Dead chuffed to have taken delivery today of advance copies of ‘How to Lay an Egg with a Horse Inside’, which comes out next month.
As ever, Picador have done a fabulous job in bringing my work to the printed page.
Incredibly, it’s my tenth book. I don’t quite know how that has happened.
Thanks to everyone for having indulged me for so long.
Today is set to be agreeably alliterative
across an assortment of areas
although the occasional metaphor
may cause some faces to cloud.
Idioms will be coming down like stair rods
in northern regions, while the south
may experience the odd outbreak of similes,
like an unexpected shower of arrows.
In coastal, littoral, and seaside areas,
synonyms remain likely.
Further inland, sudden gusts of hyperbole
look set to take your breath away
and a series of scattered euphemisms
will have you reaching for your wellies.
If you’re driving, please be aware that tautologies
of frozen ice are still affecting some roads,
after a heavy, prolonged flurry of oxymorons.
And finally – from tomorrow evening –
expect the return of some light litotes,
making next week’s outlook hardly the best.
If I could have my time over,
I would do it all differently
and not treat each precious moment
with such disregard and flippancy.
I would use my time effectively,
I would think ahead and plan.
I would reserve my stores of energy,
and take charge when I can.
But it’s too late in the journey
for regret, too late to repent –
because there’s not a socket in sight,
and my battery’s on one per ce
Given it’s World Book Day, I suppose I should mention that I’ve got a new book coming out next month.
It’s called ‘How to Lay an Egg with a Horse Inside’: a collection of new poems, which also doubles up as a guide to enjoying and writing poetry.
It is not altogether serious.
It’s pre-orderable through your local friendly bookshop, plus those online ones.
Signed copies are available through the UK indie bookshops and here: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/295/9781035085729
Morrissey
was filled
with sudden
self-doubt
as he shut
his fridge door –
did the light
never go out?
She came from Greece,
she had a faulty socket.
Her eye fell out,
she couldn’t stop it.
That’s when I
caught her eye.
I’m reading poems at a few literary festivals this year – including ones in Keswick, Guernsey, Wrexham, Tunbridge Wells, Dorchester-on-Thames, Filey and Leek. Here’s a pic which provides an efficient summary of such matters:
Next month’s show at Words on the Water has sold out, but tickets are on sale for the other festivals. More info on those, plus my autumn tour dates, can be found here … https://brianbilston.com/events/
End of mildly boring post.
Even now in my mind,
that row remains VIVID –
I tried to stay CIVIL
but you ended up LIVID.
This week, Waterstones are offering 25% off all preorders of my new book, ‘How to Lay an Egg with a Horse Inside’, which publishes in April:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/how-to-lay-an-egg-with-a-horse-inside/brian-bilston/9781035085729
Alternatively, signed copies are available to order through your local indie bookshop.
Waterstones are also promoting 25% off for preorders of the paperback edition of my poetry collection for children, ‘Let Sleeping Cats Lie’. That one is out in August:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/let-sleeping-cats-lie-pet-poems/brian-bilston/9781035050574
having noticed one day
his keyboard was dirty,
he reached for the soap spray
and gave it a SQWERTY,
before scrubbing away
‘til each letter was clean
in ignorant bliss of
having wrec ed his machine –
for the eys which once wor ed
no grad ally did not
and the more that he ty ed
the orse it all got
so that as the close
of his oem dre near,
as he atched every s mbol,
e ery sign disa ear,
he felt li e a ostman
at the end of hi ro nd,
ith barel a lette
in hi bag to b fo nd.
