Neon Highway Issn:1476-9867
Issue 18
Contents
Note from Jane: 3-4
Michael Lee Rattigan: 4-5
E. Seymour: 5-6
A.D. Hitchin: 6-7
Laura Montauti: 7-8
Patrick Green: 8-9
Charlie Millar: 10-11
Anthony Ward: 11-12
Jennifer Lane: 12-13
John Feakins: 14-15
Alexandra Lister A.: 15
Tim Stiles:16
Kate Edwards: 16
Kavita Prajapati: 17
David Mac: 18-19
Tendai Mwanaka: 20-21
Terry Buchanan: 21-22
James C Smyth: 23-24
Joseph Farley: 23 - 24
David Sealey:24-25
SJ Fowler: 25-26
Anne Rees: 26-27
Submission and Subscription guidlines. 28-29
Front cover and images by photographer, Tony Knox
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonyknox/
Catching up with friends!
I have just arrived back from Paris after a crazy weekend of luxury and sleeping rough, experiencing beauty with my two artist friends, Dolores, and Myrtle. We had the most amazing time. First of all we took the tube to the Tour Eiffel, climbed all the way to the top.
Myrtle was crazy and got herself on the outside of the safety area, clinging on for dear life to scare us. She likes to do that now and again. . . We then lost Dolores but found her eventually kissing some strange man further down the tower. Later, we secretly slept under the tower after a crazy night out at Opéra Bastille where we saw a fabulous opera of Faust, music by PHILIPPE FÉNELON, made our way to 15 Place Vendôme, Paris, France, to the Hôtel Ritz, where Dolores had a good friend who worked as an assistant manager and booked us in to a suite, free for one night. It was the most luxurious night of my life!
And now here I am sitting and drinking tea in Liverpool watching the bin men taking take the early morning rubbish to tip. An old woman smokes her cigarette on her doorstep in her dressing gown. Enjoy this issue. Summer’s on the way!
Jane
Michael Lee Rattigan
Right Now
There's wind in the dark. A still night, with the sea beyond:
breakers white-hidden and flared by a light-house's sweep-
back-water rush, crowding foam in a hiss. . .
Deep, deep as cold.
Barely a car through the trees: lightless,
as a plane engine groans in descent.
Clocks compete with each other; sunday sameness
as the fridge cracks, a flame throws light:
gold-blue warmth, warm to the cheekbone.
Three candles scarred with bloody wax.
Pares are weightless this time of night;
dreamcatchers hardly stir a feather.
Life seen and felt now, freed to what's real in the moment-
as a clock blurs, melts, folds into itself-
catch me if you can, calls the clock.
On standby the radio, all its voices behind.
The lamp's shadow in love with the wall-
now, as ever shall be.
Air smells like nothing so much as nothing-
like that one for kids:
a room without walls, ceiling, windows, a floor. . .
A mushroom, of course!
E. Seymour
Because You're Worthless
I exist in a state of constant terror
Of unseen enemies
These spectres of
A hideous past
No forgiveness
They are self-damned
And I curse them all
They haunt my dreams
Slowly squeezing
A dying soul
I must crush them
Their accursed spirits
A.D. Hitchin
Beyond
Psychoastronomy beyond earthy mechanics
secret structures of future alien realms
sun dog eye-opener of Saturn musical outlaw – beat scene – he travels the spaceways radio on.
nebulas music drifting constellations, radar-like continents four hydra melodies, unorthodox bold
multimedia sample looped Saracen jigsaw
utopian space-race - techno past – passive - contact special of space, inner/outer
unhindered by structural angles, formula changes the punisher armoured warrior programme.
The Cult of Exultation: Initiation video (Initial Notes)
DVD focuses on mysterious woman of light -
her eyes inducing vertigo, glace lips dissolving all sense of distance in the empty room,
translucent, her curious iridescence filtered in fresco canopies- a kimono-style dressing gown cloaks
her meridian sunlight, encrusted hydra clusters presenting a cathartic, agitated vision, half melted snow
guru staining hotel linen. Egyptian cotton, glittering untouched conviction, silver chain gems snaking
her index- a compass of gilded pines transfiguring a wet forest dusk-these sheathed ferns of
collective history, crystal shells of presents, she straddles
the thick, mottled leviathan head of my unconscious-these scarlet curtains; imaginary handcuffs,
her subterranean cavern cult of exultation dedicated to bearers of light, the shepherds all blinded,
cataracts milky-white.
Laura Montauti
My magazine had a picture of you
Your anorexic mind needs a new thought,
No more bulimia for the soul.
You're an abomination of control.
All the voices were cruel
So the sickness took hold
And the disgust
In your stomach,
Is a sign that salvation
Was lost when you left your forest
In search of stars.
This view doesn't suit you,
Smoke yourself thin
Till all that's left,
Is your skull and bones
Wrapped in your summer clothes
You started hanging round with
The wrong type of clown,
Their insults became papercut's
That exposed your light
Across the headlines,
You're no front cover of glory.
