Latest Releases: Holy & Intoxicated Publications (2022-2023)

pete donohue: new midnight sky (2023) Front cover John D. Robinson

 

There is a great variety of poems amongst the 15 in this chap by the UK poet Pete Donohue. In the opening titled poem, ‘new midnight sky’ Donohue creatively humps the alphabet through an enlivened statue to reveal a sense of hope at the bottom of his spun-out barrel:

 

new midnight sky

 

one illuminated evening

this statue sheds its stasis

becomes alive again

for reasons only known

to herself

bending burnt spoons

between those bony thighs

into impossible re-use

like rusting cars crushed

at the local breaker’s yard

she crunches up syringes

with rotten gappy teeth

behind thin blooded lips

& spits out fragile shards

to form nascent stars of hope

surrounding a gibbous moon

the frolicking humpback mother

spread out across the canopy

as warm protective blanket

in her new midnight sky.

 

I dig best Donohue’s cast of wayward souls represented in his character poems. The personified ‘erotic wine’ bottle is a classic study in minimalism.Cheerful too is ‘stylish annabella’:

 

she wears tight woollen dresses

hair shirts in black

never any underwear

between those & skin

 

sharing every outline

of bony flesh

to the judgemental

naked to all

 

Best in the collection is perhaps ‘psychobilly baby’. I like how Donohue telescopes time and compresses images in this tragic, character study:

 

psychobilly baby

 

he never smoked hash with us

told us he didn’t like the way

it made him feel

or think

said he had a small habit

with smack

but was on top of it

his mother & sister

died in a car crash

when he was younger

he wouldn’t speak about it

we admired his drape jackets

& the way he walked through the night

all over london

loaded up on speed

he printed a mean silkscreen

fashioned wax in a candle shop

when we eventually found him

in his shepherd’s bush basement

he had been dead three days

the needle limp in his arm

i lit one of his candles.

 

Gwil James Thomas: Gold Chains Around Our Necks, Hellhounds At Our Heels (2022) 22 pages

 Thomas lives in Bristol but some of his best work draws on his years in Spain. There are 20 poems in this chap, including 3 haikus, some of which have previously appeared in small, alternative publications such as Terror House Magazine, Rye The Whiskey Review, Expat Press, The Bees Are Dead and others.  His poetry characteristically is free verse, narrative and confessional in style. These are honest, original one-off poems, wrought out of the beautiful but sometimes fucked up cauldron we call life.

 

Here are two of my favourites from the collection. Posted with the permission of the publisher. Click to enlarge:

Gwil James Thomas is a novelist, poet and inept musician. He lives in his hometown of Bristol, England but has also lived in London, Brighton and Spain. He has twice been nominated for The Best of The Net and once for The Pushcart Prize. He has worked as a labourer, a chef, an aeroplane cleaner, a product sales demonstrator, a freelance writer, a dishwasher and a news article archivist. In 2022 he also published two other poetry chapbooks - Part English, Part Welsh, Part Wolf (Scumbag Press) and The Labourer Poems (Hickathrift Press). He plans to one day build a house amongst other things.

 

  

 

The Woman Who Loved Floppy Hats (14 pages) 

John D. Robinson (words) & Danny D. Ford (illustrations)

 

This is a hilarious, explicit romp into a young woman’s bedroom antics and her peculiar sexual hat fetish. The story is clearly told and unfolds in an interesting and highly entertaining way.

 

Danny D. Ford’s four illustrations add humour and bonk to Robinson’s inventive frolic. 

 

The short story first appeared in the e-zine ‘Horror Sleaze Trash’ and was later published in Robinson’s collection The Dirty Sacrifice & Other Stories (Alien Buddha Press, 2021).

 

The story begins simply and graphically and entices the reader to continue:

 

Loretta Blissful was a very attractive and sexy twenty-seven-year-old and had an untamed and insatiable appetite for the opposite sex. She had been married and divorced nine times; a commitment to just one man was impossible for her. 

One man was never enough. 

