Poetry Submissions

So, to whoever may be actively following this page of my blog, you will have noticed that I have removed several pieces of my work. This is not because I think they are bad and no longer want you to see them; it is because, in this age of publishing and technology, whoever publishes your work wants to be the first. You can probably see where this is going. 
After a 4-year break from trying to get my poetry published in various UK magazines, I have finally decided to take the leap again, but this comes with the sacrifice of having to take down the pieces of work that I am submitting from my blog so as to make them 'unpublished'. 
In the unfortunate event that they don't get published, I may re-post them but, for the time being, this blog space may have to be even more inactive than it has been. 
Thank you for those who have followed me so far. I shall return and, if I get lucky in the publishing department, you may be the first to know.

Katie

Written for the memory of a little girl - I wonder if she remembers me?

I remember her little pink sneakers,

The bubble-gum perfume of her uncut hair,

The fake cake in her little plastic kitchen.

She didn’t ask for much

But I felt as if she loved me like a stand-in mother,

Even if 7 years was all that separated us.

How did I, who fears the innocent enthusiasm,

The innocent ignorance,

these tiny breakable humans,

manage to entertain her without losing my nerve?

We’d roam a carpeted farmyard,

Herding blank-eyed sheep into plastic pens,

Candy-pink pigs and polo mint chickens.

They didn’t make animals noises

But in those moments

they were reality in miniature.

I could hear their gentle brooding clucks,

Smell fresh bread and rich sausage

Through the anaemic plastic shells

Clockwork Canaries at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth - March 2nd, 2018

It was a tale of murder and moggies – or should I say, of murderous moggies.

When the young Tatiana’s act of heroism for a drowning cat is met with her father Maximillian Dressler’s insane head for inventions, the two events conspire to turn their lives in ever more bizarre directions. And I’m not just talking about the cat.

Before my viewing of Christopher William Hill’s Clockwork Canaries at the Theatre Royal had even begun, my eye couldn’t help being drawn to the homely yet unsettling nature of Natasha Jenkins’s set: a colourful couch, a cluttered desk, a simple dining table for three, all foregrounding a wall scattered with a child’s sketches of mausoleums and skulls. This should have warned me about the nature of the child who entered the set carrying a sack which held the ill-fated moggy. Played by Charlie Cameron, known most recently for her role alongside Ralph Fiennes in The Master Builder, the character of Tatiana is sweetly charming and morbid in turns, as much a result of her mother’s death as her father’s overbearing ambition. That father, played by Dominic Marsh – recent roles including Tristan in Tristan and Yseult at Shakespeare’s Globe – possesses a nervous enthusiasm which seemed to spark from Marsh’s dishevelled curls, filling the space with rage or excitement one moment, and dissipating in bleak, merciless acceptance the next.

Of course, this double act would not be complete without the cat, or Count Frederick Sebastian as he is christened. The suitably bedraggled life-sized puppet was designed by Christopher Fowkes, who has worked with The Little Angel Puppet Theatre, as well as in several episodes of The Mighty Boosh and on 2014’s Muppets Most Wanted. Puppet operator Richard Booth, associate artist of Flabbergast Theatre, moves and voices this furry black form with such an effortless feline attitude that I almost forgot at times that Booth was even there. Licking and leaping, meowing and hissing, I’m sure there must be a real moggy in Booth’s life to have warranted such behaviour. For the Dresslers, however, life would have been fine, I like to think, just the three of them, if not for the canaries of the play’s title.

Belonging to the character of Mrs. Stein-Hoffelman, an opera singer and one of four characters in the show played by Christopher Staines – most recently seen in Julius Caesar at the Storyhouse and Grosvenor Park – the feathers of these realistically blood-filled little prop birds are soon scattered across the set. As I imagine many of Staines’ costumes would have been backstage, the speed with which he often had to change between characters. The comedically intense widow-to-be Mrs Stein-Hoffelman, the suspicious detective, Tatiana’s confused idol the undertaker, and the Hoffelmans’ equally intense solicitor Agertoft – whose excitable silky terrier kept Booth on his toes and the audience chuckling. But then, almost everything about Staines was hilarious for its over the top-ness: a tongue waggle here, a painfully amusing soprano there, and an ample dose of bosom to top it off. However, it was the chemistry between Dressler and Mrs. Stein-Hoffelman which sets the cogs of this play whirring, just as director Luke Kernaghan planned, drawing it ‘like clockwork’ to its expectedly unexpected conclusion.

