree. The only birds were scraping sparrows scavenging off balconies, splattered pavements, little arguing tweets barely audible over honking cars, screeching bars, pecking vendors. In the haze-hugged parks the birdsong piped in through recordings hidden in shrubbery, warbling spies whispering musical pretence. The Thought Crime to question Nature’s digitalization – traditional music added as anaesthetic. Sometimes songbirds found in sealed cages down side streets, sing-song in prison, not enough room to open their wings, banging bones across the rusting bars, the percussion of the pent-up, from street to the high rise Pent Houses, all imprisoned. Now free of the bars I listen, drift to sleep, wash back up to wakefulness and shudder with sadness, a released inmate wondering, thoughts from Czech Republic to China back to boyhood sitting in oak trees, singing birds. Published July 2017 in Sheila-Na-Gig. |
Poetry Biography:I have had over 70 poems published in the following worldwide magazines and literary journals: A Handful of Stones, Acta Victoriana (Canada), All the Sins (UK), The Amethyst Review (USA), Amsterdam Quarterly (NL) The Blue Nib (Ireland), Bolts of Silk, Borderless Journal, The Brasilia Review (Brazil), Bushfire Literature & Arts Review (US), Cadenza, Cake Magazine, Carillon, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong), DASH (USA), Clackamas Literary Review (USA), Cooch Behar Anthology, Dawntreader, Dreamcatcher, The Dillydoun Review, Earth Love, The Ear (US), Eastlit (East Asia), Erbacce, Envoi, Finger Dance Festival, Ginosko, Gloom Cupboard, Hidden Channel, Inlandia Journal, IS&T (Ink, Sweat & Tears), Into the Void (Canada), The Journal, The Lakeview Journal (India), Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Lunch Ticket (USA) The New Writer, One Hand Clapping, Orbis, Oregon English Journal (USA), The Passage Between, Prole, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Sonic Boom (India), Third Wednesday (USA), Of Nepalese Clay (Nepal), New Contrast (South Africa), One Hand Clapping, Opportunity Publishing, The Oregon English Journal (USA) Origami Poems Project (USA), The Paddock Review (USA), Panoplyzine (USA), Paper Swan Press, The Passage Between, The Peacock Journal (USA), Pens on Fire, Poetry Salzburg (Austria), Potomac Review, (USA) Prole, Pulsar Poetry, Rear View Poetry, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Qutub Minar Review (India), Red Ink, Shiela-Na-Gig (USA), South Bank Poetry Magazine, Stand, Waterford Teachers Centre, (Ireland) We Are a Website New Literary Journal (Singapore), Weber - The Contemporary West Review (USA), Windfall (USA), Writing Magazine, Words for the Wild and Verbal Art (India). Archives
March 2024
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