I am a full-time writer and poet, based in the UK– fortunate enough to be living and working in tranquil surroundings of the English countryside, some twenty miles north of London.
My poetry looks to positively explore human potential, with an emphasis on love, spiritual growth and self awareness. It is very important to me that my work remains as open, accessible and as simply expressed as possible. My influences vary from the great traditional English visionary romantics through to the distillation of thought and leanness of expression offered by the Japanese haiku tradition and later technical breakthroughs achieved by leading Scottish concrete poets, Ian Hamilton Finlay and Edwin Morgan.
Robin Marchesi, born in 1951, began writing in his teens, much to the consternation of his mother, the sister of Eric Hobsbawm, the historian.
In 1992 Cosmic Books published his first book entitled “A B C Quest”.
In 1996 March Hare Press published “Kyoto Garden” and in 1999 “My Heart is As…”
ClockTowerBooks published his Poetic Novella, “A Small Journal of Heroin Addiction”, digitally, in 2000.
Charta Books published his latest work entitled “Poet of the Building Site”, about his time working with Barry Flanagan the Sculptor of Hares, in association with the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
He is presently working on an upcoming novel entitled “A Story Made of Stone.”
mientras tú te despiertas del trance más profundo,
pasajera en su jungla, en su abrazo mortal.
Y desearás morirte, brillantes las pupilas,
y lucharás a muerte contra la muerte lenta
que quiere emponzoñarte y era sólo el desliz,
el deslizarse lento de su lengua en tu boca,
que muda la rehúye, aterida y reptil,
el arrastrarse sabio de la marea alta,
desangrándose en semen, tiempo, y poco más.
*Latín= Príncipe de las tinieblas
Princeps Tenebrarum *
The shadows of the night will be caressing his ankles
when the dance ends and he stares at you hypnotically
and you ask him to tear you open with a carnal kiss,
whilst longing for his body, a body no longer there…
but entangled like a serpent on a trunk, a Centaur,
and there you had been awoken from the profoundest trance
to travel in his jungle caught in his lethal embrace,
and where you will want to die in the brilliance of your eyes.
And there you will struggle against death, against a slow death
that wants to poison you, and it was only that, that slip
that slidingly slipped slowly its tongue down into your mouth,
coldly reptilian, which shunning you mutely refused,
as in the wisdom of high tide receding from the shore,
departs, leaving only bleeding, semen and little else.
* Latin = Prince of Darkness
Translated from Amparo Arróspide’s Princeps Tenebrarum
by Robin Ouzman Hislop Editor of Poetry Life & Times
This sonnet together with its translation appeared in The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes: Exciting new sonnet anthology edited by Richard Vallance now available on Barnes & Noble: Phoenix Rising from the Ashes BN ID: 2940148833628 Publisher: FriesenPress Publication date: 11/20/2013 Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Amparo Arrospide (Argentina) is a Spanish poet and translator. She has published four poetry collections, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and Presencia en el Misterio as well as poems, short stories and articles on literary and film criticism in anthologies and both national and foreign magazines. She has received numerous awards. Together with Robin Ouzman Hislop, she worked as co-editor of Poetry Life and Times, an E-zine.
Robin Ouzman Hislop Editor of the 12 year running on line monthly poetry journal Poetry Life and Times. (See its Wikipedia entry at Poetry Life and Times). He has made many appearances over the last years in the quarterly journals Canadian Zen Haiku, including In the Spotlight Winter 2010 & Sonnetto Poesia. Previously published in international magazines, his recent publications include Voices without Borders Volume 1 (USA), Cold Mountain Review, Appalachian University N Carolina, Post Hoc installed at Bank Street Arts Centre, Sheffield (UK), Uroborus Journal, 2011-2012 (Sheffield, UK), The Poetic Bond II & 111, available at The Poetic Bond and Phoenix Rising from the Ashes a recently published Anthology of Sonnets: Phoenix Rising from the Ashes. He has recently completed a volume of poetry, The World at Large, for future publication. He is currently resident in Spain engaged in poetry translation projects.
Strange secrets, map our plane from sphere to sphere,
And though we travel post-stage, can we swear
Nights in strange inns preserve invariant “there”
And “thither”? One brief day embeds our “near”.