It is a classic plot subverted, of a broke widower finding love in a serial widow with no affection for her current soon-to-be-stiff. The only thing standing in their way is the cat and the daughter, both of whom are very suspicious of the new romance blossoming among the tombstones. But when Count Frederick Sebastian takes matters into his own paws, every convention gets thrown out the window – or, in this case, mauled to death and buried. There is the inevitable body in the closet and some in-character cross-dressing which makes for an awkward but not uncomfortable scene between Agertoft and Dressler – which I think Marsh and Staines are complete naturals at – but otherwise, almost nothing about this play is by the book. Even Tatiana’s love-interest Franz, a delivery boy played by Jeremy Ang Jones (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) who wears multiple disguises just to see her, is not who he appears to be.

So it is only fitting that Dressler should eat the dead animals, that Count Frederick Sebastian catches, from a bowl on the floor. That Tatiana should sing about having maggots in her brain and fantasise about her own death with unnerving innocence. That, having chomped his way through almost every one of Staines’s incarnations off-stage, Count Frederick Sebastian should emerge in a moment reminiscent of Snowball in Rick and Morty – for those who haven’t seen it, just imagine a robotically bipedal cat. And by the close…? Let’s just say, the image of Dominic Marsh crawling around in a bondage style harness won’t leave me any time soon.

There were moments of sadness, acknowledging the loss of a mother which I can sympathise with, and moments where perhaps Kernaghan was trying too hard to be ironic or comedic, but the overwhelming feeling was one of pleasure in witnessing two opposing genres meld so well on stage. If happiness is, as Dressler says, ‘the vessel into which all dark things are poured’, then I can safely say I was happy watching Clockwork Canaries.

For those of you who have been thoroughly convinced, I recommend you catch this performance at the Theatre Royal Plymouth before March 10^th.

Davey Suicide (with Griever, Abandon the Weak, and KillyVarder) at Plymouth Underground - January 26, 2018

You feel like you're the only human in an undead crowd, waiting until you learn to die, to join the masses, because we came to the underground alone, and though you're comfortable here, you’re not ‘one of them’.

This is how I felt having entered The Underground in Plymouth on Friday night to see Davey Suicide, a band that, surprisingly, escaped my radar in all the years I have been listening to metal music. I’d been here before, no problem, but I was meeting some friends, and without a clue when they would arrive, I simply had to do my best to blend in. Only when local support band KillyVarder stepped up to the stage could I finally turn my attention away from pretending to be engrossed in my phone. The thing which immediately struck me was the way the bass made my heart literally feel like lead as its heavy chords pressed into my chest to fill the small room. The second thing was how similar in sound they were to Metallica and Bullet for my Valentine with their driving guitar riffs and heavily percussive drum work. It made me feel a little more at home as these were familiar bands to me. The vocalist, Tony Jackson, meanwhile, exhibited another of KillyVarder’s influences with a voice which combined the gruff guts of James Hetfield with the height of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson. Unable to see the stage too well through the sizable crowd, however, I had to make do with brief glimpses of whirling hair – that of bassist Jack Salmon – and the strangely serene pose of guitarist Cieran Goodhall, nodding along beside his more energetic brethren. By the end of their set, my friends had arrived, bearing the news that they would be the most enviable hostesses of tonight’s headliner, providing a place for them to crash before they took on Bridgwater the next day. I could hardly believe my ears. As much as I envied them, I wouldn’t know what to do if it were me, opening my house to metal monarchy (excuse the alliteration, I couldn’t help myself). Fortunately, the second local support band, Abandon the Weak, were able to shake me out of my daydream.

Taking their cues from the likes of Meshuggah and Pantera, they delivered a crushing volley of guitar and headbanging drums which meant it was the floor this time which was vibrating beneath my one-inch thick boot soles. I needn’t have worried about not being able to see, however, as vocalist Garf Davies seemed content to spend most of his time atop the speakers at the front of the stage, despite what appeared to be a knee injury. From this position, his line ‘I am your god, you will obey me’, growled in the gritty cadences of Phil Anselmo and Devildriver's Dev Fafara, was made that much more domineering, convincing me that the weak would indeed have to be abandoned. Getting a little closer to the stage, hair windmills started to fly and a simmering boogie was starting in the imminent mosh pit, but by the end, this failed to reach boiling point. In the short break, my brain, trying to unscramble the possible influential overtones, convinced me to buy something alcoholic – not that I needed it – and I began to feel the task of reviewing the night wouldn’t that difficult. That was until Bournemouth metalcore band Griever arrived.

