ETHAN GOFFMAN

abstract.desktopnexus.com Time

“Time ticks away faster than you think.”

“Actually, time doesn’t tick.  It’s clocks that tick.  Time is silent.”

“Or perhaps time is every noise in the world.”

time is an egg

sunny-side up

slipping across

a slick griddle

running, running, running

away

time fries, time dies

time fritters

time flutters

time titters

time stutters

time is linear

time is chaotic

time is everywhere and all things

time is nowhere, man

flowing through its nowhere land

time ain’t on my side

time makes me run and hide

time out of mind

hurry up please, it’s time ***************copyright Ethan Goffman

THE VIEW FROM BARD TOWERS

People have wondered about the origin of the site name Bradlaugh's Finger. Let me see if I can explain.

I sit across the road from the statue of Charles Bradlaugh every day waiting for my bus home. And he's pointing, rather sternly. I found myself beginning to wonder: what's he pointing at? Of course, Bradlaugh was a politician, so the sculptor's intention was probably to show him in mid-oration in the Commons. Who was he? The first to insist on his right to affirm as an atheist when being sworn in at parliament. An advocate for birth control who came within a whisker of prison for publishing a pamphlet on the subject with Annie Besant. A believer in trade unionism, universal suffrage, Irish Home Rule and ending the monarchy. In other words, an extremely pugnacious vocal advocate for every cause likely to get a public figure in trouble in the Nineteenth century. And in Bradlaugh's case, it frequently did. Northampton has a tradition for breeding, or taking to its heart, brilliant, illuminated and sometimes downright curmudgeonly individuals. There was Bradlaugh. Violet Gibson, who shot Mussolini and was thrown into St Andrew's when her only real crime was missing. Lucia Joyce, daughter of James Joyce, incarcerated in the same institution in highly questionable circumstances. She didn't want to live or die in Northampton, but her grave is well-tended by local people. There is Alan Moore too, who did want to stay in Northampton, even after achieving immense fame. There is Norman Adams, scourge of every self-serving morally-bankrupt local government official within a thirty mile radius of Shoe Town. And there are Jimtom James, Jono Bell, King's Gambit, the Brewer's Daughter, the much-missed Denigrata, Extinction Rebellion Northampton.These are some of our people. This is the tradition that I work in when I sit down to write. When I look at the statue of Charles Bradlaugh I prefer to think his extended finger doesn't show him emphasising a point when he speaks in parliament. I want to think he's saying to all of us, 'Well, I'm going in that direction. What about you lot?' And we don't have to go with him, not unless we really want to. His question tells us there might even be a better road to the utopia Bradlaugh is fighting for. We all find our own path using our own logic and reason, our own taste and judgement, and yes, even in these febrile modern times, we can disagree and still be friends. Our site aims to be a place where, however briefly, those paths all cross. Sit down a while. Take your shoes off and rub your blisters. Have a listen to a few new (or new-old) ideas before you continue on your journey. (BH)

JIMTOM JAMES

jimtom james with bruce hodder at a bedroom tax protest in Northampton a few years ago

:~
On the edge, of the road, At the far reaches,
There is, in some : an
internal
rainbow.
The dreams, of heart
still flow,
faith is foundation.

Better is.
Love threads thro' everything.
If is ignored...

Chaos, where now we be.

Haven't heard from.
Haven't heard, from.
Hardly far, from.

This : no granpa Moses.
Terror. In : tact.

Night nomad.
Roamer.
"In the cold, unfeeling, red-lit streets."
Bless the rain, to wash
away

the humane detritus.
The Magic Bus
Hiatus,
down the plug-hole drains.

With the twirl determined,
by the Equator.

Eternal force.
Non-exploitative.

Black, oil, liquid gold.
Pop all of the bubble-wrap.
All the Eat'ser chocolate,
in one go.

O!, I cry, to the
Alma Mater.
Dramatis
Personae.
Some, fighting : Blood on the Streets;
Car-tune fog bound.
While in private bedrooms,
endemic hurt, goes on...
Amidst all the Clamour,
no-one is known, or heard.

Inuring the individual,
from the individual...
Seconds, time in sand...

Turn About ?

Jimtom...say? 

December 4, 2019.

****************copyright Jimtom James 2019

Jimtom James is a poet, performer, broadcaster and organiser of cultural events like the annual Bardic Picnic. His radio show Jimtom...say? on NLive radio can be heard on alternate Saturdays between 5 and 7pm.

