performance poetry

Poetry Video: ‘It’s A Bird, No, It’s A Plane, No, It’s Just My Neighbour, Superman Is Saving Elsewhere’

A performance of a poem I wrote engaging with the BARPo theme of ‘Superheroes and Villains,’ as part of our monthly poetry night, Burn After Reading Presents… at the Seven Dials Club, Covent Garden, London.

For BARPo Happenings, check out our website at: http://barpoetry.tumblr.com/
My Youtube playlist is here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe391QHLvLjl83E_HDxspM2UTBx-bULtT

Basement Session with Scott Freeman

  Last Monday, I had the pleasure of joining a great friend and inspiration of mine, Scott Freeman, in his basement to record a session of performance, challenges and discussion… as well as silliness… mostly silliness. I had a riot and though it was weird performing pieces without an audience in front of me, it allowed the pieces to sit in the air in a different way for me. Give it a watch if you fancy it!

Duration: 58 mins (the very start was cut in the uploading process but not much was missed)

Scott is a Winchester based musician, who breaks what acoustic music could be and moulds it into what it should. I was a fan of his before I was a friend and I definitely encourage you to check him out at these places:
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/sfmusic
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheScottFreemanMusic/feed
Twitter: @scottfreeman0

My Invisible Friend Is An Insomniac – Translated!

My Invisible Friend Is An Insomniac – Translated!

An amazing gentleman and friend from over-the-sea very kindly translated ‘My Invisible Friend Is An Insomniac’ into Spanish. You can read it at the link below. You should also check the rest of his blog, there is some beautiful wordsmithing there! Thank you Mauricio González Álvarez!

Listening To A Street’s Voicebox

Standing attention to the sound of first shouts
post dance floor, I listened with my stabiliser wings
clipped by taxi rank breath of engines, a howl
in the concrete cube alley outside Revolution
where a punch drunk fist blew echo holes
in the throat throat throat…
It turned the whole street into a procession
with blue light sirens and kebabs spilled,
neon vomit on the high heeled
‘Oh no,’ flamingos, pencilled into their skirts,
holding onto their fannies with their clutch bags,
squawking with tiptoes around the rugby kit mobs
oofing the championship brawl of the curb,
oof oof to each fist landed, the proper Reading lad
beating a Northerner for looking at him funny,
at least, that’s what he thinks he said,
in testimony as the law enforcing, luminous jackets pile
batons on his boxer brains, echoes his claims
that he’s not a racist, he just hates Northeners
and I recognise his bloody eyebrows from school
and his mouthy grit stained lips, spitting curses
and baseball bats at the officers, who monotone
their radio, cancelling backup, checking in the arrest,
test, test, they boom the mic, as a band starts in a bar
down the road, swooping the echo attention
of the crowd massing to a shout fight,
where a guys is almost killed for his accent
by someone I used to break juice boxes with
and watched him hiss at pupils, teachers,
without ever trying to stop him.

A Kitchen Confessional

You were walls for arguments,

For lines stretched, broken,

words left unspoken,

made into nooses,

that dangled from the lamp.

I watched a hanging body,

every time I ate my cornflakes.

 

Bottles and bruised bananas

littered your table top,

with the odd glamour magazine

and Radiohead CD,

fighting for space

at meal times separated each of us,

desperate for cupboard shelves

like a lot in a graveyard.

 

You were claustrophobia

with an addictive quality.

I chewed tombstones in you

with friends killing their problems

laying them to rest

on the dishcloths

that were always dirty.

 

The washing machine wept

every second of the day,

soaking cautionary socks

on their way to the tumble drier,

that never dried anything,

merely turned the whole place

into a humming rainforest,

where the lakes were stagnant

with fermenting pans, pots, plates,

forest floors strewn with paper

and fungus from under the fridge.

Every so often I would bump

into an adventurer, on an expedition,

after a one night stand admission,

asking me for toast and tea.

 

You were dark and never accepted light,

unless we put it in you,

then you would short circuit,

electrocute us through the toaster,

our eighth malfunctioning house mate

that we always boasted

was a place of laughter.

 

Now all I remember you for

is the kettle wheezing asthma,

non-stop with coffee seeking hands,

in and out the doorway,

before we could open up our interiors.