May 2011
16 posts
The Last Drink - Sian S. Rathore
this is the last drink hands wrapped round our glasses, eyes shoot awkwardly over warming brandy alexander this glass was a grounding totem when it was still full then this one is the last drink because it’s gin and lavender “are you trying to get me drunk?” or are you trying to get me pregnant? this is the last one in the hotel lobby for a nightcap before you put me in a taxi,...
Any Other Name - Sian S. Rathore
my friend’s son always tells women he would have had their name, had he been born a girl and they, puzzled, cannot understand if this is true but must agree with his father’s blue eyes, his red, round chin-flesh wet with juice as he stretches out a sticky hand and says: “I’m very pleased to meet you” and enchanted by his charm, the boy is so young his age is still...
I Used To Imagine The Afterlife Was A Lot Like A...
trouble sleeping or trouble waking up the breath of afternoon is still like the air on the moon still, like a mood caught on film whose celluloid melts at the edge. Unaware of its admirers and critics their greasy fingertips, the smudge, the smears their biological stamp, their uneasy imprints, the acrid stench of burning acetate darling boy, how the breathing stings when I let the smoke make...
At The Book Signing - Sian S. Rathore
There’ll be a book written for this, whereby at the launch
I’ll find myself in the crowd asking, “how’s he doing? The author, that is? Is he still adding strawberries to his Morning muesli, did he end up with the PR consultant From Sussex, in the end? You, how are you doing? Will you sign my copy of this collection? It’s your best Yet, do you still smoke? Or have you given that up, too?” ...
Dream Writing - Sian S. Rathore
The pills I am on give me incredibly vivid dreams. They are very rarely upsetting, and I have to admit I quite like the journey into my subconscious that happens, so I’ve taken to writing them down. This one I wrote down especially because it was the most vivid and intricate one I’ve had yet. I think writing down dreams makes us better writers, but then I might be wrong - maybe...
This One's For You, You Bastard - Sian S. Rathore
furrowing dry earth you rough-ploughed the new bought land, watered with fermented sugar drinks and plied the bleeding soil with alcohol and burrowed deep for truffles against the high-stacked arid hay-bails you in friction at your task could start a fire; you, not a farmer, but the farmer’s boy rebelling against the bitter violence of the unknown heather and sprawled amongst the long...
22:58 - Sian S. Rathore
I am a haunted house stepped by red-gowned priests and night-watchmen clowns in nights that blow the windows through, the blue echo lilting white drapes upward it is not unusual there are no dogs at the door they’re upstairs instead where visitors twitch with my theta-rhythms and their static visions shifting, like they were bent film in the projector’s reel here and there and old...
They Got The Doors Closed - Sian S. Rathore
They got the doors closed in the unsure building You’re surveying it now, it ticks the boxes
And only needs some treatment. You note that down Glad that they’d got the doors closed in the place.
There are only some cues of creaking prompting You to ask, but the house has learnt to read itself With unsteady sentience. You, surveyor, can’t be Worried or unsure; the doors have learnt to close...
Whose Voice-Box Was a Raindrop - Sian S. Rathore
I’m typically waiting for the Autumn. Fecund leaves as thick and crisp as snow The wetness in your breath aroused a flow From my apathetic slump.
The Dead Clown Down Cherwell - Sian S. Rathore - a...
The Dead Clown Down Cherwell
He had to tell me about the clown when I’d started to notice the smell of it emanating from my cupboard. Maybe I’d been too drunk to notice but he assures me that it happened the night that me, him and some friends went out drinking in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. The clown had showed up, and we were more than happy to have him drinking with us,...
WatchA child dances whilst her father sings to her. What could be more poetic?
Show Me The Monet - Is Nothing Sacred?
Starting last week on BBC2 was a new early evening X-Factor style program. You know the format; hopefuls line up in their droves with what they have to offer, sometimes good, sometimes laughably terrible, sometimes there are sob-stories of cancer and dead parents (NB - BBP is sympathetic towards cancer and dead parents), and sometimes you get that kid who really believes in himself, even if...
Poem of the Day
I like the use of language in this poem. Especially the line "All along the road the reddish /
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy / stuff of bushes and small trees" -
linguistically evocative and beautiful uses of half-rhymes and subtle language.
Spring and All
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast-a cold wind. ...
autistic poet gives rare glimpse into his illness →
I’ve often wondered about how an autist gets on with poetry, apparently unable to handle abstract ideas and yet with a tendency to describe things in such an abstract way that even fluent speech can seem poetic. This article took my interest, at least.
Queer Poetry and Bent Politics
The Sun today reported that our Prime Minister David Cameron would quite like to ban same-sex kissing on television before the watershed. Of course, this is ridiculous and unfathomably discriminative. So, in the wake of this, BBP thought it best to publish some queer poetry. Before the watershed.
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The Hug - Thom Gunn
It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
Half of the night...
Posts and Bridges - Sian S. Rathore
Two posts on the pavement and you
clicked them light
and I ached and stretched in the ray
I don’t like being ill
so why click the tune you know I’ll dance to?
making it start and jump
I don’t like it yet it halves me
both ways
This un-blue afternoon
I imagine clothes hung out and the
balance of grass and animals cued through
the...