So, meeting, can we claim a mundane path
Maps me to you in spatial translation?
Rise with the dawn – however swift we run,
Time draws its radius around each hearth,
And hence we meet, sped by night’s transformation
Where children dream gold lands beyond the sun.
***
Vera Rich(1936-2009)
Educated at St Hilda’s College, Oxford and at Bedford College, London, Vera Rich, a respected science journalist and a tireless campaigner for human rights, was a fine poet. Her wits were quick, her memory prodigious and she had a wonderful sense of humour.
During the 1960’s she had three books of her own poems published, and founded the poetry magazine, Manifold. This ran with some success for 28 issues before publication was suspended in 1968, when Vera became Eastern European correspondent for the science magazine, Nature.
Once asked to translate some Ukrainian poems, she learned the language to do so. For the next three decades, she travelled extensively in eastern Europe, becoming the foremost translator of both Ukrainian and Belarusian poetry into English. She reported on the activities of dissident Soviet scientists, the Chernobyl disaster, psychiatric abuse and AIDS in the Soviet Union. Her anthology of Belarusian poetry, Like Water, Like Fire, published by UNESCO, was subsequently withdrawn under pressure from the Soviet Union.
Manifold, which she revived in 1998, regularly published foreign-language poetry with parallel text in Engtlish and, occasionally. foreign poetry untranslated. In 2006 Vera travelled to the Ukraine to receive the Ivan Franko Award for her 40 years service to the translation of Ukrainian poetry. While on a visit to the Ivan Franko Homestead she gave an emotional reading of Shevchenko’s poem “Testament”. On her next visit in 2007, she wore her medal, the Order of Princess Olha, which had been presented to her at the Ukrainian Embassy in London. Vera could fairly be described as a Ukrainian patriot, an unusual distinction for an Englishwoman.
In 2006 Vera underwent treatment for breast cancer. But she always insisted her illness was an inconvenient obstacle to her work. On 18 December 2009, her doctor advised her to go into hospital, but even then Vera gave priority to her translations. On 20 December, 2009, she died peacefully in her bed. She will be greatly missed, not least for her kindness and the support she gave to so many. Alan Flowers (UK)
***
This sonnet and bibliography is pre-published with the permission of the Editor-in-chief from:
300 sonnets & ghazals in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese & Persian.
30 sonnets in this anthology are to be pre-published by our permission in Poetry Life & Times (UK) which has exclusive sole rights prior to the publication of the anthology itself. Readers may also contact Richard Vallance, Editor-in-Chief, at: vallance22@gmx.com for further information.http://vallance22.hpage.com/
*** Jim Dunlap’s poetry has been published extensively in print and online in the United States, England, France, India, Australia, Switzerland and New Zealand. His work has appeared in over 90 publications, including Potpourri, Candelabrum, Mobius, Poems Niedernasse, and the Paris/Atlantic. He was the co-editor of Sonnetto Poesia and is currently a Content Admin for Poetry Life & Times. www.facebook.com/PoetryLifeTimes He is also the chief proofreader for the On Viewless Wings Anthologies, published out of Queensland, Australia. In the past, he was a resident poet on Poetry Life & Times and the newsletter editor for seven years with the Des Moines Area Writers’ Network.
Cut to…billboard puffing the movie show ‘Nosferatu’.
Camera 6 whirls to Sabrina Roper
In the ruck of a bee-keepers net.
A schnauzer piddles in floorboards.
The relinquished rocking chair teeters
Indicating tea, sandwiches
And a twist-ragged Script Conference.
Filming ‘Blood Shot Silk’ – Deleted Scene (42)
Smoke machine on a brae…
A hog spews on moss.
Effervescence in dirty sky.
Disfigured colour sergeant gains time,
Pulls out a smooth-bore.
Snigger, incandescent flash.
The dream is taking flesh.
Drumroll on soundtrack – mental note.
The regular steps of the fait accompli
May be fair-weather, deleted.
Christopher Barnes, UK. Some bio details…
In 1998 I won a Northern Arts writers award. In July 200 I read at Waterstones bookshop to promote the anthology ‘Titles Are Bitches’. Christmas 2001 I debuted at Newcastle’s famous Morden Tower doing a reading of my poems. Each year I read for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and I partake in workshops. 2005 saw the publication of my collection LOVEBITES published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh.
