~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (the poetry) WORM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 8
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Fran
-------


(Ah, Fran: as light as the stakes
on which you train organic beans).

"On the third day, I'll toss my sprouted lentils
in virgin oil, with ruccola
and alfalfa. Or perhaps Blue Dolphin salad
if the Chinese leaves are crisp.

It's important -- you have to understand --
eating can be deadly. So much empty food
everywhere: empty food. Yet
you could cross the Andes barefoot
on a bowl of quinoa."

Sometimes, guests bring chocolate:
dark, eighty-five percent cacao,
noir absolu. She'll read the wrapping
in French, German, Dutch: "chocolat
extra fin, puur, bittere, kwaliteit...

Poison."


© Christina Fletcher

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I Dance
----------


I am not a natural dancer.
When presented with
the opportunity to jive or waltz,
do the two handed reel, jig,
quick-step or shuffle;
I retreat.

I am not a natural dancer.
When presented with
the opportunity, I retreat;
excuse myself, stand at the bar.
I watch. And in my mind
I dance.



© Brendan Flanagan

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…R ……….E
F …I …..G …....PoeM
…..….D

I am supposed to be cold, solely cold and rightly so;
I like to do what I am told,…like be cold, a wee bit
arctic, sufficiently nippy to freeze the toes off
under the bedclothes But there are those who are not
well disposed to simply de-icing the freezer box.
They want more of me; they need me to be a sticky note
for any night thoughts, the door of the ark with its clinging
menagerie, a broad minded bulletin-board
yet so polite holder of the school pick-up rota,
a page for those bland magnetic haikus, I ask you,
they're as good as fourteen soulless ice-cubes. Why can't
they leave their poems in the attic? Is their twaddle
retribution for the Titanic? I am daily
accosted and touched up by low culture. My usual
cool is defrosting. Enough is enough!. I will be
a more than thermostat's worth, working up a primaeval
ice sheet, a thicker white than paper, much better
for keeping safe their imaginings. Let them write on that!


© Bruce Barnes

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The Last Train Out
--------------------------

It was a clammy evening,
Far too early for autumn.
One of those sallow days when,
Giving the sun up for lost, the best leaves turn,
And show their ribs.

Fruitless and wandering,
I found myself at the ticket booth
without a destination.

'How much to there and back again?' I asked.
My unspent purse ached
So I tipped the bright coins out onto the grey counter.
There's no Awaydays here' he said,
'All singles. No return.'

'A single, then. I might as well. With First Class supplement.'
'It's all the same' he shrugged and,
Passing the tab over the sill,
Closed the hatch.

Waiting for something to happen,
I sat in the dust that shrouded the empty platform,
Until, slow as a dream, the train eased in.

And I eased out, going somewhere or nowhere,
Watching the dull day slipping into dull night,
The carriage cold as a wet fag-end,
And all that was home receding.

Hypnotised by the flicker of passing fences,
I dozed my way out of the county
Until all I could hear
Was the muffle of clattering wheels over points
Like the pattering of a failed heart.

I woke with feet as cold as corpses,
And, hearing a nasal tannoy twang 'All change', vowed
To hurry back the quickest way
And not look back.

To find a sweaty pub that served warm beer,
Hot chips and empty girls,
And hold onto the pointless things I'd fled,
All for a journey.

I found the guard and gave him a fiver for information.
That was a waste of time.

So, here I am.
Ushered out through the last station
Into the endless night of some dead-end town.

His ghostly valediction echoes still;
'There's no connecting trains from here.
We're late.
And so are you.'


© Terri Eynon

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what the frost says
--------------------------

the frost speaks
of virgin dawns …and old men

the frost says …there is no death
life
is the vanishing …too quick …to see

the frost says
beware …my brothers
…………of the flame
………………………angels
do not rise …again


© John Carley

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Eggy Palmer (extract)
-------------------------------

Help me Hob
Help me - Help me
Hob - Hob - Hob
Odd job Hobchap
Of twilight nap
Are you real again
And hear me shout?
Little darkly
Housey-holder
Please come out
A mischievous one
Has been about
Who had eggnog?
Who molly-coddles
Kidlings
With an egg?
Did the shell crack
Perhaps?
Did it diddems?
Who let out
A seeping
Sidling
Slipping
Trick-ster
Eggy Palmer is about
See his threads
Within the pan
Oozing out
We know him well
See him in the
Kitchen
Sneaking
Come out