Loretta liked to think of herself as a sexual vampire with an unquenchable thirst for cock. No matter how deeply Loretta’s love for each of her nine husbands, she could simply not resist the urge, the opportunities, the lust to pursue other men for sexual conquests and adventures. She simply could not help herself; her passion was her demon and she loved her demon well.

MORE TO FOLLOW

 

 

New Release: Kevin Tosca ZUCCHINI: A MEMOIR (Holy &intoxicated Publications, 2021) 20 pages

 

Prolific Berlin-based writer Kevin Tosca's recent release ZUCCHINI: A MEMOIR adds another layer to his impressive budding body of his work. 

 

The chapbook consists of 16 short narrative pieces, some of which have appeared previously, sometimes in slightly different form, in small press publications, such as Cake, Cleaver Magazine, Mojave River Review, Short, Fast, and Deadly and The Broken Plate.

 

Tosca’s pieces in this chap are usually short quirky narratives. As usual, the writing is inventive, unpredictable- sometimes, off its face. You will find parody, direct speech in the discussion of a film, a character study, relationship dysfunctions, how to create a modern art film- but the form and the words often defy classification. 

 

Take the following piece ‘Like Nothing Else’ which is dedicated to William Minor, presumably ‘the madman’ who helped Professor James Murray to develop the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (click on the image to enlarge- all work has been posted with the permission of the writer):

In contrast, the phallic title piece ‘Zucchini’ has a more tactile, naturalistic feel about it:

In summing up his nascent career as a writer, Tosca says in forewording his piece ‘Fresh’, thus far it is difficult to say if I have contributed anything new to the Wide World/ of Ideas. Actually, I have no idea if I have contributed or not, never having, until writing/ this little whatever this is, given this serious matter of any serious thought.”

 

Tosca remains tight-lipped about his work and future writing prospects. Wonder if he has a bigger, more complex work in progress- and is up to it? 

 

Find out more about Kevin Tosca’s extensive & incredible writing here: http://www.kevintosca.com/index.html

New Release: Gwil James Thomas- Lonesome Wholesome Soup (Holy & Intoxicated Publications, 2021)

This is the latest release from John D. Robinson’s Holy & Intoxicated Publications. Gwil James Thomas is an English poet. Here is a sample poem from the chapbook:

 

 

Blend.

 

I was the grey hair 

on the baby’s head, 

the ugly Casanova, 

the bug that traded 

his wings for feelings 

and wished he could 

trade them back, 

the herd’s first 

carnivorous cow, 

the vegan piranha,   

the one who got you 

back on your feet 

and then the one 

you left behind,

the sheep 

in wolf’s clothing, 

the ghost of all that 

was and ever will be,

never blending into 

the crowd –

even when 

I tried.

 

 

Buy the chap here direct from the poet: gwiljamesthomas@gmail.com

 

 

From the back cover:

“Gwil James Thomas’ latest collection Lonesome Wholesome Soup is  exactly what poetry should be: humble reflections of the past, present, and  unwritten future, coupled with straight punches to the heart. The first poem  finds Gwil wandering with a cheap bottle of cerveza and ‘a poem always in  my heart –/but rarely there when I need it most/on the tip of my tongue.’  This sets the tone for all 12 poems collected here. Lonesome Wholesome  Soup is a wonderful collection of poetry that leaves the reader reflecting on  their entire life, while begging for more.” – Tohm Bakelas: poet.

Gwil James Thomas writes with a rare thing- a pen that is dipped in honest blood. Raw, reflective, sometimes brutal or uncomfortable, these are not pretty poems. What they are is more and better than that. They make us confront the truth, ourselves and the dark shadows in between and that can only be a good thing. That is what poetry should do and thomas does it as well as any of them. I read Thomas' poetry whenever I can - so should you. Adrian Manning:Poet:Publisher: Concrete Meat Press

New Release: George Douglas Anderson THE PORTAL (Holy & Intoxicated Publications, UK, 2020) 20 pages

 

Happy to see together 16 of my poems about school in this limited print edition. If you live in Australia and want a signed copy send $7 (includes postage) via PayPal to georgedanderson8@gmail.com. A huge thanks to John D. Robinson of Holy & Intoxicated Publications for putting this chapbook together!

