Much ado about something

Hi all! Inbetween exam preparation I've been lucky enough to do a couple of live sets at The Hythe to Port Festival and Firstsite Colchester and I must thank Tess Gardener of SKOPT & Col Po fame for the former and James Sarek of Col Po fame for the latter. Thanks both for the opportunities! I've really tried hard to up the ante with live work and the material is so heartfelt it seems to come accross from the feedback I've had. I'd welcome comments as ever. The Circles project has been a bit of a watershed in so far as I'll take time out from the usual source material for my work and try to do something a bit different for the next project "Auto Pathology".  It's been on the back burner for a long while and now seems the time to complete a thorough examination of my and those around me's relationship with all things medical. It's a long story but hopefully it will all make sense, so from witch doctors to councelling via psychology here goes! Meanwhile I continue to "fine tune" Circles but it's certainly ready for it's own page on the blog. I have added some material from the same and hope you like it. This Saturday sees another opportunity for live work at a fund raiser for the "Lightbulb Festival of the Arts"  which will take place in Colchester from July 11th to 14th. Please, please back this if you can. Better still come along to 15 Queen St, Colchester from 7pm onwards to see some great acts strutt their stuff! I'll sign off now but do please look to the "Circles" page link to get a flavour of what the last nine months have been about in Mark (poetry) world! See you at an event nearby soon!

Update W/C. 24/04/13

Sorry its been so long but pressures of study and other commitments have dominated, the good news is we're nearing the end of the academic year so there will soon be time for more regular poetry ramblings!    All has not been quiet however and I'm pleased to say a very big thank you to Colchester Poetry for the recent open mike on 13/04/13 where I was able to vent regarding the topic of bullying, which is a real bug-bear of mine. I'm passionately against the strong (usually backed up by several cohorts) picking on the weak and I am very grateful for the positive feedback I received on the night. I was quite undecided about whether I should go for it or not and I'm glad I did. The "Circles" project is in its final stages (I promise) and will be finished soon. I thought to add the poems I performed on the 13th of April here. I promise that everything in "Comprehensive Indeed" is true, it contains strong language (for me anyhow) so I've posted it last in the latest entry. The poem is from my first offering "Minutiae" from 2010. I've included "Daughter of the Beat" my peon to Jan Kerouac, daughter of Jack Kerouac founder member of the beat poet movement and "Rear View" which is dedicated to one of the more difficult life moments I've endured. Both are part of "Circles". As ever I'll be grateful of your feedback and comments and I sincerely hope to catch up with you at a poetry event soon.....

Kind regards
Mark

Daughter of the Beat

At first, like everyone we ever see, she’s an image, an assumption

Gazing from the page at me, from a time before I’d even heard

Her name, let alone stood on the cusp of these innermost thoughts

Lain bare as words for all to read.

I know my walk in this garden of candid prose will be unique

Seeking more than others seek, I'm following a path that’s

Mine to find, revelations from between the lines leading to

Appreciation.

On the day the photograph was taken, if I’m not wrong, her eyes

Reflected more than a cameras lens. An energy reaching out

Decades on – a fragile being, aware of her mortality

Knowing she’ll soon be gone.

Smiling, I'm enjoying alternating shades of light and dark

Finding depth beyond a perfect face, colour beyond

Black and white, happy that words can endure death

Making more than fitting epitaphs – they tell a story.

It’s through her words the beat goes on, she herself

Has gone but if eyes are indeed the gateway to a soul

I wasn’t wrong. Turning the final page I also offer words

Hoping she’s found the peace that she deserved.

