Things that Make You Go Hmm

"Yes" and I waited for the question.

I admit, it does not appear to matter now

what you need to know. There is not enough

time left to conceal anything worth concealing.

Luckily, the grass is still soft and green

in the yard and if God had intelligent designs

for today, my barefeet on cool ground, the signals

the bright white color of magnolias send

through my heart cells are proof enough-

the suggestion, I mean, of answering

questions of meaning before they are

even devised. Things that make you go:

hmm.

Untouched Shore

On a boat that is not a boat, we travel.
From the bow of its rattling bones,
the evening star, that great shining oak
in the land of sky, points to untouched shores.

Heavy webs of star, a mournful trap
of darker holes, hinges man's thoughts
to universe like tiny specks of fly.
It is the sea we hear when we are dying

or its winded breath, the physical divinity
of blueness, the stretching tendons
of fluttering wings whose feathers rise
like thunderheads in swirling weaves.

The gulls sweep down,
not from loneliness, but greed
to touch the thing that we desire most-
such fearsome beauty.

Temple Love That

Something changed, the referee of title. Gorgeous
space-time ozone fooled region clog. A tool
reneged on towers. Later broken church doors
were sediment-related golfing partners. We struck gold,
under the minute left behind. Honest bouncing
sounds slopped further cues. A rustle of
press down, then the give in take. When the door came after,
licking the steam between zero and mood, we started a rock.
The rock backed the aimless ombudsman and bad taste
along the present road. A scour for tours read
clearly. Nose for news slid under the doormat,
only to crow later. And of all these buds, the
true language frantic for gulf, we smiled.

WHAT IS ANIMATE?

Alec Finlay Ravi Deepres Paul Conneally Gavin Wade

Pictured at the launch of '100 verses for 3 estates'

100 Verses for 3 Estates is a piece conceived by Alec Finlay in answer to the question "What is Animate?

100 Verses for 3 Estates forms part og Gavin Wade's ongoing work 'Strategic Questions'

The Book '100 Verses for 3 Estates' comes out of a series of 6 renga conducted in and with the community of the Kings Norton 3 Estates over a whole year working to a schema proposed by Alec Finlay.

Master Poet for all 6 renga was Paul Conneally.

The film '100 Verses' by Ravi Deepres was premiered at the New Generation Arts Festival 2007 in Birmingham UK


=====================

coLoUR fest

Word Man hath taught us See diColor

Word man has colour tint writer

Him got stellaric strained across his operatic stereoptican eyeS

WALKTHELINE

A JOURNEY THROUGH A CHANGING LANDSCAPE

Fancy a nice summer Sunday stroll, a short journey with surprise elements and a picnic thrown in? Then on August 12th join artist/historian Maurice Maguire with haiku poet and artist Paul Conneally and others on a guided journey through the changing landscape of the Birmingham Kings Norton 3 Estates.

Starting from the Masshouse Members Club, a short walk along the canal towpath will take you to the entrance of the Kings Norton canal tunnel - the Wast Hill Tunnel. We will then trace the above ground route of the tunnel as it runs underneath the 3 Estates, over the Wast Hill to the Hopwood end of the tunnel.

As this is roughly two miles suitable shoes should be worn. Transport will be available to complete the return journey to a picnic/buffet and discussion including a poetry reading back at the Kings 3 Café on The Fold.

Over the past 200 years, the canal has been the one constant feature of this area. The contours of the landscape we see today were formed to a great extent by the excavations carried out during its construction. How the Kings Norton 3 Estates area has developed in the past and particularly how it may develop in the future is the theme for what promises to be an entertaining and informative journey.

The event is free. To book your place, and for further details please call Rita Fletcher on 07877503392 or email to rita_fletcher111@hotmail.com

WALKTHELINE is a POWER PARTY.
Remember to switch off any appliances, lights etc before leaving home.

Openned anthology

Six months in the making, the Openned anthology is an electronic publication of poets that have read at the first nine London-based Openned nights:

Aaron Wells / Albert Pellicer / Alex Davies / Alex MacDonald / Allen Fisher / Andrea Brady / Annabel Emson / Ceri Buck / Drew Milne / Elizabeth-Jane Burnett / Emily Critchley / Fiona Templeton / Francis Crot / Graeme Estry / Hannah Silva / Ian Hunt / James Byrne / James Harvey / Jeff Hilson / John Cayley / John Sparrow / John Stiles / Kai Fierle-Hedrick / Keston Sutherland / Lydia White / Marianne Morris / Michael Weller / Nick Potamitis / Piers Hugill / Redell Olsen / Robert Hampson / Rosheen Brennan / Rotten Elements / Sean Bonney / Sophie Robinson / Stephen Willey / Tim Atkins / Ulli Freer / Writing Machine, DJ Ed Rusch

The anthology is completely free, available in pdf format in parts or as a full document.