You're this issue's tragic story.
Patrick Green
Who was the first doctor
Twisting and agitated, shuffling, mumbling
the doors await a new heaven to face.
A floral dress, a smile
shimmers and disappears.
All confusion dream state,
dead or alive now who's to know?
Sterile, clinical room adult conversation.
Ignored for awhile then 'hello friend!'
Have a drink,
onto your suit.
The walls are creepers without moving.
Want to reach for the corners and
escape, this block has no exits.
Talk, talk, blank fill, blank fill,
off and on, hot cold, here now, gone then.
Lie down, stay still, pinch skin,
mum, dad, blurred.
In god's league?
They've come to pack for the next life.
Floating wish suspended, see the situation
from a diamond perspective.
Reality zero, reality what.
Pull the threads and rip the curtain.
Under and out.
Please help you're hurting me.
Future use the power people in those fists.
For the walls are melting, feet bleeding.
The grass trying to run, slowing down.
Past rage illuminating bedroom,
spectacles leaning over the morning after.
A rare entrance of embrace.
Stones thrown as hard as possible
across an empty farmer's field.
Start of making sense of all the pills.
Charlie Millar
UNTITLED
So I rang Bernard this morning and I said
Bern, this is really important.
We have to be clear on what we agreed last time Bern.
and he says:
The chick peas
are done.
Shall
I boil an egg?
Coventry
Big Bombs
Newly Commissioned Art
And The Specials
all in one.
Anthony Ward
Apparition
I remember that afternoon
Whence I passed her in the street
Still I ran after her
Attempting to appertain an apparition
That I found agreeable
Yet she disappeared
As if she had not been there
And I had lost her once more
Standing alone amongst a crowd
Along the cobbled pavement
Of absent abandonment
I didn't even recognise her
I only recognised the memory
Jennifer Lane
Oltremare
Doll felt alive
As star-tears fell from the moon
That maybe one day
Would gush back
Back to the hands of the worthy.
And the doll was glossy,
Wet face shone,
Shone like the Aryan moon;
Pearls encrusted on her brow
Of purest space-silk.
As the living stopped
The stones moved
In perfect unison
To the beat of her feet.
Doll smiled in minor keys.
The music taught her
As it went: Cadences falling rapidly
Like pebbles singing
In cold water,
The melodies lapping
In her ocean mind,
Expanding and shrinking
As a ripple.
Doll danced,
A shudder and a flick
That tore cream linen from her shoulders
Bare, bare as the night,
Convulsing in moonlight.
And the moon wept on
As on the body of a sailor
Lost at dawn.
Doll praised
Exalted Pearl.
And Pearl.
Wept.
And the sky was forever set with tears.
John Feakins
Conjuror
He introduced himself
as an artiste, a red silky
handkerchief in the pocket
of his well-cut blazer
she was impressed
with the dark mystery
of his glinting eyes
and at once noticed
his well-manicured
nails, pale slim, fingers,
his neat moustache,
his confident gestures
the way he smiled
lifted his head
and knowingly
nodded at her,
giving her his full
attention and gaze,
his soft voice
and gentle manner.
You see, this is cunning
art, it requires an instinct
for deliberate deceit,
an ability to divert
the watchers’ eyes
from our essential
and important tasks
of dramatic revelation.
A cigarette appeared
from nowhere, a match
ignited, smoke drifted
and then vanished.
Alexandra Lister A.
How Often
How often have I sought you, when the lapwings skydive
and cry, and the earth is shattered by winter? Or when
the wind comes so cold on me from the bright
mauve peppered sky, and I, speaking your name
have stopped, wrists unbraceleted, the same
as before, yet different, separate? Why would
rain not be the same without you, or the grass, springy
underfoot not forget the tread of where you were, my love?
As often as I sought meaning in the corners of a silent hour,
in the loveliness of a single evenings English sky, in the
quick step along the cobbles where you and I have watched
the people go by, in every hour that I have known. And my
lips know too, when they kiss you goodbye, every bone
of the hand that has held mine in the heather and over
oceans, I know by sight or blinded, in the light or sunken
shadow of a dry open shell. You were there to find
when I said how often, how often I had sought you,
you who know not the fear of mine that days
are taken from us in hours. I’m in a sweet, strange
place now that the seasons have changed and I walk the
meandering lanes in mists and woodsmoke, alone,
rearranged, not quite without you, until the slow
choking start of morning breaks over the city, departing
so that I sometimes think perhaps I could forget you,
that we could be apart. I think it, but my heart, my heart.
Tim Stiles
‘sup G, you alright?
Aright? I’m alllllll night alright.
Yeah, I know. I know.
Kate Edwards
Back Where he Belongs
(After looking at a Jack Vettriano painting.)
I hope he’s back where he belongs,
I can’t be sure because I don’t know where that is.
Is where he belongs at home? Or with a lover?
Perhaps if the artist had called the picture
‘Back home where he belongs,’
I would be more certain the woman
he lifts and kisses so passionately
is his wife and not a mistress.
