No. 32
 
They’d blinked the apartment three times,
With an auld lang syne they bought it, steered in.
 
1. Hoar-frost from the scratch,
Waffly at windows.  A stint of grudging
The précis of a moot point – how long is forever?
Eloping from the Willet-Holthuysen Museum*,
Its rococo-mode glassware, mouldings,
Rinky-dink replica pantry,
Orchards at the gateway to 1998,
Lath-blocks deceive like an absent sky
Spare in the aftertaste of temporal design.
 
1. January.  A blizzard of rime, rigour,
Bleak dioxide.  Plucked oaklings
Thrashing whey-clad clouds,
An almanac of tinges – Rembrandt’s,
“Portrait Of Jan Six”, slithery vagueness,
Fingers, peeps at the patrician’s topcoat.
 
1. In a minute they were fracturing metres,
Disinfecting the mottle of time,
Sponging scars off the floors,
Unbundling Yangtze-Kiang mats.  Some days
A caprice of loving kindled, warmth inside winceyette,
A fumet, smoke wriggling from black diamonds.
 
*a house at Herengracht 605, refurbished with a fine
collection of period objects d’art.
 
(From the Amsterdam poems

 
--------------------------------

Northern Soul
 
I’ve danced a few stompers myself
Though usually at my own pace
Talced floors, slide-pinched
Flat-footed licks
Heart-stopping back-flips
And all of it for love
 

--------------------------------------------
  
Northern Town
 
A cd-rom’s phosphorescence
Perforates the darkness
Its letters all sorted and green
From the street I see the window
Lighted through the petrol fumes
And mistake it for the moon
 
The ethereal row is closed by houses
And a skip, empty at the bottom
We have been gassed
And might even die
We have lost the wishing-moon
 
Eyes and throats burn
A mist of toxins stabilise
Everything is grey
A seagull takes to the wing
Leaving streaks upon the air
 

------------------------------------------- 
 

Not Interested At All
 
It’s a love feast when you’re back flat
On the prayer mat where I crouch.
Your eyes rinse mine,
They off-slip to take the floor
To someone else.
My rosiness downrushes
To the ladder of your zip.  I inch up.
Wildfire goes molten
Between smiles.
 

-------------------------------------------- 
 
NO-THROUGH ROADS TO GIRLHOOD
 
An Ex’s Ys and wherefores
Become a cell jelly pouch,
Baby-building Velcro balls
In your identity chest.
 
Ancestral froth
Makes nano-index rotary connections
Cogs that jaculate the life cycle.
Congratulations
On your pink suspended promise.
 

 
© Christopher Barnes, UK 
 
 
 
 
Some bio details...
"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.
 
 On Saturday 16th Aughst 2003 I read at theEdinburgh Festival as a Per Verse poet at LGBT Centre, Broughton St.
 
I also have a BBC webpage  www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/gay.2004/05/section_28.shtml and http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/videonation/stories/gay_history.shtml (if first site does not work click on SECTION 28 on second site.
 
Christmas 2001 The Northern Cultural Skills Partnership sponsored me to be mentored by Andy Croft in conjunction with New Writing North.  I   made a radio programme for Web FM community radio about my writing group.  October-November 2005, I entered a poem/visual image into the art exhibition The Art Cafe Project, his piece Post-Mark was shown in Betty's Newcastle.  This event was sponsored by Pride On The Tyne.  I  made a digital film with artists Kate Sweeney and Julie Ballands at a film making workshop called Out Of The Picture which was shown at the festival party for Proudwords.  The film is going into an archive at The Discovery Museum  in Newcastle and contains my poem The Old Heave-Ho.  I worked on a collaborative art and literature project called How Gay Are Your Genes, facilitated by Lisa Mathews (poet) which  exhibited at The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University before touring the country and it is expected to go abroad,  funded by The Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute, Bioscience Centre at Newcastle's Centre for Life.  I was  involved in the Five Arts Cities poetry postcard event which exhibited  at The Seven Stories children's literature building.  In May I had 2006 a solo art/poetry exhibition at The People's Theatre why not take a look at their website http://ptag.org.uk/whats_on/gulbenkian/gulbenkian.htm
 
The South Bank Centre in London recorded my poem "The Holiday I Never Had", I can be heard reading it on www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=18456
 
REVIEWS: I have written poetry reviews for Poetry Scotland and Jacket Magazine and in August 2007 I made a film called 'A Blank Screen, 60 seconds, 1 shot' for Queerbeats Festival at The Star & Shadow Cinema Newcastle, reviewing a poem...see www.myspace.com/queerbeatsfestival"