Mysteriously cloaked in fog and blue lights, I was already intrigued – and more than a little blinded – but as the lights dimmed, something reminiscent of Cancer Bats and Crossfaith tore its way through the gloom with unrelenting force, much like a sports car. The metallic rumble of Duncan Callaghan on bass idled smoothly in the background, but it was the speed and raw power of Johnny Halpin’s guitar and lead vocalist David Seymour’s bittersweet marriage of Liam Cormier and Oli Sykes, which threatened to give me road rash. My salvation came from the poignancy of guitarist and vocalist Luke Davis’ melodic choruses, weaving throughout with a nod to fellow Innersound Studios band, Asking Alexandria. I don’t know what I had been expecting from any of the support acts that night, but Griever most definitely made their mark, and by the love they feel for their fans, it almost seemed as if they knew it. Despite always making a fool of myself talking to bands after their gig, I managed to chat comfortably with David, hoping my road rash metaphor wasn’t too weird, and didn’t spontaneously combust when given a hug by Johnny. For a band as fiery onstage as the whiskey company endorsing them, they didn’t half leave me with a warm glow. At least until the main act started their engines.

Davey Suicide. The aesthetic of this band was as much a deciding factor in me buying a ticket to the gig as the name itself. Having no prior knowledge, aside from the promise delivered by ‘Torture Me’ and the influence of Marilyn Manson, I was not entirely prepared for the red-eyed scarecrow that was vocalist Davey Suicide swaying like a snake behind his mic. Manson’s characteristic guttural purr came through in his voice, as did his love for costume, appearing with devil horns and a ringleader’s striped coattails throughout the night, as well as an army helmet labelled ‘War’ for ‘End of the War’. (Does that make it the literal suicide of Davey Suicide?) Meanwhile, his undead bandmates, black eyes gazing from pale white faces, thrashed in homage to another influential band, Pennsylvanian mod rockers Motionless in White. From the energy of their music, rising and falling like a broken love song, and the way they filled the stage, nearly braining themselves on the low ceiling, it became clear they were made for bigger venues. Yet the intimacy of the room somehow felt right, as if we had been invited in, leaving our exes, our troubles – and, in my case, my entire degree – at the door, as if these songs were made for us. At least, it felt that way when I heard ‘No Angel’ was about that girl ‘you thought was a prude’ – for a moment, I

Niko Gemini

almost recognised myself. But the surprises didn’t end there as the call went up for a solo, which guitarist Niko Gemini supplied. As I tried (but failed) to artfully express to him after the show, guitar solos have always been one of my major draws when it comes to rock/metal music, just as much for the way they sound as the technique of their execution, so it was a privilege to see as well as hear Niko playing his instrument like an extension of himself. I must have said something right last night though, because I got another Famous Hug (as I would like to call them). Towards the end of the show, that simmering energy leftover from Abandon the Weak boiled up into a small mosh pit for the band’s debut song, ‘Generation Fuck Star’ – and with a heavy jumping beat and infectious tune, who could blame them? I, however, decided to duck out of the way of the slamming and flying limbs, having been caught in a much bigger mosh pit at a recent Korn gig in London. All the same, I didn’t want it to end. My ears were ringing, my neck ached from head-banging, and my boots were starting to hurt, but I knew that tomorrow, I had to go back to reality.

I said to their drummer, Decker, that I couldn’t say anything bad about the gig, even though I do an English degree which requires me to be critical. He said, treat it like a piece of fiction, and to be fair, this feels like I’ve written a Grimm’s fairy tale (probably took me as long too). Maybe some day, I’ll have the guts or the skill to look deeper; for now, I just want to put my own unique spin on how music makes me feel.

The Galvanic Gods

This was a piece I submitted for a university assignment and I am actually rather proud of it - have yet to get my results back though, so fingers crossed for a good grade!

I was just a child of six in the fair town of Eureka when they arrived. Barely old enough to comprehend the vastness of the world in which I lived; only just getting acquainted with the technology on which it depended; possessing a fragile grasp on the concept of religion. Consequently, I cannot say I mourn the loss of the old ways as others do, though they left their mark on me all the same.

That night in November of 2011, I had just said my prayers beside my mother’s bed at the hospital, and my father and I were preparing to go home. My mother had been involved in a car accident earlier that year which had left her in a coma. I recall feeling strange seeing her like that, with all the tubes, wires, and beeping, not responding when I said hello, though it bothers me even more now to think this is the only way I remember her. I have tried to conjure up some other memory by staring at a photo of her on my bedroom shelf, but she always continues to look like a stranger to me. Making our way out of the hospital, a nurse came over to tell us it wasn’t safe to travel at the moment.