The flowers deceive, because men soon forget
to bring flowers into a domestic situation,
more often they’re an inducement to illicit love.
Something about the way the woman’s dressed,
doesn’t look like much like slaving at a hot stove
over a welcome home meal has gone on there!
Still, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt,
he’s probably phoned to say they’ll eat out,
perhaps he’s never stopped bringing her flowers.
Even that leads to further speculation,
are the roses a guilt offering? And if he is
back where he belongs and that is with his wife,
where has he been while he was away?
Kavita Prajapati
SPARK
If I could strip her essence down to its essentials, I would find an ore
a cluster of sapphire with a pulse of its own. Within it, intricate arteries
of thought coursing through at universal speed. In her pit, there is a certain
respect that reaches its cool attention to every porous life. And there is a
definite immediacy in the way she registers and aligns with chaos. An
organised soul, there she is as her own entity. The balm in her mouth is evidence
of loyalty, a partial stance no-one could match, imitate or contain for very long.
Elusive, keen – it belonged to her, she owned it like a centre of gravity.
Keeping a more finely tuned moral compass, an immaculate radar.
She would never come undone or become overwhelmed. Her side of the
equation always checks out without deviation – like elastic, her final verdict
resorts to the natural way. It has its own manual of laws, internal ones that
operate like a distilled stringent. She is the base of the flame, stiller than the blue
it inhabits. Sliced by her very line of vision, I can only watch, astonished along the way.
David Mac
The Actress
I am not in the mood for embarrassing situations
or sincere moments
today or forever
No slow-mo action sequences please
No soundtrack in the sky
No tender faces or heartfelt death scenes
I’ve no time for the movie you put on
just bad hassle, time wasting, soul
slicing, cut through, empty
me out, you
pout on the screen in your shit blockbuster
Ah, this pallid landscape
corny dialogue and awful CGI
Hey, darling, most things are fake
most things are made up
for big crowds, maniacs and madmen
fools who only wish to believe
something actually happened
something actually went down
fools like us, or
how we used to be…
Now the words have us and
tell us something about who we are now
who we’re supposed to become
And what I really want to do is
go out and get plastered, hammered
fucked up
with the actress Keira Knightley
and maybe
tell her how great she is
how beautiful she is
and that I’m in love with her
If you see her, will you tell her for me?
I would say it myself
but only when
we’re both on our way
########################
If Keira Knightley was here now
Love this life? Yeah,
well,
I’m still trying.
Life’s what you make it
but
I’m looking for the exit.
Don’t you get it?
Don’t let them take you in,
you little maniac!
Why can’t you resemble
Keira Knightley
smoking a fag?
Why can’t you be more like
that perfect creature?
If she was here now…
And you haven’t made me laugh yet.
You haven’t broken the ice.
You haven’t even managed
to crack
a smile.
There’s got to be more than this.
Surely there’s got to be!
(and don’t call me Shirley)
But for Christ’s sake,
take a look
between the sunbeams,
through the little rays of light
and tell me,
tell me,
tell me!
that you
see it too.
TENDAI R MWANAKA
LEADERSHIP
Everlasting leadership
of a born leader.
The leader in control
the led in responsiveness.
They think
and reflect together.
Like sunset on the windows.
LICKING WOUNDS
like excess baggage to lands beyond
vital young men shipped daily to
worlds-wild, of which they knew not
like wild beasts lived, like Lazarus, they
worked all day long, eating out of view
rich man's little crumbs. lumps and left-over’s
with contempt and aversion they were viewed
troops on troops, cattle, horses, carriages
across our vast abundant homelands
scrambling started, so did demarcation
bequeathing unto themselves rich lands
stretching beyond the reach of eyes
in bulk; gold, oil, silver, ivory looted
to enrich a people belonging not to us
leaving a honeycomb, nectar less, depleted
lowly tribal trust lands paired to dark ones
in townships, farm compounds, in prisons
in our own birth-right by a people foreign
and cool fertile highlands paired to light ones
and as oceans-apart, divided we stood
like prisoners in chains, dark toiled for food
and light harvesting milk: dark- tears and sweat
and light took all of dark's tears and sweat
which they feasted on to enrich themselves
dark in backward nameless enlightenment
light enjoying the best in enlightenement
dark to an enlightenement to slave for light
light to an enlightenment to master dark
in unlit, dirt, potholed streets, dark
loitered, leisured, shopped and slaved
but in streets like paradise's beautiful lands
light worked, ate, shopped and leisured
at war, dark against light for freedom
were sacrifices both sides of the divide
cripples, orphans and casualties
resulting in beautiful sweet freedom
but in-came another colour, light unlike
yet dark it remained and lied to dark
like a mosquito it cared little but sapped
continuously scrambling on a scale so shameless
taking all, eating all, sharing in nothing
in light the other people happily lives
in darkness, not of our own doing
we live and lick wounds still painful
why we had to suffer from all these wrongs
what wrong had we done, why us?
to deserve this disgusting dehumanisation
and how are we ever gonna heal these lames
who should really take the blame?
