Month: October 2016

Halloween, 2016

Assorted Poems, Some poems

This Halloween, I shall dress as the year 2016
and emit a frightful, fulgent sheen
from my orange-pumpkin-Donald-Trumpkin head.

I shall adopt the gait of Theresa May’s Living Dead,
and howl like a slithy Gove under a waxy moon.
My chest will be scarred with Brexit wounds.

I shall visit all doorsteps across this haunted land
with a leer on my face and a beer in my hand,
like a phantasmal, sharp-fanged Nigel Farage.

A dagger will be sticking out of my back
(the Severed Hand of Boris will still be attached).
And there, trailing behind me, poor fools,

will be the ghosts of the heroes you’d pinned to your walls,
all those pop stars and comics and actors
who filled up your lives with music and laughter.

Alongside them will be the bombed and the drowned,
the beheaded, the starved, the blown-up, the gunned-down,
from American nightclubs to Syrian towns.

So Trick or Treat! Happy Halloween!
If you’re not in when I knock, no fear;
I’ll be here all year.

Brexit in Pursuit of a Bear

Assorted Poems, Some poems

Please look out for this bear. Thank you.
He’s been getting ideas above his station.
If found, hand him in to the Home Office,
Section: UK Visas and Immigration.

He is wearing a blue duffle coat,
red wellies and a wide-brimmed hat
in an attempt to look like one of us.
But do not be fooled by that.

He’s one of those funny foreign types
who try to come here nowadays,
to take our homes and steal our jobs
and eat Our Great Nation’s Marmalade.

It is thought he has terrorist connections
and may be planning to do us harm.
So please beware of his hard stare,
not to mention his right to bear arms.

Also reported in this area:
illegal economic migrant,
Great Uncle Bulgaria.

Artist’s Impression

Assorted Poems, Some poems

Channel-flicking on the television,
a sudden flicker of recognition,

and there you are, lighting up the screen.
You’ve not changed much, it seems.

The selfsame eyes of grey flint,
those touchpaper lips,

that shocking blaze
of hair. It’s as if the days

lit by time’s slow-burnt passage
are reduced to ashes.

An old flame, charcoaled
back to life by the controlled

hand of a police sketch artist.
I see you’re still up to your old tricks,

wanted, as you are, for questioning
in connection with

a spate of arson attacks
in the vicinity of Matlock Bath.

Brian Bilston’s Poems – all gathered up into some kind of book thing

Assorted Poems, News

I’m pleased to say that my poetry collection You Took the Last Bus Home has now published and is available through bookshops and online stores in both print and ebook formats.

If you’re interested in buying a copy, do seek out your local bookshop – or Hive is an excellent online alternative, as it allows independent bookshops to benefit, thus enabling the book industry as a whole to continue to thrive.

http://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Brian-Bilston/You-Took-the-Last-Bus-Home–The-Poems-of-Brian-Bilston/19417281

It will publish in the US in January.

If you’d like to read more about how I went from posting poems in tweets and blog postings to publishing a book, you can read about it here in a piece I’ve recently written for The Irish Times.

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/brian-bilston-twitter-s-poet-laureate-on-his-print-debut-1.2819450

Brian Bilston

On Spending National Poetry Day Waiting for the Dishwasher to be Fixed

Assorted Poems, Some poems

It is on days like these
that I wonder if other poets
are just better at covering up
the daily drudgery of life,

domesticity’s endless tugging
upon unironed shirt-sleeves,
as the unwashed mugs
gather sadly in the sink.

Yes, I can imagine Larkin
in some grim launderette,
his specs reflecting back
in a washing machine door

but the others? Hard to think
of Auden elbow-deep in soap suds
or Betjeman wrestling
with bin bags. But I could be wrong.

Maybe the person from Porlock
disturbed poor Coleridge
as he was going hard at it
with a sink plunger.

Perhaps Plath was a dab hand
with a Black and Decker.
Likewise, Heaney with his hoover.
Eliot and his mop.

More likely they just swept
it all under the carpet.
Took up their squat pens
to escape from the squalid,

not drag themselves
further down. But enough
of such melancholic reveries,
I must go now

for the dishwasher repair man is here.

New Research Suggests

Assorted Poems, Some poems

New research suggests that eighty people hold half the world’s wealth.
New research suggests that death may be harmful to your health.
New research suggests that 9 in 10 people will suffer from suffering.
New research suggests that the greatest cause of stress is buffering.
New research suggests that there is no link between Shostakovich and bleach.
New research suggests that the average life expectancy is one life each.
New research suggests that poetry may be harmless.
New research suggests that tank tops may be armless.
New research suggests that Donald Trump may lead to complications in the bile duct.
New research suggests that happiness is an artificial construct.
New research suggests that artificial constructs can make you happy.
New research suggests that the ancient Egyptians invented acne.
New research suggests that Van Gogh’s cat painted Starry Night.
New research suggests that there may be life on Marmite.
New research suggests that hobnobs are better than digestives.
New research suggests that new research can be suggestive.
New research suggests that Elvis is dead.
New research suggests that I should stay in bed.