On Saturday 16Th August 2003 I read at the Edinburgh Festival as a Per Verse poet at LGBT Centre, Broughton St.
Christmas 2001 The Northern Cultural Skills Partnership sponsored me to be mentored by Andy Croft in conjunction with New Writing North. I made a radio programme for Web FM community radio about my writing group. October-November 2005, I entered a poem/visual image into the art exhibition The Art Cafe Project, his piece Post-Mark was shown in Betty’s Newcastle. This event was sponsored by Pride On The Tyne. I made a digital film with artists Kate Sweeney and Julie Ballands at a film making workshop called Out Of The Picture which was shown at the festival party for Proudwords, it contains my poem The Old Heave-Ho. I worked on a collaborative art and literature project called How Gay Are Your Genes, facilitated by Lisa Mathews (poet) which exhibited at The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University, including a film piece by the artist Predrag Pajdic in which I read my poem On Brenkley St. The event was funded by The Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute, Bio-science Centre at Newcastle’s Centre for Life. I was involved in the Five Arts Cities poetry postcard event which exhibited at The Seven Stories children’s literature building. In May I had 2006 a solo art/poetry exhibition at The People’s Theatre why not take a look at their website http://ptag.org.uk/whats_on/gallery/recent_exhbitions.htm
The South Bank Centre in London recorded my poem “The Holiday I Never Had”; I can be heard reading it on www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=18456
REVIEWS: I have written poetry reviews for Poetry Scotland and Jacket Magazine and in August 2007 I made a film called ‘A Blank Screen, 60 seconds, 1 shot’ for Queerbeats Festival at The Star & Shadow Cinema Newcastle, reviewing a poem…see www.myspace.com/queerbeatsfestival On September 4 2010, I read at the Callander Poetry Weekend hosted by Poetry Scotland. I have also written Art Criticism for Peel and Combustus Magazines.
Robin Marchesi, born in 1951, began writing in his teens, much to the consternation of his mother,
the sister of Eric Hobsbawm, the historian.
In 1992 Cosmic Books published his first book entitled “A B C Quest”.
In 1996 March Hare Press published “Kyoto Garden” and in 1999 “My Heart is As…”
ClockTowerBooks published his Poetic Novella, “A Small Journal of Heroin Addiction”, digitally, in 2000.
Charta Books published his latest work entitled “Poet of the Building Site”, about his time working with Barry Flanagan the Sculptor of Hares, in association with the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
“The death camps were not built in the Gobi Desert. And when barbarism challenged, the humanities, the arts, philosophic thought proved not only largely impotent but often collaborative with despotism and massacre,”
–George Steiner, from ‘A New Literacy’, The Kenyon Review, 24:1, Winter 2007, 10-24
Teratogen 1: Sex on the Brain
“Thy nakedness shall be uncovered,
yea, thy shame shall be seen…”—Isaiah 47:3
This mission is a sin. What kind of spaz-
tic draws vigor from pornographic veins
or penis-headed parodies of ass?
But you’re no baby, Baby. Holy weans
alive, I could not diaper your fine mess.
You soil all metaphor. I’ll author blame:
My labs, my country tis of thee. My shame
is writ uncovered on your face. No less
you’d scare Sears’ portrait guy.
And yet I’m drawn
to parse the prick that promenades your head.
They told us, Horus, Set, the Golden Dawn:
a Third Eye—neither naked, neither dead
of shameless form would, near the end, arrive
commending those whose fear brought it alive.
Teratogen 2: Cabbage Patch Moll
“Hence world picture, when understood
essentially, does not mean a picture of the
world but the world conceived and grasped
as picture.” –Martin Heidegger
You vandalize distress at no small cost
through nylon skein and cabbage patch
disguise. This manhunt though is long since lost.
All have been found. First paparazzi snatched
unguarded moments. Then we watched gray puffs
televise precision. Your face
is pixelated aftermath that stuffs
everything in the close-up. Common place
covers all bases. Where’s the intimate
to hide? The convict is a partial judge
on all subjects of visual merit. Split
my screen and your forehead suggests a smudge-
print. We share the mounting headcount’s ripe bruise.
For I no longer feel eyewitness news.