Terry Buchanan
James C Smyth
Stars Talk Down To Me Of Death
"We are weeping down in rains of stale
to birth to you our stories past and spent
of men like you and her
and loves in tearing flesh intent.
Loves in coffins wormed and beetle-dead.
Deaths like loves of Byrons flame.
Deaths like bangs of gunners,
oaks and reds.
Loves and deaths and loves around again.
And time will pass and leave
and death will die.
Immortal as we are
the winds are more
and as we see Omegas of your kind
we wait in kind to see the starless shore
and nought but black and windlessness shall grieve."
Joseph Farley
Salvation Of The Absurd
my whole life seems ridiculous,
a mad rush to the funeral home.
I feel the need to please
a non existent audience.
vacant stares come
from empty chairs.
if I had an athletic bone,
I would jump clear across the universe
and outrun both life and death.
once beyond puerile thoughts
of being and non-existence
I would meditate on
the gravitas of grapefruit
and other non sequiturs
that fill the space time continuum
with irrational exuberance.
for the rational
there is alpha and omega,
for the foolhardy, well,
there's heaven
or hell if you prefer
to think about it.
that's why not thinking
is the best course,
and idiocy is
the wisest wisdom.
David Sealey
the slow burn
The ember burns bright
buried beside pebbles,
flickers, flutters, dissipates
so close to wooden surround.
The birth and death of stars;
brilliant flaming balls
without air, breathe
anaerobically and die explosively,
extinguished,
casting finite light
recalling life.
SJ Fowler
(drowning in the Bosphorus)
The rivers of Turkey , I say
March twenty-fourth at five on the threshold of morning
The water hums in the teakettle
Ozdemir Ince
on the banks of Bosphorus
brawnly; the water lies panting
with silt thin on the surface like cigarette ash
it smells, the river, this close
the shingle broken from the beach
given sparse separation on the water save
it is unlike any river I have seen
before the mouth of Montevideo
I sit upon an island rock
broken from the land given; so wide is the river
the dirt in the water
flows into my nose and mouth
hacking and choking me
as I strain to swallow more
and then - a bellyful
I float like a gorged baby
sick and plump with tepid liquid
saltine and brine filled
weaving the enamel of my teeth
clogging my throat against my tonsils
it burns my eyes
I am adrift on a river of effluence
but I shan’t drown
flapping my arms like a seabird
a secret I shall relate
underwater they worship panic
they condition the body
so I have in the Bosphorus but not by rising
I am made of this water
I am not under this canopy any longer
for my body is full of the river
Anne Rees
THREE FATES, THREE FURIES!
A dark night, sleet stinging eyelids and lips,
Needling through the orange tents of sodium streetlights,
the broadest, most expensive lurid orange can’t keep out the sleet.
There is space, between granite kerb and shivering privet
for three to walk abreast, three sisters fill it
marching in belted macks, deliberately noisy
to define themselves against thrillingly imagined
prudes dark closed curtains as they pass,
self conscious in their bad manners, devil may care in one another’s eyes.
They are unhappy, hate their mother so they come out here
to fight the stinging wind in public, out in a black glamorous night,
ready to shout banter if anyone else has dared this sleet.
Mutually jealous, they cheer each other on, two link arms and shove, with jeers
the third who wields their shared lit cigarette, into the main road,
she swears and protests, they giggle at themselves, and, staggering, reunite.
Assyrian in their contempt for “hypocritical” decencies
they come down in violence on the chip shop out of darkness,
to serve the whole village right for never noticing their unhappiness:
they don’t complain. Bright-eyed, they wolf their chips
and cheek the chip shop lady. She wonders at their behaviour, because:
“Their Mam’s a magistrate and they’re such bonny, clever lasses!”
Neon Highway Poetry Magazine is edited by Jane Marsh and Alice Lenkiewicz. Neon Highway was set up in 2002 as a non profit making little poetry/arts magazine
Neon Highway (ISSN: 1476-9867)
Avant-garde
Literary journal
PUBLISHES:
POETRY and ART
Neon Highway is available bi-annually, with 2 issues costing £5.50, or a single Issue available at £3.00. Order your next issue by sending a cheque made out to Alice Lenkiewicz at 37, Grinshill Close, Liverpool, L8 8LD
Submissions
We prefer to receive work by snail-mail. Sometimes email is useful if your work format is 'experimental' or you have images and of course if you are abroad. For these reasons, email submissions will be accepted. On a general level, email submissions will only be read if we have time to, as we prefer to receive your works in the post. Please do not forget to enclose a sae for returns and replies.
Alice Lenkiewicz
37, Grinshill Close, Liverpool, UK, L8 8LD
Email: neonhighwaypoetry@yahoo.co.uk
Contributors copies
All writers and artists published in the magazine will receive a free contributors copy.
However, this is not the case if postage abroad runs outside the price for UK postage.