Come out
We know you
Leaked
Right out your shell
Witchy kid
Kitchen harmer
Slither hither
(Not unheeded)
Eggy Palmer
Eggy Palmer
He's been here
Lumping cushions
Blacking butter
Tarnished knives
Little telltales
Bits in forks
Tell us
Of his wicked
Binding talk
Curdling
Clumping custard
Sleepy eyelids
Muttered clotting talk
Did eggy kid
Pasta stick,
Pan base thick,
Clarting,
Turning,
Hardening,
Stiffening,
Everything?
Who did this?
Where is this
Trickster
Anyway?
Hob says, - "Hey"
Hob?
Oh here's Hob
Twilight admonisher
House punisher
Of wayward spirit
"Where is it?"
"Where is it?"
"There is it"
In the plughole
'Help me Hobman'
'I've a plan'
"And so do I"
"I help ee"
Beware
The Hob
When he speaks
Kind
Rather
Hear the Hob
Be of a
Scolding mind
"Come on Eggy"
"Let me help ee"
"Sit upon the
Cocky boat
Of half an egg
As hatched ee"
Then
Snap a thumb
Is set upon
Lid of boat
That's set for drain
"Eggy Palmer"
"Sails away"
"Away away"
To turn to frogspawn
Good old Hob
Little darkly
Housey-holder
Twilight creeps
And does his job


© Adrian Spendlow

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Night Train
---------------


Someone has been dreaming.
Darkness yawns. Snowflakes ease
themselves down onto the thin
shoulders of her windowsill.

All is blue ink night and
silver white. The slow surface
of sky freezes the neck
of Goosedown Lake. The field

beyond is border blue,
hinged to sky. Somewhere
someone dreams. The flannel
of her eyes searches for

something. On a crisp bed
of edges she drinks in
night and recites, I don't
I don't. Along the ridge

a train opens its throat
mourning, You-Do-You-Do,
and now everyone knows.
She speaks softly into

palms of silence and dreams
of sleep, lost ecstasy,
the shrill singing of stars
to the cold and brassy

back of the sun. She dreams
someone has been dreaming.
If only it were she.
Frost on the windowpane shines.


© Maryann Hazen-Stearns

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Alien Nation
----------------


He breathes softly,
clouds the pane
fading slowly
from the outside in,
then smears a small
circular spot
to which he puts
his eye,
a single drop
running to the sill.
A solitary audience
distanced as the
play unfolds,
observing,
estranged
outsider
in
looking out.


© Brendan Flanagan

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Mind of a Dreamer
--------------------------

Rice and beans would never be served in this new house.

She would not sully the off-white, semi-gloss kitchen paint.
The ingredients required were too strong.
They would stick to the walls and declare their identity in front of
company.
It would leave spic lingering in the back of their throats, burning
mojillo into their nostrils.
The spice-laden walls would scream "arriba arriba we arrrrre
latinos" at everyone who entered.

Or so she thought.

She never really understood the American dream.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then a dream must be in the
mind of the dreamer.

This dream mandated that she trade in her Goya and aji, for Rice-a-
Roni and Stove Top Stuffing.
There would be no meals that took hours to make and years to perfect.
No intricacy, no delicacy.

All recipes would take ten minutes or less.

All seasonings would come in neat, factory-sealed, pre-packaged
little packets.

The titles would read two-second meatloaf, on-the-go casserole, out-
the-door shake and bake, no-time-to-breathe brisket.
She lived a microwave-safe, just-add-water existence.

She never understood the American dream.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then a dream must be in the
mind of the dreamer.

She no longer spoke Spanish, and forbade us from it also.
She put a channel block on Univision, and Telemundo.
We could still watch the Playboy channel; it was in English.

She took extensive, expensive classes to try to get rid of her accent
but she never rrrid herrrself of the rrrolling R.

She said if no one heard us speak Spanish they might assume we were
something else, something better.
We weren't even allowed to eat Taco Bell because it might arouse
suspicion.
She informally changed our name from Rodriguez to Rodrig.

My name was now Jose Arturo Miguel Rodrig.

