Graham Fulton and Peycho Kanev
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Graham Fulton
hfulton32@btinternet.com
Bio (auto)
Graham Fulton was born in 1959 and lives in Paisley in Scotland. His poems have been widely published in the USA and Europe in magazines, anthologies and online journals such as Edinburgh Review, Ambit, The North, Envoi, Orbis, Other Poetry, Gutter, Hospital Drive, Poetry Super Highway, Raintown Review, Stand, Staple, Stride, Hidden City Quarterly, San Pedro River Review, French Literary Review, Dream State: the New Scottish Poets, Scottish Literature in the 20th Century, Valve, Chapman, Chaparral, Scotland on Sunday, Orizont Literar Contemporan (Romania), The Potomac, Word Riot, The Echo Room, Iron. Visit him on th web here: http://www.grahamfulton-poetry.com/
The following work is Copyright © 2013, and owned by Graham Fulton and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Sucked Out Like Goldfinger
The windscreen of our plane has cracked ………………………..and as ………the clouds part and we float orgasmically ………………over the Erskine Bridge it’s clear ……..there’s an excellent chance ………………………it will break entirely and the pilot with his epaulettes ……………….will be sucked out like Goldfinger ………….with his feet first and hands flapping and eyes bulging ………………as the rest of us including the Susan Boyle-lookalike stewardess …………..with her alluring trolley of erotic baguettes …………………go plummeting to earth …………..screaming and swearing ………………………….and shouting Brace! Brace! with the oxygen masks whipping ……………………..in front of our heads and our silly lives flashing before us. …………………………….But the window doesn’t break …………………and we land on the same runway we took off from thirty minutes before …………………………………and as …………………we disembark …………a stag night survivor who never got to where he was going ……………………..offers his double glazing services …………….at a competitive price and there’s a seven foot tall ………………………gun-toting policeman waiting to meet us at the bottom of the steps in case things turn ugly ………………..and we start writing old-fashioned letters wanting to know if a near-death-experience ……………..was included in the price or start singing I Dreamed A Dream ………………………………..right into his face as we demand a fucking refund. The Removal of Angelina Jolie’s Breasts
Two women facing each other who got on at Blantyre wearing glasses are discussing Angelina Jolie’s two breasts which were taken away yesterday with Brad holding her hand and saying she had a nine in ten chance of getting cancer and there are no guarantees about anything, while at the same time, on the other side of the world, in Glasgow’s Buchanan Galleries a man definitely jumped four floors to his death for a reason known only to him as the train scrapes out of Cambuslang, and the two women begin to speak a bit quieter as if they know they’re being listened to and I can only make out the word Australia being said twice and the three words Psychologically of help being said once with the wires swaying above the tracks outside and the high-rises standing in the distance, and I think of his manly broken back and his surprised eyes, and her flat scarred chest and homeless breasts being burnt in a hospital furnace, becoming limitless untouchable energy with the people on the shopping mall escalators watching in, silence EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH
someone’s left their car alarm on outside the flats ……………………and it’s going EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH at spectacularly unpredictable intervals …………and there’s no way to EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH ………guess when it’s going to EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH happen next, and everyone is obediently going insane and the man who owns it is probably away for the weekend at some golf club or sauna …………..or lying dead on his EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH kitchen linoleum with a fish burnt to a crisp in the oven. and there are dark crescents under the eyes on the faces of haunted people flattened against the windows, and children are looking up and asking when will the noise stop mummy? and please make it go away daddy and we’re all lying awake at night wondering when it’s going to go off again as our harmony unravels and anarchy reigns supreme, and the days pass with nothing happening, and people start to believe again, believe that it’s ……………………..going to be EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH EEGH all right. Set the Controls For the Heart of The Club Bar in Paisley
Scotland have just beaten Croatia 1-0 in Zagreb when we least expect it, and to add to the amplified wash of unreality the pub is now playing back to back songs by Pink Floyd beginning with Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun which I’ve definitely not heard in a pub before with Nick Mason’s moody voodoo drums and Roger Waters’ mumbling zombie vocals, and to enhance even more the giddy sense of insanity the barman offers me a choice of lemon or lime to plop in my gin and tonic which just doesn’t happen in this town. and Roger has quietly asked is there anybody in there, and we’re huddling in here like apes feeling uncomfortably dumb and wondering if we imagined it all or someone put something psychedelic in our drinks as Roger philosophically winds things up with all that is gone ……all that’s to come …. which is probably a 0-0 draw with San Marino. |
Peycho Kanev
peychokanev@gmail.com
Bio (auto)
Peycho Kanev is the author of 4 poetry collections and two chapbooks. He has won several European awards for his poetry and he’s nominated for the Pushcart Award and Best of the Net. Translations of his books will be published soon in Italy, Poland and Russia. His poems have appeared in more than 900 literary magazines, such as: Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Columbia College Literary Review, Hawaii Review, Cordite Poetry Review, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Coachella Review, Two Thirds North, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others. He lives in Chicago, IL and in Sofia, Bulgaria.
The following work is Copyright © 2013, and owned by Peycho Kanev and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
One Poet in Chicago
This city is scary and supreme. Its shiny lakeshore with white yachts and seagulls and herons tilting quietly upon the marble waves. The hard-blowing wind licking the rind of the imposing trees. Those crazy and beautiful people walking up and down the streets, as the Sears tower pierces the alabaster sky. A long time ago, in some small house, Carl Sandburg was writing his dreams. Not too far away, Hemingway learned his way with the shotgun. This city of butchers, gangsters, and sky-drinking poets. This city of uncertainty and misunderstood simplicity. This city of fondness and knives leading to oblivion. But it is still early… One of these days when you wake up with words in your head transforming into money– unallowable poet’s dreams… God did not give His permission to each and every scrivener. Cup of coffee or the unsolved color of the whiskey– which absurd will the poet pick and choose? This city will take care of it! Back in the day, you could see the little Gwendolyn Brooks skipping rope with the words forming in her head. Now, the slam joints are full of screaming typesetters. This is your place under the sun. City of destiny! Do not leave it… The stones of the ruined city wall will never say: Goodbye! I count to 11
the impossibility of life is in his beauty: the beauty is a flower in the cemetery- new life and old death: dung-beetle pushing his own little treasure, and sunshine, always sunshine why? I hit the window and my phone starts to ring, I count to 11 and it stops. somebody wants to speak to me, to listen to my voice, somebody needs me why? I want to set on fire all the pigeons on the square, I want to drive my index finger on the edge of the knife I will send my love in a package to Africa the phone is silent I water the flowers. |