If postage exceeds our budget this becomes far too expensive for a non profit making magazine. We are happy to send you a free copy of the magazine, however, if you are abroad please do send us cover for the price of postage.
Waiting for a response.
Please be patient. We receive a high number of submissions. We are not funded or paid for this work. Neon Highway is proud of its voluntary contribution to publishing poetry of a high standard for no profit.
If you feel that you have waited long enough for a reply or you have not heard from us, please do not hesitate to email us at the link above.
We are quite happy to deal with your enquiry.
http://neonhighwaypoetry.WebStarts.com/index.html
Issue 18
Contents
Note from Jane: 3-4
Michael Lee Rattigan: 4-5
E. Seymour: 5-6
A.D. Hitchin: 6-7
Laura Montauti: 7-8
Patrick Green: 8-9
Charlie Millar: 10-11
Anthony Ward: 11-12
Jennifer Lane: 12-13
John Feakins: 14-15
Alexandra Lister A.: 15
Tim Stiles:16
Kate Edwards: 16
Kavita Prajapati: 17
David Mac: 18-19
Tendai Mwanaka: 20-21
Terry Buchanan: 21-22
James C Smyth: 23-24
Joseph Farley: 23 - 24
David Sealey:24-25
SJ Fowler: 25-26
Anne Rees: 26-27
Submission and Subscription guidlines. 28-29
Front cover and images by photographer, Tony Knox
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonyknox/
Catching up with friends!
Myrtle was crazy and got herself on the outside of the safety area, clinging on for dear life to scare us. She likes to do that now and again. . . We then lost Dolores but found her eventually kissing some strange man further down the tower. Later, we secretly slept under the tower after a crazy night out at Opéra Bastille where we saw a fabulous opera of Faust, music by PHILIPPE FÉNELON, made our way to 15 Place Vendôme, Paris, France, to the Hôtel Ritz, where Dolores had a good friend who worked as an assistant manager and booked us in to a suite, free for one night. It was the most luxurious night of my life!
And now here I am sitting and drinking tea in Liverpool watching the bin men taking take the early morning rubbish to tip. An old woman smokes her cigarette on her doorstep in her dressing gown. Enjoy this issue. Summer’s on the way!
Jane
Michael Lee Rattigan
Right Now
There's wind in the dark. A still night, with the sea beyond:
breakers white-hidden and flared by a light-house's sweep-
back-water rush, crowding foam in a hiss. . .
Deep, deep as cold.
Barely a car through the trees: lightless,
as a plane engine groans in descent.
Clocks compete with each other; sunday sameness
as the fridge cracks, a flame throws light:
gold-blue warmth, warm to the cheekbone.
Three candles scarred with bloody wax.
Pares are weightless this time of night;
dreamcatchers hardly stir a feather.
Life seen and felt now, freed to what's real in the moment-
as a clock blurs, melts, folds into itself-
catch me if you can, calls the clock.
On standby the radio, all its voices behind.
The lamp's shadow in love with the wall-
now, as ever shall be.
Air smells like nothing so much as nothing-
like that one for kids:
a room without walls, ceiling, windows, a floor. . .
A mushroom, of course!
E. Seymour
Because You're Worthless
I exist in a state of constant terror
Of unseen enemies
These spectres of
A hideous past
No forgiveness
They are self-damned
And I curse them all
They haunt my dreams
Slowly squeezing
A dying soul
I must crush them
Their accursed spirits
A.D. Hitchin
Beyond
Psychoastronomy beyond earthy mechanics
secret structures of future alien realms
sun dog eye-opener of Saturn musical outlaw – beat scene – he travels the spaceways radio on.
nebulas music drifting constellations, radar-like continents four hydra melodies, unorthodox bold
multimedia sample looped Saracen jigsaw
utopian space-race - techno past – passive - contact special of space, inner/outer
unhindered by structural angles, formula changes the punisher armoured warrior programme.
The Cult of Exultation: Initiation video (Initial Notes)
DVD focuses on mysterious woman of light -
her eyes inducing vertigo, glace lips dissolving all sense of distance in the empty room,
translucent, her curious iridescence filtered in fresco canopies- a kimono-style dressing gown cloaks
her meridian sunlight, encrusted hydra clusters presenting a cathartic, agitated vision, half melted snow
guru staining hotel linen. Egyptian cotton, glittering untouched conviction, silver chain gems snaking
her index- a compass of gilded pines transfiguring a wet forest dusk-these sheathed ferns of
collective history, crystal shells of presents, she straddles
the thick, mottled leviathan head of my unconscious-these scarlet curtains; imaginary handcuffs,
her subterranean cavern cult of exultation dedicated to bearers of light, the shepherds all blinded,
cataracts milky-white.
Laura Montauti
My magazine had a picture of you
Your anorexic mind needs a new thought,
No more bulimia for the soul.
You're an abomination of control.
All the voices were cruel
So the sickness took hold
And the disgust
In your stomach,
Is a sign that salvation
Was lost when you left your forest
In search of stars.