“A storm has picked up. It might be best if you stayed the night. We have some spare beds,” she said. And so, we returned to my mother’s room and listened to the slowly rising wind. It was the kind which started out as a rushing through the trees but quickly evolved into a howling which ripped the tiles from the roof and made the windows rattle in their frames. As a child, this was frightening enough, but as I had been told that hurricanes were highly uncommon in Eureka, I immediately clung to my father.

“Dad, what’s happening?” Already the lights had begun to flicker.

He assured me that it was only a storm and everything would quieten down again soon, before returning to gently brushing the hair from my mother’s forehead, the fingers of his other hand tightly interlaced with hers. Moments later, there was a muffled crash outside and the lights winked out, followed by a sound I was too young to comprehend.

“Julie? Julie, no!” my father cried as a little green line buzzed across the screen beside the bed. He leapt from his chair towards the door. “Stay right there,” he said to me and disappeared. “Doctor! Someone please get the power back on. My wife is dying!”

Sitting in the blackness, unable to move, I began to cry. “Dad? Dad, where are you?”

My only answer was the continual roar of the wind and the occasional shattering of tiles. And so, I did as I had been taught: I got down on my knees, closed my eyes, and prayed to God above for help.  The moment I spoke ‘Amen’, a gentle glow began behind my eyelids. Sunlight was creeping through the window behind me.

“Thank you, God,” I said, using the light to reach the door. I couldn’t see my father anywhere, just strangers rushing around, and so I went back to my mother’s bed. I didn’t know that she was already dead, although my father had educated me on the concept.

“I know I’m supposed to do as dad says, but I’m really scared. I have to find him. I promise I’ll see you again soon.” Kissing her hand, I left the room.

Outside, the sunlight was getting brighter, illuminating a battery-powered clock in the hallway which I proudly remember being able to read. I forget the exact time, but I know I understood it to be an unnatural time for sunrise, which didn’t frighten me as much as the need to find my father. Joining the confused mass of people running around the hospital, I caught snatches of conversation:

“The generator. We need to-”

“-blankets, and lots of them!”

“Most peculiar storm I ever-”

“-act of God. Was only a matter of time.”

This last comment forced another lesson into my mind: in times of trouble, find your local priest – a philosophy which, in spite of what happened, I follow to this day. As my father had taken me to the church after every visit we made to the hospital, I knew I wouldn’t get lost; getting there under such conditions, however, didn’t even cross my mind. Naively, I followed the signs on the floor to the exit, until the automatic doors sprang apart and the wind hit me. Only then did I start to doubt myself.

“Hey son, you can’t go out there!” a man said from behind me, “It’s dangerous!”

Things may have turned out differently if I had listened to him, if I had gone back to my mother’s room and waited for my father, witnessed his breakdown over her body, and then sat in confusion with the rest of society as it too, inexplicably, broke down. But I was, and still am, a stubborn child, so I simply shouted that I needed to find my father and ran off into the storm. Trees and power lines spitting sparks lay scattered across the road, partially blocking my way while, just visible in the distance, the spire of the church was snapped off like a broken bottle top. I had trudged halfway towards it and was already feeling exhausted, my skin prickling with sweat and static, when the droning started.

It was a sound with no earthly origin: a hollow monotonous tone wailing from the sky, suffused with the crackling strobe of plasmic energy and a subtly unnerving shriek that made my skin crawl. At first, the wind drowned it out, but it soon grew in volume. I once tried describing it to my own children as like the sound of a low flying jet in an electrical storm, until I remembered they didn’t know what a jet was. Up ahead, I saw several figures in clerical robes gathering in the street, gazing into the sky in wonder. Terrified yet curious, I began to run towards them. Many were on their knees, crying – though they did not look sad – while others were shouting that it was ‘a sign of the second coming of Christ’. This was a foreign concept to me at the time, so all I could do was tug at their robes.

“Have you seen my dad?” I asked one of the men. It was Father Watt. He smiled benevolently at me and pointed up.