Rear View

All I had to do was subtly glance behind me

A surreptitious rolling of the eyes

To see you there, sitting in my present

Yet somehow belonging to the past

I wanted to see if I still found you beautiful

Traced the familiar contours of your face

A numbing sadness tugging at my heart

Feelings from another time and place

I heard your voice in the here and now

Felt your presence just behind

Not something I had to recreate

From the forbidden corners of my mind

Wishing I could say I hadn’t felt the yearning

A desperate desire to re-connect

Resolutely I drove on through gaps of silence

Always one to humbly genuflect

With trepidation I felt the old fires burning

Of the love you’d chosen to reject

I’ve often tried but there’s no going back

No dressing the wounds of your neglect

Wisdom’s lines trace the pain of learning

Framing the damage that’s been done

I pull away with no thoughts of turning

No more rear-view glances at “the one”

Comprehensive Indeed

Lined up like wide-eyed frightened meerkats we await the verdict

Delivered from sneering faces of contempt part hidden by big brother

(And there’s always the guardian angel-rock-ape that waits outside the gate

Of this hellhole, after school, the ultimate tattooed guarantor)

Fingers pointing they progress slowly down the line

A single phrase, a word, mark of the beast conferred:

“He’s a poof, he’s a poof, he’s a poof, he’s alright, he’s a poof”

Said with an amazingly dispassionate contempt

And now for the less fortunate it starts:

Bullying, shoving, sneering, name-calling

And those endless portent laden threats

I’ll get you after school

I’m going to kick your fucking head in

Give us a sweet you poof (always “you poof”)

As if they even know the meaning of the word

Powerless teachers often fare no better

Pale timid mediators that our tormentors know

Can’t be everywhere

Can’t be outside the gates

Where their spineless jurisdiction ends

On the sprawling estate

I swear there are vines hanging from the lampposts

To help the rock apes swing their way to school

My punishable crimes: A briefcase not rucksack

No standard issue Doc Marten boots (in brown or black)

The branded gather in clusters at playtime

Frightened little penguins, bewildered, scared, lost

When the bell goes the buildings spill their stomachs

From the upper floors looking like a swarm

An eruption of scurrying

Faceless ants

ii The Tools of the trade

The shove

Safety in numbers

A Big brother or two

And (preferably) a rock ape for extra immunity

A cover all insult

“You poof”

A flexible threat

“I’ll get you after school”

(Effective even if you don’t follow through)

The threat produces a sick sinking-stomach feeling

Making the victim recipient sweat for hours, fart with fear

The realisation of the portent:

“I’ll kick your fucking head in, you poof”

iii How to be left alone

Obey the law of the jungle!

A hapless victim will be selected for you

Unwilling gladiators we form up

Before the bully overlord and his gang

For their delectation and delight

I can see his sneering face

He knows you’re a spineless shit

More afraid of him by far

The bully cook book recipe:

A pinch of Insults lightly stirred

A seasoning of shoving

Lots of “you poof” for a fuller flavour

Then get kicking!

A Doc Marten to the shins

Or windmill punches to the crying reddened face

You’re learning fast!

A revolting piping hot dish will soon be served

Blood spattered, for good old bully, already salivating

At the prospect of the feast

Show no mercy under any circumstances

The more your overlord grins the better you’re kicking the shins

Don’t forget when they go down a kick to the nuts

The victim is a “poof” anyway, they won’t need them!

Iv The day that friendship died

My dear childhood friend:

If it makes it any easier for you

Forgiving myself gets harder with time

I wish I could make amends

Turn back the clock and stand up for you

Your crimes: polished enunciation

Parents interested in your education

I can see the bullies surrounding you

Laughing, linking arms, forming a tight ring

Framing your frightened face, bed sheet white with fear

I can hear the chanting begin

“Kill the poof, kill the poof, kill the poof”

On a given signal the dance begins

Like a macabre vicious can-can

Doc Marten’s in unison, to the shin, to the groin

Every time you try to fall

They grab your collar

Hold it tight, kicking

Forcing you upright

Game over the suddenly disinterested circle brakes apart

To reveal your face racked with tears and pain as you stagger

Trying to walk, shooting a look at your cowardly “friend”

That says quite simply the friendship ends

I’m sorry

Wish I’d had a spine back then.