This view doesn't suit you,
Smoke yourself thin
Till all that's left,
Is your skull and bones
Wrapped in your summer clothes
You started hanging round with
The wrong type of clown,
Their insults became papercut's
That exposed your light
Across the headlines,
You're no front cover of glory.
You're this issue's tragic story.
Patrick Green
Who was the first doctor
Twisting and agitated, shuffling, mumbling
the doors await a new heaven to face.
A floral dress, a smile
shimmers and disappears.
All confusion dream state,
dead or alive now who's to know?
Sterile, clinical room adult conversation.
Ignored for awhile then 'hello friend!'
Have a drink,
onto your suit.
The walls are creepers without moving.
Want to reach for the corners and
escape, this block has no exits.
Talk, talk, blank fill, blank fill,
off and on, hot cold, here now, gone then.
Lie down, stay still, pinch skin,
mum, dad, blurred.
In god's league?
They've come to pack for the next life.
Floating wish suspended, see the situation
from a diamond perspective.
Reality zero, reality what.
Pull the threads and rip the curtain.
Under and out.
Please help you're hurting me.
Future use the power people in those fists.
For the walls are melting, feet bleeding.
The grass trying to run, slowing down.
Past rage illuminating bedroom,
spectacles leaning over the morning after.
A rare entrance of embrace.
Stones thrown as hard as possible
across an empty farmer's field.
Start of making sense of all the pills.
Charlie Millar
UNTITLED
So I rang Bernard this morning and I said
Bern, this is really important.
We have to be clear on what we agreed last time Bern.
and he says:
The chick peas
are done.
Shall
I boil an egg?
Coventry
Big Bombs
Newly Commissioned Art
And The Specials
all in one.
Anthony Ward
Apparition
I remember that afternoon
Whence I passed her in the street
Still I ran after her
Attempting to appertain an apparition
That I found agreeable
Yet she disappeared
As if she had not been there
And I had lost her once more
Standing alone amongst a crowd
Along the cobbled pavement
Of absent abandonment
I didn't even recognise her
I only recognised the memory
Jennifer Lane
Oltremare
Doll felt alive
As star-tears fell from the moon
That maybe one day
Would gush back
Back to the hands of the worthy.
And the doll was glossy,
Wet face shone,
Shone like the Aryan moon;
Pearls encrusted on her brow
Of purest space-silk.
As the living stopped
The stones moved
In perfect unison
To the beat of her feet.
Doll smiled in minor keys.
The music taught her
As it went: Cadences falling rapidly
Like pebbles singing
In cold water,
The melodies lapping
In her ocean mind,
Expanding and shrinking
As a ripple.
Doll danced,
A shudder and a flick
That tore cream linen from her shoulders
Bare, bare as the night,
Convulsing in moonlight.
And the moon wept on
As on the body of a sailor
Lost at dawn.
Doll praised
Exalted Pearl.
And Pearl.
Wept.
And the sky was forever set with tears.
John Feakins
Conjuror
He introduced himself
as an artiste, a red silky
handkerchief in the pocket
of his well-cut blazer
she was impressed
with the dark mystery
of his glinting eyes
and at once noticed
his well-manicured
nails, pale slim, fingers,
his neat moustache,
his confident gestures
the way he smiled
lifted his head
and knowingly
nodded at her,
giving her his full
attention and gaze,
his soft voice
and gentle manner.
You see, this is cunning
art, it requires an instinct
for deliberate deceit,
an ability to divert
the watchers’ eyes
from our essential
and important tasks
of dramatic revelation.
A cigarette appeared
from nowhere, a match
ignited, smoke drifted
and then vanished.
Alexandra Lister A.
How Often
How often have I sought you, when the lapwings skydive
and cry, and the earth is shattered by winter? Or when
the wind comes so cold on me from the bright
mauve peppered sky, and I, speaking your name
have stopped, wrists unbraceleted, the same
as before, yet different, separate? Why would
rain not be the same without you, or the grass, springy
underfoot not forget the tread of where you were, my love?
As often as I sought meaning in the corners of a silent hour,
in the loveliness of a single evenings English sky, in the
quick step along the cobbles where you and I have watched
the people go by, in every hour that I have known. And my
lips know too, when they kiss you goodbye, every bone
of the hand that has held mine in the heather and over
oceans, I know by sight or blinded, in the light or sunken
shadow of a dry open shell. You were there to find
when I said how often, how often I had sought you,
you who know not the fear of mine that days
are taken from us in hours. I’m in a sweet, strange
place now that the seasons have changed and I walk the
meandering lanes in mists and woodsmoke, alone,
rearranged, not quite without you, until the slow
choking start of morning breaks over the city, departing
so that I sometimes think perhaps I could forget you,
that we could be apart. I think it, but my heart, my heart.
Tim Stiles
‘sup G, you alright?
Aright? I’m alllllll night alright.
Yeah, I know. I know.
Kate Edwards
Back Where he Belongs
(After looking at a Jack Vettriano painting.)
I hope he’s back where he belongs,
I can’t be sure because I don’t know where that is.
