To mark today’s official launch at The Book Hive in Norwich of IS&T Press’ first publication TWELVE Slanted Poems for Christmas we are posting first lines/excerpts from each of the fine poems featured in it.
Factory Spirit by Bobby Parker
Tell your dad you are close to the beautiful
poem, living in a makeshift moon, running from evil
pictures.
Masterchristmas by Ira Lightman
This Christmas, I miss us. On the speaker
I can hear your voice. In both ears. You are not here
for me to say in person you’re precious.
Winter by Penelope Shuttle
is its own lonely scarab
no one doubts it
as cold days
lengthen
into winter-april
sheepfarm hours…
Broken by Julia Webb
At Christmas Sun Daddy started smashing glass
he started in his bedroom,
then swept tornado-like through the house…
Watch by Luke Wright
Like my Dad, my Christmas job, it seems,
is balling wrapping paper into bags.
Angels by Moniza Alvi
They fold their wings
over the wings of the house.
Over the Dementia Wing.
Finishing The Mill on the Floss on Christmas Eve by Carrie Etter
Minutes, I suppose, later, I raised my wet face,
blinked to sharpen the blurry
kaleidoscope of colour and form.
In The Bleak Midwinter by Bethany W Pope
At the ragged edge of the old year, when the dead
Thorn-spiked branches thrashed in the wind, I lived in a tree.
Spent by Andrea Holland
The days before that late day in December
are the dreadful tunings of instruments.
Room at the Inn by Tim Turnbull
Three Boxing Days in a row, scurrying across the Valley Bridge –
and this long before they put up screens to stop
the seasonal depressive lemming-fest…
Mother Goo by WN Herbert
McGueegueg smoothed the lacquered sneer of his quiff
and slid a harpoon-like forearm along the seatback,
rippling the russet leather billows of his Ford Peyote.
The Norwich Version by George Szirtes
After the dancing ladies and their ever-leaping lords
Christmas ran out of music, lost its melodies and chords…