V Music teacher

I can see and hear you today

Clear as a bell in my memory

You had a beautiful voice

Long, lustrous blonde hair

And I can see your red face

Unwilling tears starting to form

Behind thick black rimmed NHS glasses

No interest in classic arias here

The boys at the back won’t listen

They’re too busy picking the next victim

Planning today’s playground torment

They merely jeer and barrack you

It is with great sadness I hear the news

A few years later

The throat that sang arias

The rope you used to hang yourself

Vi Comprehensive

“Here I sit bored as hell waiting for the bloody bell”

I will always remember that tribute

Deeply scratched into the wooden table top

Like a pale brown scar cut with a penknife, sutured by splinters

A mute verdict on algebra, geometry, Pythagoras Theory

A hundred things we’ve never had cause to use since

Five long, draining years coming to an end

Unbelievably they’ve put out squash, cakes and biscuits

To see us on our way, trying to create an informal party hat atmosphere

A fitting send off from the 1960’s build penal colony

We disaffected stand sullenly, shifting our weight

From boot to boot when a lone digestive is thrown

The air suddenly sports a display of cake

It’s a riot out of control!

The headmaster is called

And he bursts through the double doors

Mortarboard and black grim-reaper cape

Billowing in the wind of his assumed authority

A superhero like Batman arrived to save the day

We all pelt him, the mortarboard’s knocked off

Rolls impotently on the floor like a chastened dog

A trail of cream and jam adorn his high forehead, spatter his hair

He retreats the scene with undue haste

Then it’s over and we leave, just ebb away, like a retreating oil slick

No thought of a backward glance at the grey prison

Nowadays dying of concrete cancer, what a bloody waste

Vii A legacy

And there you still stand

Ofsted special measures

Re-branded Art College

Failure

I still bleed from your stigmata

Curse you when I drive past

Through the jungle-vine estate

Realising I’m scarred just like the table top

Mark Harris has asserted his right under

Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

To be identified as the author of this work.

Update w/c 10/03/13

Well, its been a bit of a funny old time on the poetry front not helped by flu and study commitments! However, I'm now well on the mend and bubbling over with ideas and keen to keep the new work coming! To that end I thought I'd share a couple of pieces from the current project entitled "Circles". The name is no accident - do we not travel in Circles going back to where we've been - re-assessing the decisions we made, the people we interacted with, the feelings we had and perhaps trying to re-create them, re-enact them? Maybe we're looking to re-live a situation with a different outcome?
The theme of circles goes deeper - yin and yang - the circle of life - the unbroken ring  - eternity......

If I look too deeply - it's the way things are and I won't change any time soon. For me my work must ask questions primarily of myself but we all struggle with the same universal issues at one level or another at some point in our lives. If I'm wrong well - tell me so - I'd welcome your comments and thoughts on the matter.....

Aphelion

I‘m clutching at receding shadows

Reaching back through time
To the years that passed
In a loving procession 

Genuflecting to a fleeting moment

When I freeze-framed your beauty
And hope shone within me
Like a palindrome of the sun

I can no longer feel our song

It’s insufficient to hear it
So I listen over and over
In willing supplication

Searching for you

Until my ears ache
Until my heart pounds
And my thoughts derail

I’m trying to experience you

To break through the eclipse
In the core of my being
And let the light flood in

To see your face in my mind

Recreate your touch
On a warm summer’s day
When love was the game I played

A half forgotten feeling remains

Locked in the vault of my heart
Awaiting authentication
Like a fake antique painting

Masquerading as a grand master

I willingly commune with the past
That surrounds me, unaccountable
Like an unfinished symphony

Your picture becomes memories
From the abyssal plane
So real I can taste them
In bland consolation

I’ll win you some day, over the rainbow

Petition the silence until you repent
And admit you were swayed
In that prefect sunlit moment