Teratogen 3: Thumbelina, Dance
“…advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.” –from Project for a New American Century (PNAC) Manifesto, 2000
We vet foot bills. Are pissed-on borders worth
a mongrel birth? doG gone us Pentagon.
Hotdog Girl rolls so we might rule the earth?
Our barking men of outrage are all gone.
Lassie’s come home to her unleashing hour.
Stream? I cannot stream out into the streets.
Fluoride neutered all my upright power.
I’ll litter no more dog-days in these sheets.
Poor pup, you play dead well. No, we’ll not lift
you up. One burp and you could well explode
across complicit shoulders. To the swift
life opens up. As for an honest road
with cars to chase, let’s first define your legs.
Right now you are a thumb. How motion begs.
Teratogen 4: Waterboy
“No, you people are drinkin’ the wrong water.”
–from The Water Boy, the movie (1998)
Suffer this baby floating on the earth
amphibious. Grace alone can mend
fluidic pustules. Please make haste. No berth
so wide of God, nor time-belabored End-
time should deflate ascent. Prospects look grim
for god-speed. Though we tire of boils and sore
feet.
Oh procrastinating seraphim,
whitewash no more. These mutants wash ashore.
Our amniotic seas now euthanize.
Please hear, oh Lord, water-boy’s gurgled cries.
His isotopic lungs cannot advance
beyond collapse. How does he stand a chance
of reaching Heaven, waterlogged on Earth?
The New Disorder liquefies at birth.
Teratogen 5: Burpee Girl
“Satan said: ‘I am not the one to prostrate
myself to a human being, whom You created
from sounding clay of altered black smooth
mud.” –Quran 15:30-35
Christian soldier, you battle your mortgage
with Abd al-Chuckee puppet-strings away,
sculpted like a Mujaheedin porridge
from amber waves of O, so gamma ray.
Our acronym-cadavers cyphered this.
The Pentagon got wind of ill-wind skies.
Re-baseline victory. All vectors miss
these eyesores too contained to leak out cries.
Children, don’t play! The cradle robs the grave
before the grave has time to rob your wild
unripened stares. Uranium defiled
His altered mud. God’s breath we, breathless, waive.
your fresh pink meat. While no one looked, life filed
your backstroke down to blisters. They will hide
your books in study hall. Who will arrest
this mutant form now terrorizing cells?
Without a clear and sewn-up threat the West
cannot hold the line. Deformity spells
doom. No tight-knit group of key advisors
props up your bloated puppet-string regime.
Sit up. Exude malevolence. Your sores
must find themselves else war will lose its steam
pressed irony. Don’t make us make Big Macs.
Cater our events. Weather our attacks.
Teratogen 7: Baby Skeletor (Brought to You by ‘Masters of the Universe’)
“Skeletor’s face accidentally got splashed with acid and he sacrificed his face to
survive.” –from ‘Masters of the Universe’, a Mattel media franchise
Before ill-winds impinged on faultless weather,
I had a barrow glazed with rain for you.
I’d wheel you to the bus-stop, but why lever
a father’s guilt atop your unhinged glue?
I’m loath to hold you up for God to see,
nor shower you with blue comforts. Why not flee
my too-short arms, your wails so out of key?
You scream small monster none the least at me.
I’ll prop you up at school if you insist.
But stand-up kids are cruel. They will resist
the womb’s last weapon, shrunken in their midst.
The universe won’t stoop. You are the grist
for chemistry swept under bazaar rug,
a Hazmat spill, the morning-after drug.
This series first appeared in The New Formalist, then Cinemension. Teratogen sonnets 5 and 7 will appear in ‘The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes: Anthology of sonnets of the early third millennium Friesen Press, Victoria, B.C., Canada, 2013.
NORMAN BALL (BA Political Science/Econ, Washington & Lee University; MBA, George Washington University) is a well-travelled Scots-American businessman, author and poet whose essays have appeared in Counterpunch, The Western Muslim and elsewhere. His new book “Between River and Rock: How I Resolved Television in Six Easy Payments” is available here. Two essay collections, “How Can We Make Your Power More Comfortable?” and “The Frantic Force” are spoken of here and here. His recent collection of poetry “Serpentrope” is published from White Violet Press. He can be reached at returntoone@hotmail.com.