Is where he belongs at home? Or with a lover?
Perhaps if the artist had called the picture
‘Back home where he belongs,’
I would be more certain the woman
he lifts and kisses so passionately
is his wife and not a mistress.
The flowers deceive, because men soon forget
to bring flowers into a domestic situation,
more often they’re an inducement to illicit love.
Something about the way the woman’s dressed,
doesn’t look like much like slaving at a hot stove
over a welcome home meal has gone on there!
Still, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt,
he’s probably phoned to say they’ll eat out,
perhaps he’s never stopped bringing her flowers.
Even that leads to further speculation,
are the roses a guilt offering? And if he is
back where he belongs and that is with his wife,
where has he been while he was away?
Kavita Prajapati
SPARK
If I could strip her essence down to its essentials, I would find an ore
a cluster of sapphire with a pulse of its own. Within it, intricate arteries
of thought coursing through at universal speed. In her pit, there is a certain
respect that reaches its cool attention to every porous life. And there is a
definite immediacy in the way she registers and aligns with chaos. An
organised soul, there she is as her own entity. The balm in her mouth is evidence
of loyalty, a partial stance no-one could match, imitate or contain for very long.
Elusive, keen – it belonged to her, she owned it like a centre of gravity.
Keeping a more finely tuned moral compass, an immaculate radar.
She would never come undone or become overwhelmed. Her side of the
equation always checks out without deviation – like elastic, her final verdict
resorts to the natural way. It has its own manual of laws, internal ones that
operate like a distilled stringent. She is the base of the flame, stiller than the blue
it inhabits. Sliced by her very line of vision, I can only watch, astonished along the way.
David Mac
The Actress
I am not in the mood for embarrassing situations
or sincere moments
today or forever
No slow-mo action sequences please
No soundtrack in the sky
No tender faces or heartfelt death scenes
I’ve no time for the movie you put on
just bad hassle, time wasting, soul
slicing, cut through, empty
me out, you
pout on the screen in your shit blockbuster
Ah, this pallid landscape
corny dialogue and awful CGI
Hey, darling, most things are fake
most things are made up
for big crowds, maniacs and madmen
fools who only wish to believe
something actually happened
something actually went down
fools like us, or
how we used to be…
Now the words have us and
tell us something about who we are now
who we’re supposed to become
And what I really want to do is
go out and get plastered, hammered
fucked up
with the actress Keira Knightley
and maybe
tell her how great she is
how beautiful she is
and that I’m in love with her
If you see her, will you tell her for me?
I would say it myself
but only when
we’re both on our way
########################
If Keira Knightley was here now
Love this life? Yeah,
well,
I’m still trying.
Life’s what you make it
but
I’m looking for the exit.
Don’t you get it?
Don’t let them take you in,
you little maniac!
Why can’t you resemble
Keira Knightley
smoking a fag?
Why can’t you be more like
that perfect creature?
If she was here now…
And you haven’t made me laugh yet.
You haven’t broken the ice.
You haven’t even managed
to crack
a smile.
There’s got to be more than this.
Surely there’s got to be!
(and don’t call me Shirley)
But for Christ’s sake,
take a look
between the sunbeams,
through the little rays of light
and tell me,
tell me,
tell me!
that you
see it too.
TENDAI R MWANAKA
LEADERSHIP
Everlasting leadership
of a born leader.
The leader in control
the led in responsiveness.
They think
and reflect together.
Like sunset on the windows.
LICKING WOUNDS
like excess baggage to lands beyond
vital young men shipped daily to
worlds-wild, of which they knew not
like wild beasts lived, like Lazarus, they
worked all day long, eating out of view
rich man's little crumbs. lumps and left-over’s
with contempt and aversion they were viewed
troops on troops, cattle, horses, carriages
across our vast abundant homelands
scrambling started, so did demarcation
bequeathing unto themselves rich lands
stretching beyond the reach of eyes
in bulk; gold, oil, silver, ivory looted
to enrich a people belonging not to us
leaving a honeycomb, nectar less, depleted
lowly tribal trust lands paired to dark ones
in townships, farm compounds, in prisons
in our own birth-right by a people foreign
and cool fertile highlands paired to light ones
and as oceans-apart, divided we stood
like prisoners in chains, dark toiled for food
and light harvesting milk: dark- tears and sweat
and light took all of dark's tears and sweat
which they feasted on to enrich themselves
dark in backward nameless enlightenment
light enjoying the best in enlightenement
dark to an enlightenement to slave for light
light to an enlightenment to master dark
in unlit, dirt, potholed streets, dark
loitered, leisured, shopped and slaved
but in streets like paradise's beautiful lands
light worked, ate, shopped and leisured
at war, dark against light for freedom
were sacrifices both sides of the divide
cripples, orphans and casualties
resulting in beautiful sweet freedom
but in-came another colour, light unlike
yet dark it remained and lied to dark
like a mosquito it cared little but sapped
continuously scrambling on a scale so shameless
taking all, eating all, sharing in nothing
in light the other people happily lives
in darkness, not of our own doing
we live and lick wounds still painful
why we had to suffer from all these wrongs
what wrong had we done, why us?
to deserve this disgusting dehumanisation
and how are we ever gonna heal these lames
who should really take the blame?