Here's a sample:

Poetry Writing at Jibbon Beach

 

Spread out! Go get inspired!

I don’t want anyone sitting together

 

-The wet lip of the bay shimmering

& at my cool white feet a swirling tangle 

of sea debris like shredded newspaper

& small spinning fragments of  black dust

 

Nathan, get out of that tree!

You can’t write from up there!

What’s it got to be about, Miss?

Does it have to rhyme?

 

-Above Kurnell a Qantas jet angles

piercing the blue noon the bubbling rumble

entering through his feet & hands shaking 

pummelling the floppy neck of moment’s sweet silence

 

Miss, do you have a new pencil, mine broke?

OWWWW!! Stop chucking rocks Ryan!

 

Time’s up class- we’re going up the hill to read our poetry

 

Miss, mine’s going to kick ass! This is how it goes:

‘The girl I saw at Bundeena

Oh man! You should have seen her

The sparkle of her gleaming hair

Could dazzle the pants off a grizzly bear.

 

From the locals she had nothing to fear

Their eyes were focussed on the local deer’

 

Well done Nathan! Excellent use of end rhyme

And striking and original use of metaphor.

 

Trevor, you’re next.

 

Do I have to Miss?…

 

- the ferry back to Cronulla

wide steel windows of mansions

double glazed   faceless

pulsing lifelong desires

starboard   an unravelling

pan of sparkling yachts

the wind whispering

faintly upon pungent diesel

 

 

(originally published by Five Bells, Journal of The Poets' Union)

Gifted & Talented

 

As a gift one year

a female student

gives me an expensive

silver pen which has

inscribed on it

in posh handwriting:

 

Greatest English 

  Teacher Ever

 

Let me tell you

 

she wasn’t the greatest 

of students either.

Some thoughts on ‘The Portal: School Poems:

George Douglas Anderson

Published by Holy&intoxicated Publications

 

Although in size and volume ‘The Portal’ is small in stature, it is in fact a big fat mother of a chapbook: the tempered music of the classrooms and its inhabitants have been hammered down silently: the lava flow of words sear with insightful and observations of humanity in its early stages and beyond: there is a value in Anderson’s work that is on the run, it is wanted, for all the right reasons: read : An Early Education: The Poet: Portal;: My HSC Advice: Ribena: as you will feel this yourself: Anderson’s humour punches through here and there but his gentle grip on compassion is strong and intelligent : As a publisher this book was A MUST PRINT: the cover art by Rory Anderson is alone worth the $5:00 and also the art work within: A big fat mother of a book hiding its depth: this is one reason why I love chapbooks: I was left, wanting to read more:

 

John D Robinson:

Poet/writer/artist

Holy&intoxicated Publications: UK

“What I like about Anderson's work is that he writes in the language he knows and without attempt to be "poetical." This lack of pretense, plus his ironic detachment and sense of humor, are the engagingly human qualities that make his work, for me, a pleasure to read.”

 

Wayne F. Burke

New Release: Henry G. Stanton The Man Who Turned Stuff Off (Holy & intoxicated Publications, 2019) 22 pages

The painter and publisher, Henry Stanton, has recently released a chapbook The Man Who Turned Stuff Off through UK's small press publisher Holy & intoxicated Press.

The chap consists of 18 free verse poems. In it you'll find love poems, prose poems, word puzzles, nature poems, poems about dreaming & premonitions of death, metaphysical explorations into the origins of life and meta-poetic reflections on the creative process. 

Here are a couple examples of Stanton's work:

The Juniper Tunnel

To cast your small self into this long world of soft flat needles.
To pull your wings in tight and dive a perfect feather missile through 

the beckoning verdure.
To bank sharp left and plunge for eternity into a flutter of greens blues highlight 

and shading.

This once shadow hovering over a vast forest of delusion; 

this little flyer this bird this poet.
There amongst gone turn around now
turn around.

The apprehension of a vibrating word.

