Face/Off

Check out me and my face at the SPL blog! Also this poem that I made!

Better Words

hear the melody of names
blood-streams incantations
sound them like a spell

shearwater meadow brown
cormorant yellowtail

go topless in saltwater
feel the blaze in the eyes

the breeze tangling your hair
fingers tangled in your hair

palmfuls of horse chestnut
explosions of jackdaws
love and grassy jeans

witch-hazel valerian
ragged robin lady’s bedstraw

god or a thing
for which there is no better
word than god

the word that says there is one life
and we are in it

on your tongue
and spreading like petals
in the palms of your hands

is this dwindling list of flowers
may it be forever autumn

One more tomorrow...
Dave.

WHAT IS UP BITCHES

Hey, how's it going? I have been away for an altogether too long length of time. Updates: I have begun my job at the Scottish Poetry Library, working at the front desk! Check out our adventures through poems and cake at the awesometacular Our Sweet Old Etcetera. In other news, The Forest Café have published a beautiful little chapbook of my poems, and a sister-volume of my buddy Fiona Morrison's fiction, which rocks many socks. I have rarely had so much fun as I have had wrapping up and posting things to friends near and far. Whether it's any good or not is nigh on moot.

Other news: I met Jen Hadfield! We talked about creative writing courses and I was an excited fanboy. Doubtless she will soon be blogging about the experience. Also in the month of June, I started reading Charles Simic, Wallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. Americans FTW.

Also, the gorgeous Julez embarked with Anna on their mission to make the USA fractionally more awesome. They're intermittently blogging the experience here.

Here's a poem I guess. More tomorrow, and another the day after. RAISE THE FRIGGIN ROOF Y'ALL

How Jackdaw Made The Sky

Crouched among wet leaves
and looking up past streetlights
lining this car park, Jackdaw
waits, wings tucked in,
head tilted toward the tarmac.

Jackdaw’s haunches
clench and release, launching
those few pounds
of flesh, bone and feathers
away from concrete,
away from lamplight.

Feet, yards and faster,
Jackdaw’s wings spread
furlongs and further,
Jackdaw’s wings span
the breadth of the sky,
tearing wing from wing
feather from feather
Jackdaw’s beak
space-black, world-black.

Why shouldn’t the sky be a bird?
There is earth beneath the tarmac,
there is indifference in the stars.

This much is true:
shards of feather will turn
to the black and glinting
winter sky, all the stars
tangled in Jackdaw’s wake.

Hasta mañana,
Dave.