Terry Buchanan
James C Smyth
Stars Talk Down To Me Of Death
"We are weeping down in rains of stale
to birth to you our stories past and spent
of men like you and her
and loves in tearing flesh intent.
Loves in coffins wormed and beetle-dead.
Deaths like loves of Byrons flame.
Deaths like bangs of gunners,
oaks and reds.
Loves and deaths and loves around again.
And time will pass and leave
and death will die.
Immortal as we are
the winds are more
and as we see Omegas of your kind
we wait in kind to see the starless shore
and nought but black and windlessness shall grieve."
Joseph Farley
Salvation Of The Absurd
my whole life seems ridiculous,
a mad rush to the funeral home.
I feel the need to please
a non existent audience.
vacant stares come
from empty chairs.
if I had an athletic bone,
I would jump clear across the universe
and outrun both life and death.
once beyond puerile thoughts
of being and non-existence
I would meditate on
the gravitas of grapefruit
and other non sequiturs
that fill the space time continuum
with irrational exuberance.
for the rational
there is alpha and omega,
for the foolhardy, well,
there's heaven
or hell if you prefer
to think about it.
that's why not thinking
is the best course,
and idiocy is
the wisest wisdom.
David Sealey
the slow burn
The ember burns bright
buried beside pebbles,
flickers, flutters, dissipates
so close to wooden surround.
The birth and death of stars;
brilliant flaming balls
without air, breathe
anaerobically and die explosively,
extinguished,
casting finite light
recalling life.
SJ Fowler
(drowning in the Bosphorus)
The rivers of Turkey , I say
March twenty-fourth at five on the threshold of morning
The water hums in the teakettle
Ozdemir Ince
on the banks of Bosphorus
brawnly; the water lies panting
with silt thin on the surface like cigarette ash
it smells, the river, this close
the shingle broken from the beach
given sparse separation on the water save
it is unlike any river I have seen
before the mouth of Montevideo
I sit upon an island rock
broken from the land given; so wide is the river
the dirt in the water
flows into my nose and mouth
hacking and choking me
as I strain to swallow more
and then - a bellyful
I float like a gorged baby
sick and plump with tepid liquid
saltine and brine filled
weaving the enamel of my teeth
clogging my throat against my tonsils
it burns my eyes
I am adrift on a river of effluence
but I shan’t drown
flapping my arms like a seabird
a secret I shall relate
underwater they worship panic
they condition the body
so I have in the Bosphorus but not by rising
I am made of this water
I am not under this canopy any longer
for my body is full of the river
Anne Rees
THREE FATES, THREE FURIES!
A dark night, sleet stinging eyelids and lips,
Needling through the orange tents of sodium streetlights,
the broadest, most expensive lurid orange can’t keep out the sleet.
There is space, between granite kerb and shivering privet
for three to walk abreast, three sisters fill it
marching in belted macks, deliberately noisy
to define themselves against thrillingly imagined
prudes dark closed curtains as they pass,
self conscious in their bad manners, devil may care in one another’s eyes.
They are unhappy, hate their mother so they come out here
to fight the stinging wind in public, out in a black glamorous night,
ready to shout banter if anyone else has dared this sleet.
Mutually jealous, they cheer each other on, two link arms and shove, with jeers
the third who wields their shared lit cigarette, into the main road,
she swears and protests, they giggle at themselves, and, staggering, reunite.
Assyrian in their contempt for “hypocritical” decencies
they come down in violence on the chip shop out of darkness,
to serve the whole village right for never noticing their unhappiness:
they don’t complain. Bright-eyed, they wolf their chips
and cheek the chip shop lady. She wonders at their behaviour, because:
“Their Mam’s a magistrate and they’re such bonny, clever lasses!”
Neon Highway Poetry Magazine is edited by Jane Marsh and Alice Lenkiewicz. Neon Highway was set up in 2002 as a non profit making little poetry/arts magazine
Neon Highway (ISSN: 1476-9867)
Avant-garde
Literary journal
PUBLISHES:
POETRY and ART
Neon Highway is available bi-annually, with 2 issues costing £5.50, or a single Issue available at £3.00. Order your next issue by sending a cheque made out to Alice Lenkiewicz at 37, Grinshill Close, Liverpool, L8 8LD
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We prefer to receive work by snail-mail. Sometimes email is useful if your work format is 'experimental' or you have images and of course if you are abroad. For these reasons, email submissions will be accepted. On a general level, email submissions will only be read if we have time to, as we prefer to receive your works in the post. Please do not forget to enclose a sae for returns and replies.
Alice Lenkiewicz
37, Grinshill Close, Liverpool, UK, L8 8LD
Email: neonhighwaypoetry@yahoo.co.uk
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