It’s so simple swivel wherever we look only this
only this

that one green tree growing in pure blue air.

How to Steal from Rich People

Intoxicate yourself with purpose
and leave drunken from
their huge and brilliant puny house at night.
Leave it behind.
Abandon
all sparkling fluids the musical insane laughter shimmering gowns 

that clinging.
Back there
behind in the spinning room what remains of who you were. 

Follow the path to the retreating beach.

Look the moon in its brilliant eye my god!
It buries itself in the ocean depths and remembers.
Remember who you are
what remains what memory the swirling foam
drowning
give it all away
sink to that love rise to that terror
and repeat again
a fleeting life in dreams.

The following is Stanton's painting "Ocean of Responsibility Sea of Task" which appears on the chapbook's front cover (click on to enlarge):

Buy a signed and limited numbered copy of the book here: https://therawartreview.com/books-for-sale/

Book Review: Doug Draime FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN (Holy & Intoxicated Publications, UK, 2019) 32 pages

The latest Holy Intoxicated publication features the posthumous poetry of the late, great American poet Doug Draime (1943-2015). The poems were selected by his wife Carol and his son Aaron in this special limited chapbook edition. The book follows the publication of Farrago Soup (Pedestrian Press, 2016), a major retrospective of Doug's poetry.

 In Fire On The Mountain you will find a wide mix of content, form and style amongst the 36 poems in the collection. The chapbook predominantly combines political poems with highly personal anecdotes. Also included is a reflection on Draime's writing life ("Tit ForTat, Or You'll Find Out Who Your Friends Are When You Need $5"), a song parody ("Poem, Love Me All The Time") an Animal Farm fragment ("One Connected And Disconnected"), a creation myth/allegorical poem ("Dragons On The Cliffs"), a philosophical exploration into the notion of reality ("Forming Words Inside And Outside Time", an alternative historical take on Christ's crucifixion ("This Side Of The Mystery/Game") and many other interesting experiments in language and subject matter.

In the political poems, such as, "Slaves Of The Harvest", "What It Is, Man!", "24 Hour Surrender", "For The Movie Star Who Wants To 'Help'", "Professing Love", "Poems For A Political Poet" and the rant "Offing Uncle Sam", Draime deeply expresses his rage, frustration and disgust at humankind's stupidity, insane greed, callousness and hypocrisy.

The powerful poem "Insanity of Peace" is perhaps the best of his political poems in the chapbook. Draine expresses a scathing appraisal of our ability to find a lasting peace. Our apathy, our misplaced faith in our leaders and the worship of "false prophets" greatly diminishes our attempts to achieve  peace.

Yet the poem's message can be read as positive and transformative overall. To move beyond our "continuing nightmare-movie", Draime implies that we need to dispel our illusions and to realise that peace is more than an abstract notion, and is possible, if we act:

Insanity of Peace

We wait for peace in hunched anticipation,  
believing it will somehow come from somewhere, 
at some future time, someday, maybe a Monday.

We wait in pulsating anxiety, ready to lunge forward 
to grab it hard like the proverbial brass ring on the 
spinning merry-go-round we think is life.

We look to our “leaders” hoping beyond hope that
someone will come along who doesn’t lust to cut
our pathetic throats and sell our blood for the stagnant ethers.

We look everywhere in the world, anywhere in the world.

We franticly thumb through thousands of books of false prophets.

We elect liars, butchers, and idiots who worship war, not peace.

We dream it will be brought about by some bloodied hero of our continuing nightmare-movie.

We think that peace will occur in some abstract manner outside ourselves, separate from our own thoughts.

We search for peace in our brutal illusions where peace can never be found.

(all poems have been published with the permission of the publisher)


In the chapbook, you will also discover several intimate, personal poems written about the poet's family, friends and casual sexual encounters. I was especially drawn to anecdotal poems which revealed his joy in experiencing everyday events- watching South Park with his step-grandsons and laughing their "asses off"("Possible Signs Of Life On Earth"), observing tongue-in-cheek, a robin crapping on his lawn ("A Bird's Gift") and quietly watching a woman place flowers around the house ("A Flower For You On Savage Creek Road").