Zeitgeist

Forgive me goddess my human frailty

As I kneel before the feet
That once graced a marble plinth

I’m responsible for placing you here

Beyond the soiling finger prints
Of supplicant desire

I whitened you until you outshone

The feeble midday sun
But you failed to bless me with increase

Instead visiting my base soul

With a secular disease
And I ceased to be a believer

Now I return to the shell

My shallowness has left
And cry out your name

Knowing the bridges have been burned

And your immortal back is turned
So I bring no gifts or sacrifice

 

I approach this sad and ruined place

With a new reverence for the divine
Amid fading memories of your face


Now, the fun thing here is the first poem above starts with 'A' and the second 'Z' so there's a whole world in between...

Ring Cycle

The more things change

The more they’re the same
Perfecting the circle
An unbroken ring
Round to the start
Back to the end
Out of the frying pan
Into the fire
Disconnecting
Leaving a hole
Nothing there
Simply a hole
Nothing at all
Where it should be
You’ve asked the question
Asked what it is
Had the round conversation
Studied the ring
A circular system
The depth of the void
The answer lying
In the centre of things
A rotating ring cycle
An eternal wheel
Devoid of substance
Devoutly believing
What the answer can’t be


Some of the world inbetween is dark and some light so I'll finish with a bit of fun.....

Dreaming

If I kiss times full lips

And venerate the stars
Will I get to row my goddess
Down the red canals of Mars? 

If I win Saturn’s glowing rings

Place them on her slender fingers
Can I get walk her 
Round the gardens of the sun? 

Will we dance together

To the music of the spheres
Riding on our moonbeams
‘Till morning light appears?

Will the polar caps of planets

Be pillows for our heads
Or should I stop my dreaming
And live reality instead?

I'm looking forwards to giving birth to Circles.......

Well, that's if for the moment I look forwards to meeting you at another poetry event soon

Keep looking on the connections to Colchester Poetry for local events!

Until then.......

Warmest regards
Mark

Mark Harris has asserted his right under

Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
To be identified as the author of this work.

W/C Sunday 27th Jan

Had a very enjoyable couple of hours at the Sunday Matinee at Firstsite Colchester on the 27th which saw a wide variety of talent on display. I was first up and did the same set as the recent Open Mike as studying and a loss of I.T. for a few days mitigated against putting a new set together. However on the plus side not everyone had heard it before! The "Circles" project is progressing well and there will be some new material to share soon. This will be a quick in and out sort of post as I really ought to have my head buried in a book right now. However, I can't resist sharing an Emily Dickinson poem in the Gothic style number "410" from the year 1862.....

The first Day's Night had come -
And grateful that a thing
So terrible - had been endured -
I told my soul to sing -

She said her strings were snapt -
Her Bow - to atoms blown -
And so to mend her - gave me work
Until another morn

And then - A day as huge
As yesterdays in pairs,
Unrolled its horror in my face -
Until it blocked my eyes -

My Brain - begun to laugh
I mumbled - like a fool
And tho' tis years ago - that Day -
My brain keeps giggling - still.

And somthing's odd - within -
That person that I was -
And this One - do not feel the same -
Could it be Madness - this?

---------------------------------

I love the enigmatic quality of Emily's work, a great influence on me

Well that's the mini update over, hope to see you at a Poetry meet soon.

W/C 13th January 2013

Welcome to the first post of 2013 and it's been a busy week. Firstly there was the January meeting of Colchester Poetry on Tuesday the 8th and very enjoyable it was too. The themes of 'Berbatov' and 'Scavenger' brought forth some interesting work from all concerned. My own submission on the 'scavenger' theme will follow shortly.

Last night, 12th January, saw Colchester Poetry's first open mike of the year including poetry performances from Jonathan King, Jason McLean, Belinda Colaianni-Federl, SteveOvel, Steve Lawton and the 'Wingless Heron' ensemble of Tess Gardner, Phil Mill and Joe Elliot-Purtell, plus music from Alex Yandle, and performances from Modal Roberts and Mouth amongst others. Colchester has wealth of acts out there, so if you weren't there that's a flavour of what you missed, don't miss the next one! Follow via my Facebook friends for links to Colchester Poetry and the various performers and acts concerned to know more about them.

