Balkans Peace Park Project 2013

It's still not too late to volunteer this summer ... teaching English, teaching cricket, making a community play .. . Details here: http://balkanspeacepark.org/ and films from summer 2012 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIopLoBwDSc and here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyDwFHvtEjE

Iraq: ten years on

Here's the poem written for '100 Poets Against The War '(Salt/Nthposition) on the occasion of the Blair/Bush decision to invade:

Life After Wartime

Some things never change.

The garden bushes wag their beards

like arguing theologians while the orange fists

of passion fruit take cover in the leaves.

The sky aches with unmapped distances

and the sun hides nothing.

At dusk, it surrenders to the moon.

When there’s small-hours muttering in the street

remember it’s only someone deciding to go home or go on,

pushing the night for the last of the great good times

and into a shell-shocked morning after.

At least there’s coffee again.

It takes our minds off the radio,

the smooth-voiced reassurances,

the metaphors encrusted like barnacles

on every announcement, your almost

imperceptible jump at the sound

of a pamphlet shoved through the door.

Things never change.

People wear their silence like a caul.

To bring them luck against drowning.

They were parents. Or siblings. Or both.

They are the ones that nothing surprises,

the ones who no longer look up

when a jet comes roaring in above the city,

framed against the orange sky,

picking its way among the towers. 

Tom Phillips 2003

Not entirely reliable omens

Work in progress

Always the last to get it,
our warmer city waits on sightings,
news from Mendips and Quantocks,
the snow's disruptions
closing in from coast and moor,
first gusts reported
from ring road embankments.

 And you might detect it coming
in behaviour of seabirds
or office workers hurrying home,
a thicker kind of rain
and the children going to bed
in high hopes of a holiday snuck in
just after Christmas.

 But then, showing our age,
we're more concerned 
with finding shovels, gumboots, grit,
seasonal implements long left beneath the stairs.

Because of these rumours, these rumours
that solidify into the night,
we're going to be ready,
ready for what they throw at us.

 Tom Phillips

The Three-Day Melt (via Google Translate)

The poem below translated into Albanian and then re-translated back into English mechanically. After waiting a week it begins to beat an old tattoo. And we are among the few, digging out our slush neighborly provided at the expense of metal smelting, and thinking himself heroic. Glossed by the sun-suffering snow path reaches a glaze, as a hotel lobby magazine, before stronger, Grays, cover stained newsprint. Here are the furrows have done, footfalls disappear. Now we are forgetting claustrophobic days, beating around the bush to clear the roads negotiable back to the usual rush. From suspension now, acceleration hours push on; clouds clear and we can not mark time, appreciate, at least not to watch every step.

The Three-Day Melt

After waiting the week

for a damaged gutter’s steady drip,

it starts to beat an old tattoo.

And we are amongst the few,

digging out our neighbourly slush,

metal offered to the melting ridge,

and thinking ourselves heroic.

Glossed by sun-tormented snow,

the street achieves a sheen,

like a hotel foyer magazine,

before it hardens, greys,

maculate as newsprint.

Here are the furrows we made,

footfalls disappearing.

Already we are forgetting

the claustrophobic days,

beating around the bush

to clear negotiable ways

back to the ordinary rush.

Out of suspension now,

the accelerating hours

push on; clouds clear;

and we can no longer mark time –

grateful, at least, for not

having to watch every step.

Tom Phillips

'The Three-Day Melt' appears in Recreation Ground (Two Rivers Press, 2012): http://tworiverspress.com/wp/recreation-ground/

The Dream Library and other poems

Various Artists have just published an e-book of poems written since the publication of Recreation Ground: copies are available by directing an email here: variousartists986@gmail.com
Recreation Ground, the hard-copy book, meanwhile, continues to be available from Two Rivers Press by going here: http://tworiverspress.com/wp/recreation-ground/

The Dream Library and other poems

A small selection of poems written since Recreation Ground is now available by emailing this address: variousartists986@gmail.com