We’re all at the mercy of the whims and wiles of the Market at the moment. Politicians and Bankers squawk around trying to stave off financial meltdown. News Readers worry about how the Market will react and when it reacts badly, they tell us ‘The Market has Spoken.’ Who is this guy Market?

Here’s a poem performed at Harry’s Bar, Wareham, UK – on this subject.

Apart from the extraneous exclamation mark, Purbeck! is a thoughtfully-produced colour magazine, celebrating art, artisans, astrononomy and many other things that don’t begin with ‘a’ in Purbeck. (OK astronomy isn’t peculiar to Purbeck, but my, it’s a fine place to view the night sky). It’s a difficult magazine to skim – a publication that is so interesting that it demands to be read from cover to cover. I wrote an article about the ‘Off the Page’ project which can be viewed here. Somewhat mangled by the editor. I promise – I would never write ‘Goethe’s grandiosity’ or indeed ‘hailing from Hailsham’… Oh my.

off the page – purbeck – 11-11

There’s also a review of ‘(Im)Proper Nouns, by Donna Sparrowhawk, published by my press, Bardic Media, which you can read here.

improper nouns – purbeck – 11-11

I’ve never had much truck with Shelley’s view that poet’s are the ‘unacknowledged legislators of the worlld’ but in celebration of Ireland electing a poet as President, here are some more candidates…

Some info about the forthcoming gig at Harry’s Bar in Wareham. Click the image to enlarge. (Sorry about the quality but it’s  converted from a PDF). Essential info: 7.30 Thursday 3rd November, Harry’s Bar, Worgret Road, Wareham. £2 entrance. Includes Open Mike.

David Cameron wants a return to the Bulldog Spirit. A return to an earlier age. What it would be like if the Pathé Newsreel was still the main source of news for the populace? – something David Cameron and other Prime Ministers might have wished, given the mauling they get from today’s press. Patrician, patronising, pro-government and resolutely upbeat. Keep Calm and Carry On…

Dorset continues its welcome and surprising embrace of Performance Poetry with ‘Off the Page – On the Stage’ at the East Bar, Swanage – featuring Elvis McGonnagall and Steve Tasane, and lesser lights including yours truly. Oct 3rd – 7.30pm. A few open mike slots are available. Click on the image to enlarge.

Here’s a poem I wrote inspired by Patti Smith and Walt Whitman

A Song to Myself
after Walt and Patti

In art proceed with abandon.
Let down your hair
in the wind.
Mix palettes of words and colours
pulled from the air.
Fling them back,
arcing through the sky:
a story told
with your voice –
clear and distinct
above Babel’s noise.
Touch the bark of trees,
smell skin and leaves,
and lie on the side
of hills, pretending
the clouds are land
and the land
is just an ocean
where your ship
is sailing free.

But in life proceed with balance.
Tilt your head
and stroke your chin.
Weigh the contradictions
on scales of thought.
Proceed with stealth,
like a wolfhound in the woods.
Know that while fabled stories
have glorious threads,
weaving through the tapestry
like gametes homing
on the ovum, life
doesn’t have these endings –
just a thousand thousand
voices clamouring,
signposts and crossroads,
hungry children
asking why.
And tribes who think
the story that they’re told
is true.

And you.
Standing with sidecurved head.
Choosing a way
of little things.
Of balance and stealth.
Finding a way
with plans that only half succeed
and dreams that once ached
to be true, but still come
in the twilight, in the dawn
when the birds sing
and the hue of the sky,
the play of the light
takes you to the place
between dreams and the pulse
of the everyday.

In art and dreams proceed with abandon.
Draw down the music, tear stories from the maelstrom.
Never stop diving into the raging sea to bring back a single pearl.

In life proceed with balance and stealth.
Benign hunter in the jungle, not passive prey.
Bring back stories and poems and songs to sing at the hearth.

© 2011 Ged Duncan – All rights reserved

More from the excellent ‘Off the Page‘ project in Dorset, which has resulted in a veritable explosion of spoken word workshops and events around Dorset. This event, at the Queen’s Hotel Weymouth, was hosted by Andrew McMillan. First poetry gig I’ve been to where there’s been a persistent heckler. He was very drunk and was eventually manhandled from the room by Queen’s staff. The hotel-pub, which has had a major refurb, is planning a montly poetry event.

The Purbeck Poetry Slam was hosted by the irrepressible Elvis McGonagall, at the Square and Compass. I won a pint of Copper.  I also took part in the Bridport ‘Off the Page’ slam in that week, where I won tickets to hear the excellent Simon Munnery the following week at the Bridport Arts Centre. I’m hoping I can now also claim the Bridport Prize for Doggerel.

A friend was going to take some videos to accompany this post, but we were so entranced by the quality of the performances at this ever-impressive event that we both forgot. It’s hard to single out acts, but we had Appalachian ballads, ‘Suzanne’ sung with such delicacy that it seemed better than the original, and an extraordinary one-woman performance involving a bottle, some car keys, a glass tumbler and a piano. (No it wasn’t a Thai porn show). And when she sang, she sang like a banished angel. I’ll try and find out names and post them here.

The transcript of my modest contribution is posted here. Small stones of  ‘paying attention’ written in the gogyohka form interwoven with microfiction. All of which had been posted recently @dodgybard.

And if you are ever in Brighton, UK on a Thursday night, head to the Redroaster Cafe and the Catweazle Club. (Or Oxford, London and New York)

Next time we’ll try not to get distracted and shoot some video…

She had volunteers in the gallery. Not to help with hanging, but to make pretentious comments whenever a potential customer was near.

heads bent together

you talk in whispers

but you have secrets

no-one wants

to know

It was vital that the voice of the Hedge Fund managers be heard. They established a Union and took to the streets.

through leaf litter

of a season spent

curls a purple stem

bearing green fragments

of a new tree

He was a vicar, so considered himself vicarious at all times. Hence his night-time vigil, the binoculars, the open bedroom curtains.

she begins to pluck

her guitar, sings

ancient Breton folk

- outside a police siren

adds its modern refrain

The inscription ‘W. O. Slater of Hove’ still stands proud on this iron drain cover. That’s one way to be remembered for 150 years.

touch

the ribbed contours

of the tree

growing through

the asphalt

The copyist revelled in his deceit. He could paint but not conceive a masterpiece. He was not a Master, but his clients never knew.

hands touch the flint

of castle ruins

a thousand years

since piling it high

in newly conquered lands

The man reading the Kindle kept glancing over at the man by the window, whose wide-spread Times was effulgent in the sunlight.

passing

in the bus

through the window

of the hair salon

seven red-heads

Miss Jones had the children stand neatly in pairs. They wore hard hats, high vis jackets, and had sandwiches. Then she heard the roar.

wide-eyed you tell me

you drowned

when you last died

then take a sip of coffee

and a bite of pie

The arrow sped toward the apple on the boy’s head. A real arrow, tipped with bronze, death-sharp. The fruit was fake. Food was scarce.

this breeze

in my hair

comes only

from my movement

the air is still

In the forest he tried to clap with one hand. Absorbed. Didn’t feel the wind, hear fracturing timber, see the tree crashing toward him.