Martin Appleby- A Poem For John

WHEN YOU HEAR THE BELL

THERE'S NOWEHERE TO HIDE

for John D Robinson

 

 

You're the straightest shooter I know

able to craft the crispest, most succinct

lines I have ever read

 

You took a liking to me

and I am grateful for that

 

I don't know what you saw in me

but I like to think that maybe it was a little of yourself

 

You have seen a lot

and you have been through even more

and survived it all

 

You have helped so many others

without expecting anything in return

 

In a world full of ego and hubris

you are a kind and selfless soul

 

and these words are the least I can offer

not because you are my friend

but simply because they are all true

 

You may have heard the bell

but the fight is not over

 

the bell is about to sound for the second round

so get your chin down, get your gloves up

and keep throwing that jab.

A Note About the Poem

I received this message today from Martin Appleby, "I don't know if you have heard through the grapevine, but our friend John D Robinson is currently very unwell. He had a massive brain aneurysm and is receiving treatment in hospital. He is on the road to recovery, but it is a long road. I wrote this poem for him, which I have attached, and figured Bold Monkey would be a good place to put it out." 

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 Poems: John D. Robinson

 

SAT AT THE TABLE

Typer silent, gazing into the

garden, the short grass blades

move and somewhere 

murderous bullets are shot and

blades pulled, hand shakes

and kisses exchanged,

love made,

bombs made,

pacts made,

fragility made,

birds fly and mate,

the traffic stalls and

stagnates as I sit , the typer

silent, gazing into my back

yard, the rain falls and

laughs like choking sand

and winds lean into

conversations of sterile

banality, that is a

life-line to many souls

as they look away as

freedom is hood-winked

and kidnapped in the

name of safety and

security, as nails are

driven into flash and eyes,

pipes, tunnels and cables

rip the world’s veins as slaves

work the factories and

production lines, as the slaves

own the factories of passion

and illusions of misty

promises and I look, with the

company of a silent typer, into

the gentle arena of my garden.

 

 

 

 

CONNECTING

I have torn

the wings off

angels and

wrestled with

the dragons

of diablo

but those

clashes were

a fucking

doddle

compared to

connecting

and speaking

to some

asshole with

a hint of

sense and

helpfulness

from a 

utility

company.

 

 

 

 

A SOURCE

He hasn’t a memorial stone

or shrine of any kind of

remembrance of his existence,

nothing to note his life here,

except his digital birth and

death certificates,

his time was never captured 

in photographs, 

though the Police may have

a claim on this,

an illiterate poet, unaware

of words and of their

wonder and power,

he danced and drank

a life with a 

mischievous spirit,

clutching at

society’s senseless,

alien conventions

and not with any

stability,

he let go early on

and staggered into

a

poisoned

oblivion.

John D. Robinson's latest book of poetry THE UNCHANGING PURPOSE is available through Uncollected Press.

New Poem: John D. Robinson

RESIDUE

I am the hacking opium

 cough of Marty Matz

and the elegance and 

mystery of Lamantia,

the natural voice 

conserving Snyder, 

I have the vision of Rimbaud

and the bollocks of Bukowski,

I have the steel nerve 

passions of Corso

and the beat swing of 

Kerouac, the

gentle swirling dreams

 of a raging Patchen,

 the vast windows 

of Frank Lima,

like the doors of 

Ray Bremser and

Bob Kaufman, are

 always open,

the grinning Gagaku 

 of Steve Richmond

 is forever

present, I hear the

 roaring mouse of

McClure and the

 weeping of scattered

Streets belonging 

to Jack Micheline,

I see William Wantling, 

he is high and

is looking for the 

next hit and 

follows me,

I hear Doug Draime

 raise hell and the

eternal alarm for us all,

 as I found

the bullet of Lew Welch,

 the buzzards

circled above, 

I feel

the inspirational 

strength

 of Di prima, 

Anne Waldman, 

Joanna Kyger and

Brenda Frazer and 

Caroline Cassidy,

Magda Cregg and 

many 

sisters rise in 

a literary beacon of

 majestic skies,

as Dan Propper counts

 down gloriously

and Charles Plymell

 radiates poetic

solidarity, as 

Douglas Blazek

 stares with

independence 

and revolution,

I know, 

I am poet.

New Poems: John D. Robinson

CHALLENGE

Drunk, I’d challenge the

biggest guy in the bar to

a fist fight or buy me a 

drink,

mostly,

I was ignored and

dismissed as an

asshole,

which I was, 

but,

one time, I

 awoke with a

bruised and

 busted

face, ribs 

aching

like an 

inferno

and a

 torrential

hangover that

calmed with an

early morning

joint and a 

glass of wine,

some soft jazz

and some 

thoughts

 about

getting a 

job,

but I couldn’t

think of

anything that I

could do

or anyone

that would

employ me,

I gave up on

the idea of

getting a 

job 

and sat

looking out

of the

window

as the rain

fell lightly

into the

 streets

as strangers

passed by

each other

in 

silence, as

I looked

into the

distance,

knowing that

someone

somewhere,

knows a

different

life.

 

  

 

GAS LEAK

Ihad it real bad,

a stomach full of

hot searing air,

drunk and

stoned, I lay

upon the floor,

exploding with

flatulence, I

couldn’t help it,

it was constant

and noisy,

just several

yards away, my

friend was 

getting good 

with a lady and 

my trumps

we’re becoming

an interference

with their

romance, I

slurred an apology

then farted with

an atomic

viciousness, that I

swear, for a 

minute moment,

lifted my body,

from the floor

and then another

monster erupted

and I began

laughing and my

friend and his

lover began

laughing and a 

little while later,

my stomach

calmed and the

sun knocked on

the windowsill 

and I slinked off

home to change

clothes and then

make my way

to work, leaving

the lovers to

make love.

 

 

  

JAMMIN

Just like you, loss, has followed me

all my life, loss of childhood,

virginity, innocence, ambitions,

dreams, friends and lovers,

the loss of hope, for something

better, loss of direction

and belief and loss is natural and

should be embraced, 

but we don’t

embrace it, we hold it

up for all to 

see or try to hide it away,

the Buddhists

say that ‘all life is

suffering’

I think the Buddhits may

have something here,

loss

is not something

we get used to, we like to

hold onto shit, like breath

or love

and at some point we have

to let go,

let go of it all,

some Buddhists

and other ways of life

believe in

reincarnation,

well, fuck man, 

I’m always in

for another

jamming session.