Against the brilliance of the sky, several figures had begun to materialise, descending on vast wings. Each like a miniature sun in human shape, I was forced to shield my eyes until their incandescent skin began to dim. As they drew closer, I felt the wind gradually drop, their wingbeats slowing to ease them down to take their first steps on the Earth: it scorched beneath their gleaming feet. And then, through the blue fog clouding my vision, I got my first proper look at what Eureka later dubbed, the Galvanic Gods. For a child they were immense, yet even the men were dwarfed by them at they stood illuminating the night, energy sparking from the Tesla coil haloing their featureless heads. And all the while, the drone continued, uttered seemingly from within their metallic bodies for they had no mouths.

The brothers around me fell to their knees, quaking in their presence, forcing me to do the same, which appeared to satisfy them as the drone cut out immediately. There followed a silence, during which several people inside the church tried to get closer, only to be chased back by an electric shock from the gods’ wings. My father-in-law was among them and still bears the scar to this day. But finally, they spoke; the problem was it was not in a language anyone could understand.

As one, their eyes, like dying stars, opened, as did their mouths, which they also possessed, resembling the star’s aftermath: a black hole. From that emptiness, their voice thundered in a wall of white noise, the echo lasting for a full half minute afterwards. I often wake from dreams of my mother with that face, coming out of her coma to scream at me. As bad as it was, I am only thankful my father never saw the gods as I imagine his dreams would have been far worse. If they had expected a reply, however, it was not one coherent to them either. Father Watt brandished his crucifix before laying it at the gods’ feet, chanting in what I was told was Latin and Hebrew, but the gods remained unmoved. Only after another painful wait did their inner fire blaze once more as, kneeling, wings spread upon their backs, they placed their palms flat against the asphalt, searing it until smoke poured from between their fingers. At the time, I had no idea of the magnitude of this action; I was simply in awe of their power. Meanwhile, across the town, every machine, lightbulb, and mobile device had fallen dead. Many kids older than me mourned the loss of phones, laptops, and games consoles but, as I mentioned, this did not affect me as much as them: my father had intended to restrict me to the television until I was twelve. For others, however, the loss was far more tragic as, like my mother, several died in the hospital or, losing their way in the dark, injured themselves and, unable to seek help, perished. Father Watt seemed to sense this and made to intercept the gods but, in a movement too fast to follow, was immediately struck down. Several of the brothers rushed to his side only to meet the same fate.

As if to deter the rest of us, one god held its hand out, sparks writhing in its palm only inches from my face. I can recall its stinging warmth against my cheek, and my own childish ignorance at how close I was to death. Fortunately, one of the brothers pulled me out of harm’s way before I foolishly tried to touch it.

“What do you want?” he asked of the towering figures before him, evidently still oblivious to the damage they had wrought, but by then, they were already preparing to leave. Their bodies blazed and the wind rose beneath their articulated wings, pushing them back into the stratosphere, knocking the brother off his feet, and leaving my town colder, darker, and more helpless than I had ever known.

The year is now 2071, sixty years since Eureka suffered its technological reboot. Somehow we survived the initial wave of panic and disaster which followed the collapse of our modern society. In the confusion, my father managed to find me and rebuild our lives without my mother, just as the rest of Eureka tried to restart their own. We emerged, decades later, on the cusp of a second electrical era. The Galvanic Gods’ disturbance of the atmosphere made hurricanes an almost annual occurrence in Eureka, necessitating the construction of a siren tower atop the church and storm shelters in our basements. Meanwhile, the money-hungry tried to turn the burnt handprints on the asphalt into a tourist magnet. However, with no working vehicles or telephones to contact the outside world, this plan seemed doomed to fail. Several hopefuls tried to ride horses out to Austin, the nearest town for nearly seventy miles, but none ever made it. We couldn’t even rely on divine guidance anymore; the Galvanic Gods had shaken our faith too much. Instead Father Hertz, the new priest when his father died, decided to preach a hybrid religion, a mix of the Holy Father and electric angels. Over time, this story became gospel, yet no one could definitively say if or when they would return. Even today, we still cannot be sure. All we can do is watch the sky, living in fearful expectation of the day we finally get our answer.

Imperfect Orchestra's scoring of Sergei Eisenstein's 'Battleship Potemkin' at Plymouth University

Never been so unnerved, disturbed, and frightened by a piece of music or cinema before so this is definitely a first - and I loved it!

By definition, a silent movie is just that: silent. This makes whatever happens, especially if it’s a horror film, all the more surprising. Sergei Eisenstein’s Soviet Kinema piece, “Battleship Potemkin” did not, initially, strike me as having the potential to be horrifying, set as it was on a battleship. So, when faced with Imperfect Orchestra’s scoring of the film, I felt secure in the knowledge that what surprises there might be could be anticipated with the appropriate musical warnings. Oh, how wrong I was. Each turn of events in the film was so sudden, and at times violent, that without the music I would’ve been suitably surprised, but with it, the entire mood did a complete 180 turn, the tone of the music switching in the same instant.