She had crippled us.
We didn't have any roots to stand upon.
She tore out a living Papaya tree and replaced it with a store-bought
plastic apple tree.

She didn't understand the American dream.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder,
then a dream is in the mind of the dreamer.

I never told her I bloodied my fists on the faces of those who
assigned me names I did not identify with.
I never told her that I put hot sauce on everything in an attempt to
keep the latin inside me burning.

I did not tell her that my dream of America
embraced all the things I am.
That it builds upon my past, instead of trying to pave over it.

For what good is beholding beauty, if you see yourself as ugly.
What good is a dream if you're not in it.


© Edward Garcia

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Tineke
----------


A still shot, torn at the edge,
shows her at twelve
about to leave school as a housemaid.

Her eyes will be dulled by occupation,
her family divided by politics
they will not understand.

Some will become Nazis
for simple reasons: extra rations,
some kind of status, a first taste of work.

Others will harbour old friends. Small favours
will become terrifying commitments.
Almost by accident
they will join the Resistance.
Much later, they will be applauded.

Her brother will die in a work camp,
be reburied in a war grave
too far to lay crimson tulips.
Her husband's hearse will be a frozen tank,
mortared on the Russian Front.

Displaced, she will walk
to nowhere, dive into ditches
when Spitfires shower bullets.
She will shudder,
starve and survive.

Her uncle will shave her aunt's head.
All will be whores or heroes.
Her scars will be her silence.


© Christina Fletcher

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……….……………Nature's Chronometer
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……………..……..…………Light,
………………………..as falling cobwebs,
………………………they parachute to earth.

…………….…Wind blows, ………..…….Drifting,
………….white feathers, ………………….through skies
………...move on. ………………………....azure and grey.

……..Ageing, ………………………………...White feathers,
….almost spent, ……………………………….….black tipped,
…head, so white. ………………………………..…..sigh to earth.

Golden petals, ………………………………....No need of furrows;
…coruscate, …………………………………sun, wind, rain, time,.
…..by insolation. …………………………………….do the rest.

…….Silent stems, …………………..In thermotaxic Spring,
……….stretch, skyward, ……………..…..green shoots,
……………..yearning. ………………...clutch the light.

…………..…….…………Tap-roots,
…………..………………reach down,
…………..………….…engorged leaves,
………….……….……...climb upward.


…………………………© Trevor James

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After the Gardener Died
---------------------------------


After the Gardener died the new priest came
pink as a newborn pig in a collar too tight
mouthing the resurrection. We offered bread
and the salt of our wounds, but he had others to comfort.

'See how the snowdrops return each spring.'
As if dry twigs can crack with honey buds.
'See how the acorn falls and the forest grows.'
And the bones of last autumn's leaves will blow in the summer breeze.

I found the packets of night scented stock in the garden shed,
well out of date and no-one to plant them.

That's how we buried him, shrivelled and dead,
marking the place with a label, like seeds in spring.
Then we walked home, leaving the pink faced priest
washing the earth from his hands.

I put the kettle on. You opened packets of cakes.
Not for the catkins blurring the graveyard hedge,
Nor for the croci returning in regular beds.
But for the sake of a midwinter silver finger,

tracing the spirals on cold stone walls,
for the mitochondrial shadows
in the cells of ancestral tombs.


© Terri Eynon

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Godtalk
-----------

Right into the middle of a conversation he drops the word God.
We were talking about yoga and karma and reincarnation when he just

happens to mention it. If I came back as an ant would you step on me?
It was like something the cat dropped on the table, undoubtedly dead

with something dribbling from the side of its mouth. I wouldn't mind
coming back as a cat. Nothing to do all day but eat sleep crap.

Would you have me done if I came back as a cat? He's the sort
who would mention God in the middle of a conversation: I bet

he's the one brought the Blue Nun standing undrunk on the sideboard
among ruined quiches, canapés and that awful smelly cream cheese.

If I came back as a bee and you as a rose, could I pollinate your pistil?
The man who mentioned golf has the picture of a golfer on his jumper

and doesn't play golf. Let me not, please God, come back as him.


© Steven Waling

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We gratefully acknowledge the support of:
North West Arts Board & Mid Pennine Arts

Celebrating Year of the Artist
June 2000 ~ May 2001
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