I've added a new page 'Minutiae' with extracts from the first collection of poems dating from early 2010. The collection is subtitled "the poetry of the first half of  a life" and tackles many thorny issues close to my heart. As ever I hope you like the poems.....

Now its time for the scavenging submission from Tuesday.....

Hyena

I pick the bones of my elysian fields

As clock hands work their way around

A sad face marking passing hours

Spent scavenging your memory

From pictures that besotted me

I pull ragged little bits of love

All night through my longing plays

Like an insular game of lone charades

A dark sarcophagus held your heart

I tried to crack its outer shell

And win your shining x-ray smile

With futile hopes that lie exposed

You left in such indecent haste

Now burning questions sting my lips

As I lick this poisoned chalice clean

Savouring its strange metallic taste

At the end of the path that leads nowhere

All the answers to the riddle writhe 

Within me, myself and I, like a splendid carrion

Served nightly in a thin membrane of dreams

Mark Harris has asserted his right under

Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

To be identified as the author of this work.

End of year week commencing 30/12/12

Well its been a busy year! I'd like firstly to thank Mr James Sarek for giving poetry in Colchester such a boost. The group aptly named Colchester Poetry only kicked off in February of this year when the town seemed very quiet on the poetical front. What a difference a year makes! There has been much organised to give local performers a platform to share their work, the most recent being December 15th when an end of year get together took place at Colchester Slack Space hosted by none other than Father Christmas himself! I'd like to thank his mince pie and sherry eminence for taking time off from more pressing duties in Lapland.
I'm certainly looking forwards to 2013, no doubt there will be more poems to be dreamt up and completed.

Meanwhile I'll share one of the poems that made it onto the Dec 15th set. Very much a "Winters Tale" of sorts. The poem is taken from "Germination" and you can find more from the same on the relevant page.....

 The Dance of Shadows

As darkness falls and the wild wind speaks

Like a moaning wraith in death bereaved

Making tortured scraping sounds

It whips across the frozen ground

A wise owl hoots his warning word

Not to enter this night time world

Of leafless trees, clawing like hands

They rise, yet tortured, from the land

Winter’s breath berates the trees

That dance in moonlight revelries

Ghastly forms spring from darkening holes

And grimly dance their shadows

The wind is rising, stronger still

Pregnant with night time’s eerie chill

Branches beaten into frenzy

Shadows dancing, faster, chanting 

The spirit of deep winter’s God

Blackens the land, with his cloak outspread

All light is masked, the land it shouts

For even the shadows are blotted out

I've also added a new page "Venus Veins" with some poems from my project of the same title which I hope you enjoy. The work comes from the high summer of 2010 and is very much part of a "journey through the soul".

Well, that's just about it for 2012, see you next year!

Mark Harris has asserted his right under

Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

To be identified as the author of this work.

Week commencing 09/12/12

Well, it's been a couple of quieter weeks on the poetical front as studies have taken priority but inevitably there's things, ideas, for new work swirling around the backwaters of my mind for the latest project I've given the working title of "Circles" to. However, there's also plenty of archive material to draw upon.

2010 really was a busy year on the writing front and I've added a new page from a project completed towards the very end of that year, 'The Body Curio'. The work was done on the re-bound of material I'd written for 'Testimony' which was completed in the autumn of the same year. Indeed, it was like 'The Body Curio' was a child of 'Testimony' and every bit as intense in places.

The subject material ranged far and wide and took the form of three distinct 'movements' of which I've only given a taster here, many of the pieces having been performed live in recent months. As always I hope you enjoy the new page and post.

I'll hopefully be back soon for another update!

Kind regards
Mark