James Garry
Christopher Barnes
James Garry
Sometimes You Belong
You've been laid up in hospital wards
sickening for the wage-prompted smiles
or genuine care of nurses, Nigerian
or Filipino, you belong here sometimes.
Sometimes you belong
and the strip-lighting no longer reminds you
of the naked skies, the sun.
Sometimes you burn your skin
knowing only barricades,
no less a borderline between
the space without,
the space within.
Sometimes the footsteps and the callings
are monastic echoes, sometimes an aerial
in a lightning storm might be liberating.
Sometimes from the font of a bucket
detergent is swept cursive on the floors;
you can will its smell to lavender
and the colour of the walls doesn't matter anymore
for in the end everything
is either white or invisible.
Copyright © 2005 by James Garry
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Roadrunner & Coyote
Then the day comes it no longer makes us sad
looking back, remarking upon the covered ground,
that we just ran, called ourselves cosmopolites
ignorant of the terror of our tourisms
the protean fantasy
Alice and the Red Queen, perhaps,
or Roadrunner and Coyote.
Copyright © 2005 by James Garry
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History in the Phosphors
You always wore black, I observed,
four years of passing you in corridors
on checkered floors,
sometimes I'd want to say
Hello,
but I never knew you.
You'd always fade.
Then I came to be with you
shivering by the Thames
wanting bodies
at room temperature
listening to waves,
calm echoes of the embryo,
or sharing ice creams
of cookie-dough and cinnamon -
the obsidian beyond your innocence
the horizontal cries for help
faded now
along your wrist.
Why are you scared?
What do you fear?
Why and from whom do you run in your dreams
into the safety of the otaku world?
You couldn't answer. You spoke
as a neonatal lamb would walk
and not really needing to speak at all
for your dark clothes were language,
whispers chosen from a wardrobe.
And by black light you radiated
history
in the phosphors.
Copyright © 2005 by James Garry
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The Story So Far…
I've heard Spanish mumbles between motel walls,
I've heard drains pretend to be Koi ponds,
I've read the time from a Seiko diamond watch,
and had a pony bite my hand.
I've had the pleonasm of an A4 page
and shrunk my feelings into SMS,
I've felt lonely and I've felt fulfilled,
felt naked and camouflaged.
I've had the headache of halcyon streets,
swam fully clothed in Kentish lakes,
worshipped at the Other Temple, have witnessed
my hairline recede like a religious faith,
I have lived beyond my means,
longed for meaning beyond this life,
I've flashbacks to a strobelight flickering
in binary of blue and black
had the comedown of two a.m. ambient tunes
feeling loved-up, befriended, and somehow lost.
I've felt fear before a long haul flight;
I've known what it's like to want to hold
that person who will never requite.
I've missed opportunities, kicked myself.
I've tasted chicken Malaya,
talked football, laughed,
promised "we must do this again".
And never did.
Copyright © 2005 by James Garry
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Contributor's Note: My name is James Garry, 25, from London. I am a psychology graduate and I currently work in a library. I especially admire the poetry of Derek Walcott and Hugo Williams.
Christopher Barnes
Wish Fulfilment
or Lament For The Rut In Male Fashion
In clock-back stardust
they pant.
A lion's share of peacocks?
Copyright © 2005 by Christopher Barnes
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Windscheffel And Stride's Day Out
Tender-conscienced ones
from Graybine Hospital's storms
bounce into Summerly's Snax.
There's rifts today.
You have untingled the world through lithium,
straggled,
wished for filtered tea.
A moderato's timbrelling (or a pomegranate
wriggling at the ear). Ah sound!
Copyright © 2005 by Christopher Barnes
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Windows In The Chelsea
a darker sun sets in the heart
than any that lit
The Chelsea Hotel
I'm crying for Mama
I'm crying for Adonis
tears, alphabets of tears
heavier than overdosing
on kosmic H-bomb blues
where cheap blades hide
under velvet undergrounds
and sleep sharpens
killer TVs slickered
like electric Barbara Cartlands
uncrownable Gorgons of the uncounted hour
someone cries for Mama
someone cries for Adonis
drugstreams in blood dance
bluesing through veins
islands of death, de-tox and shells
corroding rocks, fragmenting lies
and the S & M libido monkey
out of its tree
a brain with instincts
juices and smells
vomited out
riding a shaking-bellied Horse
smelling of southern race riots
no-one's idea of comfort
cowering beneath the naked bulb
Copyright © 2005 by Christopher Barnes
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Wife
before he was her
his wife was whale-buttocked
sandwiched
like a great Lynda-burger
between settee and plasti-grass
mayonnaised in all the domesticity
of a flannelette dressing-gown
they used to even talk
over zoology and the diets of bats
a cherry-menthol roll-up smouldered
in between gulps of comfort
and an off-white frown
sometimes she stood up
zipped his sexuality up to the eye
and hooked together their stays
Copyright © 2005 by Christopher Barnes
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When Something Is Wrong With My Baby
The evening has a thousand pieces
and we and the songs on the radio
are just some of them.
I unbutton his indulgent shirt, submit
a hand, fasten on the left nipple.
Hum the familiar refrain. We twist
with the lingering purr of music.
An hour is a number of heartbeats,
full motion from the car's heater, a number
of glances. Being gay, he is tremulous
to prove his devotion openly,
the clatter of jackboots
always expected…above the guitar.
Copyright © 2005 by Christopher Barnes
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Contributor's Note: in 1998 I won a Northern Arts writers award. In July 200 I read at Waterstones bookshop to promote the anthology 'Titles Are Bitches'. Christmas 2001 I debuted at Newcastle's famous Morden Tower doing a reading of my poems. Each year I read for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and I partake in workshops. 2005 saw the publication of my collection LOVEBITES published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh.
I have also got a BBC webpage http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/gay/2004/section28.shtml
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