Click here to be taken to the Openned website, or here to go to the anthology home page pdf.

color test

notes on Andrew Keen

1

who keeps killing my last houseguest?
who keeps yelling and stomping?
who is the rain falling?
who reaps the better grain?
who put their fists in my granola?
who milk?
mary shepard who?
shakes it special keeps killing?
you keeps killing?
who cares Cain careful?

2

POETRY AS A CAREER

you’re an asshole in the preschool of your life, moneyed musing

LIVE BROADLY, WRITE BOLDLY

staring out the window at all the fantasizing eskimos choked up with déjà vu

ON THE STREET, ON THE ROAD

they’re puncturing telescope lenses with their key-rings. tell them! tell them!

THE HOPE OF STAYING AWAY

if they had ever brought me alive to this place, I would have denied my prayers

Face 34

ace of spades

Charnwood Arts miniWORDS haiku competition results

fallen leaves
a black ribbon binds
the bamboo chimes

Allen McGill

More details of the haiku competition and other genres here:

MiniWORDS

poem

    "Eyewitness to Powder"

endless procession
of body parts

i want glowing shards of promise
two cars collide
you swerve and go on

a place seen in a movie haunts you
enough that oneday you go there

Mock Tudor above the dusty trees
a name gnostics remember

tragic desire
in a world of causal relations

nothing builds as good
as lower taxes feels

INVIGILATOR : TOKYO

INVIGILATOR : TOKYO

A small area of Shinjuku, Tokyo was watched over

on the evening of Thursday the 26th of July, 2007.

Invigilators: Nikki Pugh, Orie Inoue, Eri Akagi.

INVIGILATOR : TOKYO

Invigilation 3 of the INVIGILATOR series

Paul Conneally Nikki Pugh Kevin Ryan

2007

WALK TO WORK

Fauve Poem

Running in Circles

          ah, to peace, love
            and ego
         the strains of youth and
      indelicate earnestness
           what embarrasses you



what brings you up short
catches your breath what
tickles your secrets



slippery pain and constant echoes
a relaxing



     relax
the demands of space-time
   bring us here
 but are otherwise unimportant



                 ah, to war
                   and balance



                   fire
              our extremites
              a precipice

poem

"Other Treasons"

torture porn
recovery
not rescue

at his post
the sergeant continued writing tanka

twilight fell
across the irregular paving stones

inside, reflections hovered
above the occasional car

our promised doom
buried in the Ode to Censorship

City of Foreigners

Winner Of

What is powerful? History, you might say,

or emotions that wound it. Decide upon

the beauty of your poison; I have chosen mine.

Nightly, like a woven pearl, the grain is changed

to sheets of light, the truth is hidden there:

we wonder what it means. Hunted for so long.

So many, many. Noble, winning, poisoned, pining,

burdened. Object: lesson. Reward: coming yet.

You've fought for comfort elegantly, now-

everything but the winner.

Simple Proof from the Green Sunlight (my birthday came and went)

The patient porch, extent for a summer day, then stories of rain in the offing, ships sinking in Gitchee Goomie, terror on the side of goodness... But passing freighters of carelessness confirm standard rebukes: churches controlled by evil dinner parties, frameworks of political activism removed from totaled vacuum cleaner sales, rising sun only at morn... What reference remains for those on the porch, thru serious crisp clouds of green derivative, and the traffic of another day? such practice essentializes into a regard for the days of poetry... When does one sit on the porch? Does the sun castigate issues of the church? Will questions fend for more chairs on the shaded porch's sultry virtue? We live, we love, and presidents die for lack of reading newspapers. Newspapers die, poetry lives, the dog poops in a garden near the church. Yes, strange details mar an otherwise saturated day. We wake, we say yes, we turn no in, we apply differences and send structured responses as varied as the wind. Now more seated restitution, in the dry cool breeze of the porch, where effort runs contrary to portrayal. The news may be terrific someday: our words have been lit.

adam & steve

just in...

the nick of time, this caper reaches climax and you can play out any number of convincing multi-frolicked permutations but tangle willingness with wiliness and you could end up with too many shrewds up yer eager