Draime is clever and sensuous in describing intimate relationships. Memorable are the poems "Drinking Wine With A Beautiful, Raving Lunatic", "Dream On Christmas Day", "Memory Of A Place I Have Never Been With A Woman Who I Never Knew", "Sentimental" and the micro poem "Memory of Love Dying".

Perhaps of greater depth and complexity is "Sex With The Hippie Palm Reader" about an encounter the speaker, presumably Draime, had with a palm reader in the early 1970s. What makes this poem immortal is not only Draime's erotic descriptions of the fling but also the associations which the poet draws 25 years after the experience to reflect on the lives of starving artists in general and his own "desperate poverty, even homelessness."

Sex With The Hippie Palm Reader

Now, looking down at the palms of my hands,
I remember one day in the early 70’s
when I was full of mescaline and
marijuana, a beautiful young woman
read my palm. She was high too; and I 
remember the lovely curve of her
inner thigh as her flowered dress rode up 
when she moved forward on
the chair, holding my right hand and she
moved closer and her breath was slightly
garlic, but mainly Scope mouthwash and was hot
on my palm. She told me many things, pointing out
the lines on my palms which indicated them.
I disregarded most of the predictions and openly
laughed at one.: she said I would always be
dependent on other people for money, that I would never
have any of my own. At the time I had a good job running
a bookstore, and pocket change from writing.
But now, I think of the hard times over the last several years 
in Oregon. and I can’t help but think of Dante, Chatterton, 
Poe, Hamsum, Miller, and St. Peter, begging for a crumb of bread,
unable or unwilling to secure a livelihood through their own
efforts, because of their passion, because of their
obsession, because of their worldly perceived
unworthiness, because of the their undeniable destiny.
I thought of these men and I thought of
my former homelessness, remembering her grim forecast,
as I studied the lines of my hand,
as I remembered her dress ridding up on her further
and my hand on her moist warm upper
thigh, and I remember her closing her eyes and shuttering.
And now, nearly 25 years later, yes, there has been
desperate poverty, even homelessness,
but I know that the
big picture on that day was sex, dizzy and frantic,
on the floor between our chairs, not any lines on my hand or
knots on my head. There was just her lovely face
and supple body, with the deep, wet lines of
her vagina, spelling out our destiny for an hour
and this memory.

The cover is designed by the Swedish artist Janne Karlsson, a long-time collaborator of John D. Robinson of Holy & Intoxicated Publications and Wolfgang Carstens of Epic Rites Press. The front cover is minimalist in an abstract, symbolic way. In the foreground a candle burns brightly crowned by crossbones. In the distance there is a black mountain in which a small window appears to observe the candle. 

Towards the end of his life, Doug Draime struggled with lung cancer and a few of the poems allude to death, particularly in the final poem in the collection "This Side Of The Mystery/Game" begins:

Death is the bottomless pit, a ravenous
beast that
gets us all in the
end.

Yet Doug Draime lives on through his poetry and in the rare didactic poem "Existence" he points to the reader how we should lead our lives:

Existence

The lesson 
of this
is to 
prepare 
yourself 
for the 
light
to wake 
from the 
nightmare.

The lesson 
of this is to 
give up
the bloodied 
ghosts of 
your
own 
creations.

The lesson 
of this
is to
let the 
demons go 
watch them 
fade
back
into 
nothingness 
like 
phantoms.

The lesson 
of this
is to
bust out of 
your
shackles
into bright 
limitless 
creation where 
death
is no more 
because
it

never 
was.

The lesson 
of this
is that 
love is
the only 
thing that 
perpetuates 
the breath 
of spirit, 
love
being the 
only 
vehicle
of your 
liberation.

In Fire On The Mountain, Draime Draime shows that he is a witty, playful, deeply human poet. His work is original, highly varied and he seamlessly weaves between the mundane and the big issues: love, politics, time, poetry, death. 

