Featuring Adrian Manning

......................................................

Hard Skinned

lizards, snakes 

and toads

infiltrate my dream

scurrying into 

the cracks

or leaping at me

cold blood and 

soulless eyes

hard skinned in 

reptilian

madness

increasing in number

a virus

crowding the nights

silent space

until I wake

sweating

damp and

cool

and

joining them

in my 

sickness

.................................

We Are Three Old Friends

sat around a table 

with a fresh round of drinks

and the laughter

from so many years of 

not taking anything seriously

still rumbling in our guts

so now when we riff 

on the state of the nation 

and the decline of civilisation 

we can disagree and 

forgive each other

as easily as the rain falling and evaporating on the window pane reflecting 

our gentle leaning

toward last orders

at the bar

.............................

Music and Noise

music without words 

that’s what I need right now

some space to breathe

noise static works

sound almost unbearable 

but

there’s comfort in discord

.................................

Das ist Alles

ok

it's been a ride

but

let's forget it

let's call it quits 

let's get out of here

and really make it

you'll know where to

find me

longitude -1.139759

latitude 52.636878

you may hear me 

coughing into the clouds 

sometime 

somewhere

maybe you won't 

be listening

but

you know where 

to find me

and

das ist alles

das ist allen

...............................

Codeine Coincidence

I’m sat in the doctors

waiting room

reading a book of poems

by John D. Robinson

while a woman is

talking loudly with no

sense of her own privacy 

about her codeine

prescription 

I turn the page to read

‘codeine haiku’ 

the next poem

as the receptionist tells

her that her script is

with the chemist

“Is there plenty of it?”

the woman asks

and I look at the page

thinking there’s more

around

than I thought 

obviously

the screen flashes

and she is gone

I’ve turned the page 

to the next poem

and that is the end

of the codeine 

coincidence

and

I sit hoping

everything will be

ok

A bio:

Adrian Manning is a poet from Leicester, England. He has been widely published in magazines, online and in a number of chapbooks. A full length selected poems collection “Digging Up The Bones” has just been published by Uncollected Press (https://therawartreview.com/books-for-sale/ ) He is also the editor of Concrete Meat Press.

Featuring Gwil James Thomas

Pioneer Amphibian Haiku. 

Their fossil remains

Behind glass like a trophy 

won by some strange luck.

I Hate Poetry. 

Ridiculous 

sentimental bullshit - 

cheap jokes 

with senseless syntaxes -

vignette hybrids with 

ripped off riffs and spilt guts 

that get scribbled down and 

read aloud by deadbeats, 

liars and intellectuals alike - 

full of self promotion, 

delusions, excuses and 

at least one award 

that nobody’s ever heard of. 

They’ll slurp your entrails like 

Spaghetti for attention, 

break your heart for a good line -

but most of this is bravado to 

conceal the wounds of 

a delicate and dreamful soul.

So it’s probably best 

not to take a poet, 

or poem too 

seriously.

As it Settles. 

Her cute smile like 

a welcomed ceasefire, 

her mind razor sharp 

but embedded in fun,  

her skin soft and salty, 

nipples brown and perky, 

her happy memory 

lingering long after 

the sheets are washed, 

grinning back at me 

before it softly settles 

elsewhere in my mind 

and I’d like it 

to stay.

A Poem for a Bar in Bilbao, 

That Definitely Wasn’t a Casino. 

I drink a cheap glass of red wine 

with a warmed slice of 

Empanada de Atún

whilst outside the heavens have opened 

and are flooding the streets. 

Across the windowless bar 

my eyes follow some neon pink lights 

and I notice a hallway that’s lined 

with slot machines and ask the young 

latin woman behind the bar 

if I’m in a casino? 

To which she smiles 

and shakes her head - 

I down the rest of the wine,

take the final bite of my lunch 

and leave like a moth 

towards the artificial light.

Down the hallway two old men 

sit at slot machines and at the far end 

of  the hallway a large room is

being used as a geriatric gambling den, 

with a roulette wheel and a gang of 

elderly women and men sat around 

playing cards. 

I turn back to an unoccupied 

slot machine in the hallway 

put in six Euros -

lose four, 

get lucky 

win fifty 

and swiftly cash out.   

The old man to my right 

jealously glares at me like a drunk 

eyeing up the drinker that’s able to 

get blotto from a single beer - 

I’m a mere tourist to his addiction. 

I bundle the cash into my pockets, 

as the hombre to my right then

arduously reaches towards me 

with his long bony arms, 

as if he’s somehow been cheated. 

I smile and wander back to the bar

where the girl asks me if I’d 

like another drink? 

This time I shake my head. 

Outside the storm’s cleared and I decide 

that I’ll visit The Guggenheim 

with my winnings - 

they’ve got Picasso and Van Gogh there 

and that’s a far safer bet.

