All was at once intimate and public
like a note passed through a classroom.
Queues were forming at the check-in counter,
and by the river young men zig-zagged
their skates amid the maple leaves.
But here: mannequins, scarves, steaks
in Rocquefort sauce. These city nights are
brightened with cloud, the way the first
sip of wine sharpens the nerves of the mouth
and October comes with fire colours, fine rain.

The leafy green environs of central Leeds have rung with the tones of many fantastic performers, like poets Carole Bromley, Mike di Placido, Swithun Cooper, David Agnew and Patrick Kavanagh-award winner Michael McCarthy; slam champions Tony Walsh and Andy Craven Griffiths; storyteller Matthew Bellwood; music-poetry collaborations from Adam Strickson with Avtar Lota Singh, and Siobhan Mac Mahon with Sabrina Piggott; as well as top musical contributions from the bands Films, The Lovebirds, Artibella, and David Ward MacLean. Alongside the annual Slam Battle and usual open mic session, 2010 hailed the opening of a new Arts & Vintage Tent with a vintage fashion fair and striking modern art displays. We also launched our exciting poetry competition with The Literateur.

Many congratulations to Pascal Ansell, Thomas Ellison and Alex Valente for their winning poetry entries and to Chris Nevin whose entry ‘Nightmares’ is Highly Commended.
Click on the links below and have a read!

‘Organ Morgan’ by  Pascal Ansell

‘Taizé’ by Pascal Ansell

‘Two Birds: One Scone’ by Thomas Ellison

‘How Do You Write a Tune in Words?’ by Alex Valente

‘Masquerade’ by Alex Valente

Shell of a man, the mouth catches
A common cold, nasal husks. Organ Morgan’s
Fingers delight in Palestrina, and ears
Seldom hear dear mother’s lips screaming.

There it is. Pink and mainly grey.

Morgan, without the Organ, speaks a
Love of Bach. “Palestriiiiina” with rolled r
And wide I, he waits for tea and displays
Mental staves on the table, hands raised & ready.
Skew-eyed, he sits on the piano stool,
Rocks in organ euphoria amongst
Rainwash Wales tittering along.

Is Morgan’s Organ becoming Bach?
Choral voices Palestrina?
Knows, knows,
Mental states on black & white,
Duple tone archaic staves.
Whose causal connection in
The deep G chord? Eardrums purr in appreciation,
Misty enigma, Cartesian mystery.

Close to death. Dear Morgan’s
Slapped back – pewed into childhood church,
Jumped midway through vespers. It was then
That Palestrina hatched neatly for years.
Thirty-eight in total; it’s whisky that did it,
That and his love for full cream, roll-ups and red meat.

In the grave, under sods and heavily weighed by absence,
Does an organ amid Morgan plan a Palestrina mass?

Most mourners warm themselves, resolving that Morgan’s
Habits, hair, his stare,
His gait, chuckle, and manic drinking habits
Will froth heavenwards, unfathomable
(along with his Welsh).

Sun sagging and the priest sighs, questions his profession,
And at the wake, thinks about
Retreating to Rheims,
But late in the day it seems.

Kenyan djembes patter all around,
Christians queue for lunch like refugees,
And people walk and leer to their sound.

Long peals from bells flow through air,
And round the food they cluster like bees,
Kenyan djembes patter all around.

Benches abound while chairs are rare,
Coquettes stand straight and clap their knees,
And people walk and leer to their sound.

Profane and crass t-shirts worn without care,
Loud, Loud, they sing and tease,
Kenyan djembes all around.

At night, at Oyak, collectively they dare,
Sober yet innocent, innocuous deeds,
And people walk and leer to their sound.

Binding poles, connecting heaven in communal share,
Waves of heaving together under trees.
Kenyan djembes patter all around,
And people walk and leer to their sound.

—-
Taizé* – An ecumenical Christian camp in Southern France

—-
This poem was one of the winners of the Barefoot in the Park poetry competition.

They chewed their fatty beaks
Splitting salty feathers.
With tea breaks
With cream-cakes
With cheese & crackers.
With bread and butter
Dunking their half a stone
[Gained the week before]
That shattering chatter
Of eggs.