Working with the director’s wish that the film should be rescored every generation, contemporary electrical instruments like synthesisers, found sounds, and electric guitars were permitted to join the orchestra, creating a much more surreal, unsettling, and energetic vibe. This worked well with the cultural background against which the film was set, namingly the era of Russian Constructivism and Italian Futurism, which sought the artistic freedom and experimentation of ‘making it new’. Thus, electric guitars were made to sound as if they screamed, violins mourned death, pianos crept by in the background in anticipation of death, drums pounded ominously, cymbals rattled jarringly, and voices chanted or shouted through a distorted megaphone. Every musical choice served to intensify the action seen in black and white on the screen behind the orchestra, to the point that, at times, I felt genuine fear. As the civilians reacted to the Soviet attack, so too did the orchestra, in a fashion which unnerved me until I was glued to the screen in uneasy anticipation of the first death. Of course, what made this a truly shocking film was the momentary emphasis it placed on the female and infant casualties of the Russian Revolution as a young boy was trampled in the panic, a young mother was shot as she clutched her baby’s pram, her falling body pushing the child down the steps, and an elderly woman was wounded in the eye. This series of events was montaged and alternated with shots of the advancing Soviets, and civilians fighting below, escalating the tension still further. Only when the final raising of the big guns, pointed directly at the screen, is called off, can the bubble of fear finally burst, the music become jubilant, and the monster of war slink back into the shadows.

I can’t say I have ever been a particularly big fan of silent theatre – or politics, for that matter – but while the latter remains a reluctant subject for me, if all silent movies were scored in such a way, I might be inclined to seek more out. The applause lasted for a considerable time once the credits rolled, and rightly so, as the collective passion and effort of Imperfect Orchestra had produced one of the finest collaborations of cinema and music I have ever had the good fortune to experience.

Past the Patina - In Memory of Poppy: Wave Installation

It’s a beautiful thing, as it rises, it rises, it rises,

A blood red wave in the shadow of

A wave of blood in the shadow of

A wave of blood to symbolise the names on

The memorial that pierces the sun.

It’s visually stunning the way the poppies reflect

In the puddles,

A sea of red heads made duller

Lost their colour –

Are they dying or have they already…?

No water can nourish these roots already

They are dead heads fallen like shadows of

Biplane fighters in brave flocks

The resurrected phantoms of their names on

The memorial that pierces the sun.

I’m in awe as it rises, it rises, it rises –

We’ll be home by Christmas –

It’s still rising towering narrowing looming reaching…

It’s stopped

Why did it stop?

They can’t stop it’s not over they’re too young there are too many too many

Too many flowers.

They were real people – note the ‘were’ –

Maybe you knew them

Can you pick them out?

Each face is a flower

A life struck out

But a legend no doubt

Of whom without

You could not take picture after picture after picture

Of your son in the shadow of

A graduation in the shadow of

A life made perfect by the shadow of

The memorial that pierces the sun.

I will stand and stare and remember

As it pours forth its floral fountain

A sympathetic tributary flood

A blood tide

To dissipate like a wave at my feet,

To dissipate dissolve disperse decompose

Into Flanders Field exalted in clay

Into Flanders Field exalted

In Flanders Field

They want us to remember

But what am I remembering,

Who must I not forget?

I never met him

You won’t forget him

I never met him

You can’t forget him

I never met him

You shouldn’t forget him

As he crawls through the wire

That tangles protects mangles resurrects

That reaches from the shadow of

Protects the beaches in the shadow of

Beyond our reach in the shadow of

The memorial that pierces the sun.

As daylight fades, the lights come up,

The colours pop, shine like rain-jewelled petals,

Like glacé buds

Like patent blossom,

Like blood-soaked soil -

The only kind fertile enough for such seeds

With such ravenous needs

That six thousand strong must feed the flock

By conceding to bleed to stop the clock.

But still it rises, it rises, it rises

And it can’t be stopped why won’t it stop the names are the same the fight is not is not

It’s not over yet –

We are infected in retrospect,

Cannot forgive out of respect –

So no one surrenders in the shadow of

We keep remembering in the shadow of

A day not just of peace but

A memorial that pierces the sun.