Just to say that i have recently begun to submit poems to magazines for publication again.
In the November issue of Obsessed by Pipework are two of my poems, 'when she was belly', and 'beginners'. I have received the magazine and it is excellent. Well worth the cover price of £4.50.
The Dawntreader have also accepted 2 of my poems for an upcoming issue.
I am waiting to hear back from other magazines and will let you know how things go.
Best,
Alan John Stubbs
bats
overwinter the plums, all ignored
shrank to bat like husks
sleeping fixed to the branches
in the scraped light
dried out
they clacked dryly against each other
the wind tugging their umbilicals
disappeared wreathed in white early flowers
were found hiding in the profusion when
trees were reborn
these corpses of sweet ones
overlooked late summer’s swells are
changed utterly now
with skins
all of white spores and pin-head orange
eggs waiting
they are become both beginning and end
birth and death
In that tent was all I could need
and every morning a van came
delivering breakfast milk and eggs
not too early, I could lie in
recover from the night before, slowly
stretch my back into shape;
watch her condense air into fresh
shapes from the tip of nose and curl
of hair visible; consider the rucksacks
upright against the tent poles; listen
to the sounds outside this thin partition
of nylon, the grass swaying, the footsteps
of other campers cooking and swearing
as they waken stiff and unzip the day.
About me:
I am a poet resident in Cumbria, UK.
My poems have been published in various magazines including:
Poetry Review
Agenda
The Rialto
The Cannon's Mouth
The Dawn Treader
Carrillon
The Journal
I used to enter competitions and have been awarded prizes in the Arvon International Poetry Competition, Words on the Water, and was often shortlisted in the Bridport Prize, and commended in many other competitions.
The Onslaught Press have published four collections of my poetry. These are:
the lost box of eyes
ident
tomorrow is the tugboat of today
sound about hot
Hoping that you enjoy these poems, tell others, and seek out more.
Thank you for visiting this site.
Very Best
Alan John Stubbs
this tree had flat shoes
'flatees' she would call them
broad not thin that tapered in
to the unbroken moss and liverwort covered earth
where crawling things make
something of themselves
apparently out of nothing
just like
she had all of that thicken and rise
foliage and flowers some-time
snatched from the air like a promise
as if thought could be solid drinking light
she would swallow streams making them
flow up her throat canals in defiance
of gravity itself
transported by affinity alone
until as easy on the ear exhalations of joy they became
cloud-form
laden with chemical speech saying
all of those things one life might say to another
she moves tenderly seeking a way between obstructions
joining strut limb to limb long toe to toe
knowing
something of the frisson of the little movements
inside her sleeve
outside her arms reach
she was always one for sensible shoes
small steps
gentle exercises
stretching out slowly as far as she could go and then coming
to rest
by the smallest of increments orienting
herself to the sun and easing through outside of notice
where green and sappy thought lives
as the movement of air through leaves
its vellum moss folds of consideration
lichen flecked caught in the act of vanishing
bats.
overwinter the plums, all ignored
shrank to bat like husks
sleeping fixed to the branches
in the scraped light
dried out
they clacked dryly against each other
the wind tugging their umbilicals
disappeared wreathed in white early flowers
were found hiding in the profusion when
trees were reborn
these corpses of sweet ones
overlooked late summer’s swells are
changed utterly now
with skins
all of white spores and pin-head orange
eggs waiting
they are become both beginning and end
birth and death
snow
her birth changed everything
to white, white covering
the patchwork of fields making a field of light
to be negotiated
with greater care than before
her letter came with the thaw
to tell of colour's returning -
the raw umber path sunk in on the way to the stile
across the new wall
the elegant lettering is all that remains of that years fall
she was so small his small hands were oversized
and fumbled
with her vests and dresses
buttons and fasteners, and the house
she built was a funnelled drift of her things that slowly settled
when she left it was to live in warmer climes
in an easy fluid form, and to dance through the night
as lightly as when she was first airborne
Perfect (old shoes)
Each one is worn to a tear
At the same point creased
A shell of moulded skin
Comfortably thin through wear
And treading lightly, with care, each pebble
Grit or pearl stone
Can be felt along the way
And though no longer watertight
They can feel the tightrope
Of each day
So while every walk’s not perfect
Each one is
hard here and now.
solid as a railway sleeper, hard and thick
you can drive a knife right into it,
if you’re a physicist
go cut off a slither, or pull on a splinter
that has somehow lodged deep in a finger,
burrowed under skin
and gone to rest.
inviting as a new idea, lit and beckoning
lacking any sense on closer reckoning.
always just coming or having just gone
you can’t pin it down, it lacks all reason,
travelling with you like a second,
third, or fourth, skin, and the rest.
From the lost box of eyes:
To Ithaca
we stepped out of the streets
where commerce was busy defeating the rain
to the stillness of silk
a Kesa in a glass cage
stitched together of precious remnants
elaborately embroidered with lotus flowers
the raw silk the colour of old bone
or gleaming on a body like the skin of a dried onion
smooth, reflecting the sun.
a reverenced cocoon.
the uniforms of Japan's firefighters
in the days before safety
were as colourful and fragile as their young lives.
the mulberry leaves transformed in nature
from one state to another and woven together
stronger, with all ceremony
and reverence and care, were treasures.
gifts of the past made new.
the idea of the warm sun held to a skin,
the hope of continuation, of something vital enduring.
A selection of poems from The Lost Box of Eyes:
this tree is both an assertion and a dialogue
it is ambiguous and playfully sets out in branches
it is rooting too slowly to appreciate in inches
it is not just itself but also lichens and mosses
aggregate on its surfaces, and the spine of trunk
is a book of record in a way, and the flat leaf
a translator of light and air and water, a sheathe
of cares where a slaughter of aphids turn gunk
and tear into a million chews, or that tree frogs
may choose to hide beneath and snooze, or foxes
paw at when they parachute loose, and so this
is an interpretation, and that is all it is, a miss
heard call, a faint echo, an accumulation of
words sighing like leaves on a tree, or a stove
that is ready to cook the meal that's inside it.
This door is blind shut and we don't know it's lit.