Yolkey and glistening
The craggy tips
Saw right up their cling-film skirts
Their sagging milky tea-stained tits.

——
This poem was one of the winners of the Barefoot in the Park competition.

How do you write a tune in words?
Or, indeed, the smell of morning.
The sound of thoughts
buzzing in your head,
is it like a swarm of bees?
But ideas are silent
until they crash, and scream.
Not that silent after all.

I woke up today
and suddenly
nothing happened,
and everything didn’t.

So I had breakfast.
Bathed in new light,
robed in the rays of the sun,
I sat in my backyard,
with a bowl of cereals.

Two, three, maybe four bees
buzzing around my head
as if sounding my thoughts.
Or maybe, just maybe,
curious about my cereals.

So I ate my breakfast.
Humming the words of a tune,
enjoying the morning’s smell
and the idea of silence.

——
This poem was one of the winners of the Barefoot in the Park competition.

I am the mirror
the multi-faceted glass
that reflects, but does not
think. I show.
I am the show.
Welcome all, mesdames et messieurs,
Damen und Herren, signore e signori,
ladies and gentlemen
to your masquerade.

With every mask
a new persona. Who am I?

A Little Dove, simple, pure
beauty. Simply I love him
his iris of diamonds
colours of his heart.
A Little Dove, white and
in love.

A Sad Clown, writing,
pining in the light of the
Moon, au claire de la
Lune. For her, my Dove,
my Love, who loves me not.

Amor vincit omnia, I say.
I am a Doctor, from Latin
or Greek (like the yoghurt)
to duck to quack look!
Vide! My bill a beak
a beacon
of bacon?
Meat, meat! The food
of the rich, of merchants.
I am rich, I wear the
Pantaloons.

Here we go again!
Tricks and pranks, mischievous
Clown, a Punch-in-the-box.
I am the way to do it!

Beneath the mask? A façade.
I am the horseman, rider
from Hell, the king of the
Herla, little Hercules.
King or Fool?
King of Fools!

For if you look well
beneath the face, I am
You.

Welcome all, ladies and gentlemen,
to your masquerade.

I was jet-set; she was jetsam,
Sea-shed, she said. I thought I’d get some.
Her father, fathom five, a pearly king – and mine
A king of men. My vowels cut-glass, hers estuarine.

The voiceless act was her idea. She thought,
Rather than bray with ladies of the court,
She’d bottle every glottal, stop her gob,
Avoiding censure from Papa (a snob
Who’d hear her accent’s tang of wave and wharf
And promptly call the wedding off.)

So, not another word was said.
Except within the curtains of our bed
Where, whispering sweet dark language of the sea,
She drops her guard and aitches just for me.

And when the light came, the darkness was confused and flew under the skirting. We tried to get it out with a broom handle and a ruler but it was like the time my friend’s room was infested with ladybirds which bred like ladybirds in her wainscot. I made the others leave and tried to coax it out. We talked about everything the moon and space what the darkness wanted to be when it grew up but still it hugged the insulation between the walls like a blanket. Eventually we left it and went back to the lounge pretending not to hear its gentle sobbing. Later when I returned to my room it was sitting wearily hunched on my bed waiting for me. Hello I said. Hello it said.

Throw,
the first stone, lover.
Who brought me from nothing
and to whom I have given less.
If I lie and promise sunlight,
would you understand.

And when I flail, through glassy words and porous silence.
Can I smile and say,
“That wasn’t me”?

Whilst the moon, calm and bare, reflects the inferno so honestly?

That three-tier phrase, the pyrrhic one,
that means one to the mouth
and two to the ear,
how far can you throw it?
Trust it thus.
Before love there was a feeling that needed a name.

We gathered today to live and love;
ever after there will be nothing ever was and what then to whom…
He thinks of his heart, and the thought combusts;
To do so is sacrificial.
Like a kite,
run with me.
I’ll do tricks for you.
Beneath a chorus of kisses that form constellations of wishes.

“I wish I had loved you more”, remain the worst words.

Instead, calculate the weight of a million nerves waiting for a kiss to the lips.
The core to the string to the skin to your sandpaper lips,
etched with a hundred wallpaper cracks that peel in winter,
to the tongue to the muscles that writhe like no muscle should.

And think no more of