It's like the Awesome Nameless Summer Poetry Project, but will probably get a title soon. Part 1.

Today I got an e-mail from GPS with a contract and everything. Something about invoicing them. I've never "invoiced" anyone before; largely because I'm usually on the other end of that equation and because most of my dealings are with friends. This, however, is with a large, poetry-based corporation.

More on that later. With regards to the Other End of my cash-acquisition, I'm currently working on a new Chapbook to complete in time for a top-secret lock-in fundraiser at Lewis' band's practice space beginning of April.
Yeah, I know.
Something about a "top-secret fundraiser" sounds eight ways to dodgy, but still. . . I like reading in cramped, poorly lit spaces. If my words don't hit people, specks of saliva will.

So I'm currently going through a list of potential poems for this book. I want it to largely consist of pieces I've written (or heavily edited and completed) here in Swansea, I want it to have a strong Sense of Place, but I don't want it to read like a poetry-based laundry list of images and places; I find that heavily themed works get real stale real fast.
So. I've got a list of titles here, some with links to them, others you can easily find on this blog, others are yet unseen in online form and we'll let that stay the case.



First off, the Poems I Wrote Pre-Wales, that for whatever reason I Feel Strongly Enough About to consider including
Story Problem
Zombies and Paint Thinner
Dinner For One
Watching Films About Death
Little Red Corvette
Cavities
Caleb Barber Loses His Teeth to Meth
Everyone Has Something
Murder Ballads

Poems I've Written in Swansea, More or Less About Swansea or Places in It or about General 'Welshness'-->(*Marks one that needs a good bit of work)
Beneath the Cathedral
Paintings of Famous Satanists
Rugby '08
Rugby '09*
Rucksacks*
The Cafe Across From the Train Station
Glasgow Weather and Inappropriate Footwear
Carmarthen Train #1
Its What We Writers Do (For Jen)
Christmas Light Gallows*
Tall Drink of Water
Black Pudding*
Isolation Therapy
At the Chip Shop
Beck House D 3.1*
Ambition is Critical*
Swansea-Cardiff Blues (Bellngham Edition)*
Earl Grey
All My Friend Back Home (Start a band about this one)*
Tired Eyes


And These Are About Girls or Concepts or came from Ryan's prompts and aren't necessarily tied to Wales
Ellie
Donkey Kong Country
New Poem For Old Plasters
We Laughed at the Same Thing (M4W)
Clippers! Clippers! Clippers!
A Little Fear of Drowning
Flicking Ash
24th Ave, NE*
Cities that Exist in Movies*
Children Go Missing Every Day
Context and Subtext
Ways In Which Gloriana Flotsam McGrew Will Probably Die, Since It's Always So Fucking Glamourous With Her (addressed to the subject)
Pigeon Bait
Children Go Missing Every Day
Forward Thinking
Boyz*
Three Counts of Public Urination
Enough With the Cape Already*
Genus, Species and Flavour
I am the tired orphan*

yeah. So about 15-20 poems out of those. Plus a few that are very much in my head but not on paper yet. Some are shoe-ins, but it really depends what sort of thing I want to make and what purpose I want it to serve for me and how long. Which I'll talk about later. I've tagged a lot of places you can find some of the mentioned poems.

Beck House Block D 3

1.
Saturday morning. In lieu of television, there's youtube and you can be however old you want. Today I am five, watching Masters of the Universe. My parents were never too thrilled on that one, with it's near-overt occult references and (retrospectively) inappropriately sexy characters. I do not change out of pajamas for this.

"Now it's time to unleash my army of demons!"

2.
The kitchen. Where we gather by accident, linger over tea and biscuits. Paula's stay here nears completion. She is always in her pajamas when not in her nurses uniform, always hacked about the mingin' weather. She might go back to her boyfriend in Scotland or she might move to Carlisle. It's the beginning of attrition. The slow emptying of the hall that happens over holidays, but for good.

I'll be here all summer.

3.
I share my balcony with a man I never see. Save for when he smokes and nods through the open curtains. The view we maintain is one of tilting rooftops trailing towards the atlantic, a few leafless trees rustling and the same crane that's been there since september, hovering over perpetual construction.

I wonder if he knows I'm watching cartoons.

4.
Basim and Dupet are arguing about God. Or he is trying to wind her up, finding great success. "I was born. . . in Bethelehem. I am. . . the new Jesus." She challenges his Muslim heritage. "Basim-- Islam is a religion of peace and love, no?" He shrugs and nods. "So is Christianity." They recite the FATYA in arabic together. I am washing my tea-mug in hot soapy water. Dupet asks if I'll be going home when I'm done, what with how "bad things are in the states." I hope not. Not yet. The rooms here are small but I have not yet filled mine with things, the weather is bad but it's bad back home and here at least

there is always He-Man and his magic sword, here to vanquish the forces of Skeletor.