Gwil James Thomas is a poet, novelist and inept musician originally from Bristol, England. He is a Best of The Net nominee whose written work can be found widely in print and also online. He’s worked as a chef, a labourer, an aeroplane cleaner, a dishwasher, a product demonstrator and a news article archivist. He is currently laying low somewhere in Northern Spain. His fourth poetry chapbook Writing Beer, Drinking Poetry (Concrete Meat Press) is available here: https://adrianmanning.wixsite.com/concretemeatpress/publications

Find more work by Gwil James Thomas on BM here: https://georgedanderson.blogspot.com/2020/05/featuring-gwil-james-thomas.html

New Release: John D Robinson ECHOES OF DIABLO (Concrete Meat Press, 2018)

Here’s a couple of poems from UK poet John D. Robinson’s latest collection of poetry: 

A DIABLO POEM

Tonight, I’m with my friend

Diablo,

Casillero del Diablo

‘Wine from the Devil’s Cellar’

it’s not often we meet

as he’s expensive

but when we meet it’s

always good, he never

let’s me down, he’s a true

and loyal friend

who knows of the muse

and often brings her

along:

tomorrow morning he’ll

be gone

to another place

and she’ll be in

the shadows

waiting for another

romance.

ORDINARY FOLKS

The apartment was small,

cramped, grim, unkempt

and a lingering staleness

dampened the air:

he was in his mid 50’s

and was dying of

alcoholism: his daughter

was in her early 20’s and

was making a living 

making home-made porno

movies in sleazy back-

street rooms with perverts,

drug dealers and other

desperados: she told me

that they were’ good

ordinary folk and didn’t

need no fucking help

from anybody’ as she 

pouted, flirted and smiled 

at me with dismissive

eyes: 

the old man

sat sipping brandy,

looking out of the window,

smoking a cigarette:

he didn’t say a word:

2 weeks later he was dead                                          

and his daughter scurried

to the city seeking her

fortune in the sex trade:

ordinary folks was what

they were.


Check out Concrete Meat Press: http://adrianmanning.wixsite.com/concretemeatpress

New Release: Adrian Manning & John D Robinson Looking Down Both Barrels (Holy & Intoxicated Publications, 2017) 32 pages

Looking Down Both Barrels is a chapbook which features the poetry of English poets Adrian Manning and John D Robinson. Asked recently about how the project came about Robinson said, "I remember Adrian contacting me with regards to the Poetry Card Series: it was perfect timing as I was just beginning to put together Series 4: Naturally, I was aware of Adrian Manning, not only his poetry but also his Concrete Meat Press and his friendship/ working with and publishing the late brilliant James D Quentin. Adrian is a poet and publisher that I have a great deal of respect and admiration for: when I proposed a split chapbook, I really was looking down both barrels and when Adrian accepted, I was blown away."

Adrian Manning contributes 15 poems to the chapbook. The writing is varied in subject matter and style. The sentences are highly measured and have an observational and contemplative edge to them. Although some poems border on sentiment or nostalgia others reveal a darker, wry side to Manning’s universe:

IT SEEMS

that we are judged
and criticised
at every turn

I fully expect
that when I am dead
some bastard will
say I’m not lying
still enough


DARK SURRENDER

we are the offspring
of the damned
we walk in dark surrender
towards the end of the night
never looking back

some are better than others
at being blind to it all
some are better than others
at hiding their fear

but we all walk onward
in dark surrender
no matter how much
you kid yourself
you are not.

John D Robinson contributes 12 poems which are characteristically first person and confessional narrative in form. Like many of us, Robinson sees poetry as “an obsession, an addiction, a love affair: I spend a great deal of my waking hours thinking of and about and reading poetry.” He was for a long time encouraged to begin publishing by his friend, poet and publisher, Josephine Austin (1934-2014).

Robinson uses everyday experiences, such as, watching tv, listening to his father weeping, getting his work rejected, relationship problems, killing a fly in a car and the like to tell stories through his poetry. The writing is candid, has a spontaneous feel to it and typically uses direct speech and expletives.

Robinson’s opening poem “WATCH-OUT” is characteristic of his style:

WATCH-OUT

We opened all the windows
of the moving car, the fly was
ignoring this and flew around
the vehicle, irritating and
annoying:
‘Kill it!’ I said as my wife
swiped at it across the steering-
wheel: the fucker was quick:
I saw it coming towards me, I
didn’t want to murder it:
I karate chopped it with my
right hand, stunning the
thing and knocking it
towards an open window,
instantly, I followed up with
a lightning left back hand
karate strike that knocked
the fly clean out of the car:
it was awesome, it took me
by surprise and I knew this
was a performance never to
happen again, I felt like a
codeine-hash stoned
Bruce Lee;
‘Did you see that?’ I asked
my wife,
‘See what?’ she said,
‘What I did with that fly’ I
said:
‘Fuck the fly!’ she said,
sadly ignorant of my
breath-taking artistry.

The cover art is by the Swedish artist Janne Karlsson and features the sights of a double-barreled shot-gun. A blurb for the book suggests the poetry will blow you away: “Looking Down Both Barrels: The poems perforate the page like a scatter-gun blast of truth and dirty realism and humour.”

Find a review of Looking Down Both Barrels here: http://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?p=3918

An Amazon link to the book: https://www.amazon.in/Looking-Barrels-Adrian-Manning-Robinson/dp/0993206867