JOHN PATRICK ROBBINS

Made You Look

Writing is freedom and writers themselves are mainly a group of narcissistic assholes.

Except for you.

I have always thought different of you reading this.

People can say what they will but your one of the good ones.

And why is that? You may question upon reading this.

Because you are the key element that's largely goes ignored and is vastly unappreciated. 

For you are the reader void of bullshit now step back and return to your role of poet.

Now that's the prick I cannot stand and secretly admire.

You clever bastard you.

No egos were hurt in the making of this poem.

To Empty Pages

I have given everything I have to blank pages.

I am left with nothing more than scars and sad stories I no longer care to pen.

There are no true readers.

There are only fellow writers looking to gain something they feel will make them better than the rest.

When you truly get out in the deepest waters you realize.

There are only sharks and you are only one amongst many.

And eventually no matter how hard you swim you will be swallowed up by the dark waters below.

I no longer concern myself with what I can gain.

This is not a contest. 

I pen my lines as a premature epitaph.

And look forward to embracing the frozen depths.

I know these lines are written for only writers to read, and few to understand.

Nobody wins what was never in the cards to begin with.

The well must always run dry.

Empty pages are all that will ever remain. 

************************************copyright John Patrick Robbins 

            

John Patrick Robbins is the editor in chief of the Rye Whiskey Review and Under The Bleachers his work has been published by The San Pedro River Review , Ariel Chart , Oddball Magazine , Punk Noir Magazine,  As It Ought To Be Magazine,  Mojave River Review , Piker Press , Red Fez and The San Antonio Review .He is also the author of A Perverts Christmas from Whiskey City Press and Once Upon A Nervous Breakdown from Soma Publishing. 

His work is always unfiltered. 

MARTYNA HERBUT-FROST

BiP

Open my eyes
See patterns in glistening rocks
All I hear is breathable silence
Who am I today?
Who is me right now?

Head down the cellar and into the cold kitchen
Water boils in grandma's whistle kettle
Gorund coffee beans dance excitedly in a chipped mug
Hand rolled cigarette in my mouth
Breathing out the smoke, God, it tastes good.

Smile as wide as the smile goes
Hot tears fall down reaching knees
Salty puddles grow bigger and bigger as time passes
Can I decide how to feel?
Can I control what to feel?

Coffee spills on steps covered in moss outside
As I'm shaking and looking at the foggy starless winter sky
I feel too much
Yet not enough to understand Try to fill in the gaps... *********************copyright Martyna Herbut-Frost

Martyna Herbut-Frost is a teacher, a thinker, a writer and a force for positive change in the world.

KUSHAL PODDAR

The One Got Arrested And Later Left At Our Doorstep

The missing one is restored to her apparition,

disoriented, oozy-blood,  

smelling like a marsh; two days've passed

since the protest fired up from the gully to the alcázar.

We ask the silence to nurse her.

Tim answers the media in waiting.

We blame the throne obviously.

The air stinks of conspiracy.

The missing one, reinstated, exists in flickers,

now here, now beside the basin, a hologram,

a substance, now a totem archaic,

now a numen, Jesus.

The protest flows with the paradigms.

Tim and I ask her what happened inside;

she seems to miss herself if only by a smudge of soul

or some slogan half finished. 

Silence bandages her; strings her together.

MediaMedia disappears to attend another somewhere.

Monkey's Paw

A teargas shell tore off my bro's hand;

since we called him a primate in childhood

we kept the hand, nicknamed it 'Monkey's Paw',

presented it before every guest in our house,

cherished their shriek; the severed limb

just wouldn't rot; the second hand revolutionists

often borrowed it for their demonstrations,

but no one asked my sibling what the paw

meant to him. Probably a missing link

in the evolution chain between Adam and Cain.

He wouldn't have answered anyway, rather

scratched his arm's end the way one alley cat

scratches the blind bricks when cornered

in dire need of some magic.

 

Selvage

Tiptoeing through the mine field

the first thought crossing my mind

desires to change 'My' of the 'My country'.

The other refugees left an arm here,

a leg there. 'Border' means mother's selvage.

I hold onto a corner of her hem.

Is she my mother? Does not matter.

We avert blasts and oblivion. This way

time will traditionalize a dance form.

One toe here. An augur. One step there.

A stealth stare to the east, west, north,

and birds fly towards an alternative ending.

Are those someone else's arms my shoulders

extend? Do I totter on the legs of one demised?

Prove this an incubus and I

shall change the pronouns.

*****************copyright Kushal Poddar