Check out Doug Draime's official website where you find a wealth of information about his writings and where you can buy Fire On The Mountain & some of his earlier work: https://www.dougdraime.com

Buy Farrago Soup: Selected Poems by Doug Draime (the Pedestrian Press, 2016): 

http://thepedestrianpress.weebly.com/store/p36/Farrago_Soup%2C_Selected_Poems_by_Doug_Draime.html

New Release: Casey Renee Kiser Way Out (Holy & Intoxicated Press, 2019) 20 pages

This is the latest release by Holy & Intoxicated Publications. It consists of thirteen confessional poems by American poet Casey Renee Kiser.

Book blurb:

‘Casey Renee Kiser writes an electric-sensually charged poetry, lyrical and alive withstreet language, her words strike like literary barbed harpoons: something intoxicating and illuminating, the hot dark moments of our time, enticing and alluring: this poet is a predator of nakedness, raw, the truth of us all; fearless and always feminine. This is a poet you should read.’

John D Robinson

John D Robinson & Janne Karlsson Beneath A Crying Moon (Holy & Intoxicated Publications, 2019) 30 pages

In this coming together of two deranged minds, English poet John D. Robinson and Swedish artist Janne Karlsson spar for 12 rounds, alternating page by page to try to out do the other.

Karlsson with his characteristic absurd and surreal punchy illustrations takes the reader to the canvas on countless occasions. John D. Robinson, punch drunk and stoned, gets a blow job and writes another poem or two on the way down.

Buy the book here direct: 50 copies only are available:

 £5:00/5 euros + £2 p&p: paypal   johndrobinson@yahoo.co.uk

New Release: John D Robinson & Joseph Ridgwell The Lost Future In A Pair Of Blue Eyes (Holy & Intoxicated Publications, 2018) 30 pages

This is the latest Holy & Intoxicated publication by UK poet John D Robinson. It combines his poetry with that of the London writer Joe Ridgwell. The title derives from Ridgwell’s poem The Lost Future In A Pair Of Blue Eyes in which he describes in mythic terms the arrival of a son.

The chapbook opens with a series of twenty interlocking vignettes by Joseph Ridgwell in which he poetically documents the rise and fall and the aftermath of a relationship with “Anais”. Asked recently as to whether his work was based on real events, Joe candidly replied, “As always, all my stuff is based on real events. I’m just not good at making shit up, ahahhah. Yeah Anais is an alias. Those poems focus on my relationship with the poet and novelist J, who is the mother of my child. We split a few years back, and some years needed to pass before I could write about that period of my life. The poems came as and when, some are new, some written a few years back.”

For the record, some earlier versions of Ridgwell’s poems originally appeared in Load the Guns: Blackheath Books 2009; A Child of the Jago: Kilog Press 2010 and Fire Island Pig Ear Press 2012.

In his contribution to The Lost Future In A Pair Of Blue Eyes, Ridgwell explores love in its many guises including; love at first sight (“When I Saw Her”), the exhilaration of young love (“On Waterloo Bridge” and “Angel Visions”), the stirrings of romance (“More Beautiful than the Night” and “Looking out over the Harbour of San Vicente”), desire (“Anais”), sexual love (“The Canal”), raging jealousy (“End of the Affair”), the birth of a child (“Miracle on Lordship Lane”), the attempts at reconciliation (“Scotland or No”), the disillusionment that comes with the collapse of love (“Days of Wine and Roses”), and interestingly, the will of the poet to pick himself up from the wreckage of his relationship and to start contemplating  a new beginning (“Fare Thee Well”).

The writing is first person free verse, sensuous, layered and full of strikingly original images. Interestingly, Ridgwell often uses pathetic fallacy, favoured by the Romanic poets, in drawing parallels between how he feels and occurrences in the cosmos.

Here are two of Ridgwell’s poems from the chapbook. They will give you a clearer idea of his writing style and choice of subject matter:

Angel Visions

That damned night in old Soho

The French House, the Wheatsheaf and the Coach

Boozy underground poetry and Ouija

Which we escaped from

And fled across London Bridge

To Peckham’s nocturnal delights

South o the river

There we stopped in the Vale

For more drinks

And possessing a devil attitude

In the devil town

On the swayed walk home

We held each other tight to ward off demons and Ju-Ju

Until I pushed you inside the open gate of St John the Evangelist

Up against a thorny bush

Unsteady footing

And there under the gleam of a streetlamp

William Blake’s vision of angels

Shining down, down, down

And everything spun madly

And in the trees above, a heavenly host

Not seen round those sides

Or in Rye Lane

Since 1757.

Strange Day

Walking to Black Rocks from Crow Island

Thinking about the future

Or what remains of a life

Lived weirdly

On a crystal day

With the tide at its ebb

Is an otherworldly experience

Like walking on the surface of the moon

The sunlight so bright

Glaring

Burning away the remains of a sea haar

Distant people appear as if walking on air

The rocks themselves floating and swirling

Levitating above earth

Endless sands

Riddled by everylasting tides

No life here

As I climb to the top

And contemplate

A relationship in tatters

A confused bairn

A future alone

Away from Crow Island

Whose streets I’ll never walk again. 

In the end, Ridgwell is resilient and reflective in describing the break down of a relationship which appeared at first full of promise: “Basically, I just wrote about that period of my life and the relationship. The relationship was complex, for many reasons, and it was tempestuous. One day I’ll meet a women, who is quiet, stable, and we’ll just get along fine with no dramas and live happily ever after. But hey, that would be boring, right?”

In John D Robinson’s contribution, he includes 14 of his latest poems, including 4 haiku. His poetry is usually first person, narrative in form and in this joint-chapbook, he continues to mine the depth of his working & underclass experiences and recollections. The writing is clear, honest and often brutally revealing. Robinson’s relationship with women (“The Scent”,“ A Key Moment” & “The Question”), his conversations with friends & relatives (“Neil And The Kitty Cat Scratch” and “The Pork Pie”), his view of himself as a poet (“Lit Talk” and especially “Lost Or Fucked-Over”) and as a man (“The Tough Guy” & “Dangerous”)- everything is spilt on the page without regret, or for any yearnings for sympathy, acceptance or success. 

In his poem No Return, Robinson is characteristically playfully ironic:

NO RETURN

Crackling from the Sunday

radio came

“Now let us pray for the

broken hearted and the lost

souls of our world,

the alcoholics and the drug

addicts, the ghosts of our

towns and cities that have

wandered far from the

path of righteousness and

now walk the roads of

sin; let us pray that the

gates of heaven open up

for our brothers and

sisters, for these wretched

spirits let us pray”

after I had finished

rolling a joint of powerful

weed I felt thankful

and good that somebody

was sparring a little time

and a prayer for me

without expecting a return.

In Lost Or Fucked-Over, perhaps Robinson’s most powerful poem to date, he moves from his feelings as an artist to how he perceives how he & most of us are fucked over by the system. Robinson’s anger is genuine, how us ordinary folk, whether we want it or not, are “caught-up in a/ fucked-up way of/ living, the bullshit of/ ambition, money,/ property and power”:

LOST OR FUCKED-OVER

I don’t feel like a poet,

I’ve never felt like a poet,

I don’t know how that must

feel like,

most of the time I feel lost

or fucked-over, I feel

cheated and robbed,

maybe that’s how a poet

should feel,

I’m guessing most people

feel this way,

I don’t feel like a poet,

mostly I feel like an

asshole caught-up in a 

fucked-up way of

living, the bullshit of

ambition, money,

property and power,

no one mentions

freedom these days;

I don’t feel like a poet

but an old man who still,

every morning,

awakes in temporary 

awe that I’ve made it and

will have

another chance of

kicking the faces of the

faceless as they take

another day from me. 

The Lost Future In A Pair Of Blue Eyes is a highly engaging and worthwhile book to read and written by two of the best writers in the alternative small press in the UK. The front cover is designed by the indefatigable efforts of the genius that is the Swedish artist Janne Karlsson. 

Order signed copies direct from John D Robinson- send £10 via PayPal to: johndrobinson@yahoo.co.uk