Next session

The next Stanza session at The Leopard will be on Tuesday 22nd May at 7.30pm. Admission free, all welcome.

Watch out for: City Voices Sunday, May 13 a charity words words and music festival at The Leopard. Local folk singers and poets perform and this year will include Hayley Strangelove, Pete Shirley, John Williams, Breeze and Wilson and Loud Mouth Women, local folk singers as well as some very talented local poets. Call 01782 814023 or 322628.

Poetry & Folk evening at The Lodge, Alsager. 7.30pm Friday 1st June. With W.Terry Fox, an open-mic and announcement of winners of the Alsager ‘Jubilee Poem’ competition and music festival at The Leopard. Local folk singers and poets perform and this year will include Hayley Strangelove, Pete Shirley, John Williams, Breeze and Wilson and Loud Mouth Women, local folk singers as well as some very talented local poets. Call 01782 814023 or 322628.

Poems & Pints, The Beartown Tap, Congleton, 8pm Thursday 14th June.

Featured Poet Bill Harper

Bill (W K ) Harper was born in Newcastle-under-Lyme and left school at the age of fourteen. During the war he served for four years as RAF Aircrew and then attended Burslem School of Art for three years. He is now a retired pottery figure designer and modeller and worked for Wades pottery (1950-1960) and Royal Doulton (1971-2000) among others.

He has trekked in the Himalayas and other mountain ranges and has two sons and a daughter. Bill now lives in Tunstall.

DEATH IN VENICE
The Isle of San Michelle
On the Isle of San Michelle
The departed arrive by open boat
Cutting through the choppy waves
With shrouded coffined cargo bedecked
Bouquets, massed flowers, wreaths,
Muted mourners stand looking forward
Black coated black hatted solemn faced
Bright eyed children hold silvered posies

They say Stavinsky’s buried here
I did not find him though
Amid the fetid decaying flowers
Rotting before high urn topped marble tombs
And the long narrow geometric avenues of low graves
Bearing small niched photos new or faded
The new and the long departed

Oppressed among the dead
Too much alive I came away
To stand besides a brown-robed tonsured friar
Positioned on the empty quay waiting patiently
White roped waist and Bible in pale crossed hands
Before a darkly shadowed chapel where painted saints
On darkened walls welcome the departed

The vaporetti bussed me away to sunny Venice
To Verrochio’s majestic mounted Corellioni
Immaculate Madonnas, Titian Beauties, and Paolo Veronese,
A hotel on the Grande Canal dark eyes cool soft hands
Plush red gold opera at La Fenice the carnival that is Venice
Fantasies of architecture, sumptuous painted interiors,
Singing gondoliers festivals, the laughter of costumed figures

UMASI LA
Umasila, majestic high pass
A cleft rock a platform
Iron bound in ice and snow
A rampart between two worlds.

A threshold to be lifted over – ceremoniously
Your passing noted by Guardians with blue cloth strips
The simple gift, freely given, unexpected
And therefore precious more than gold or bright jewels
Given with intent.

Umasila, ancient sentinel marks the ages
A watershed each way -
South to Jammu, Hindu, Great India and temples
North to Ladakh, Bhuddists, Gompas, Tibet, and China.

Umasila, divider of old worlds, ancient cultures
Of the green from the barren, of the wet from the dry
Of glacier from crevassed glacier
Umasila, Holy Sanctuary, bridge to all worlds to all people.

LOVE SONG OF THE NOMAD
In the desert of my being you are an oasis
Where no water of life flows so fresh and clear
No flower has such beauty no tree bears fruit so satisfying
To touch and taste.
You are sweeter than honey, I long to rest among your palms
And see the stars shine in your eyes

AMZOUETTE
When I look into your eyes I see mysteries and passions
When you smile on me it is like a light from heaven
I cannot cross the threshold of your being without invitation
But you can open the gates on the riches within you
And shower them upon me

PARADOX
The chicken or the egg which came first
The poured glass is half full or half empty
Chickens though are reptiles that lay eggs
And so on and so on and so on to the sac
The first life bacteria a soft egg
The glass filled is half full and emptied half empty
And God said let us make man like us in our image
Though science says men and women too
Are very like chimpanzees
Another paradox another slow tortoise
For some swift Achilles of the beautiful lips to pursue
Or drop a stone half way down a well

A WASTED LIFE
It is raining here, tears of anger and regret
The sky black and blue from raging storms
The icy river steams, leaves fall, brown snow
On slow carved black rock

But what is the use of all these words
An inquest into something precious lost
That need not have been lost
It cannot be mended now

* * *

In silence then let us bear our sorrows
On distant shores of unknown oceans let them lie
Forgotten, to die with anger pride and rage -
The rest by such undetermined will be
And quiet resolution restore to life a purpose
Stronger than before …

PROSPECTS OF DEATH – AND WORSE!
Death is waiting in the wings I fear
Impatiently in this my seventieth year
And so’s my dentist standing by
To draw my teeth before I die
So who will win this grisly race
I hope it’s Death to save my Face

IN THE EVENING
Above the Silvery Stream
The Golden Wand of Autumn
Touches the Summer Green
And I dream of things we might have done
And glories that could have been
Too Late! Too Late!
No! No!
The Rich Colours of Autumn
Come before the Winter Snow!

NEW DAWN
Open the Door to the Morning
Breath deeply of the Day
Cool air Earth scents and Bird-song
Accept what is and go – upon one’s Chosen Way

WELL DOING
What is done is worth doing well
Washing cups or making perfect tea
Bringing beauty into being – poetry
Striving hard to perfect the vision
That’s springing from an intuition

Not done well is not worth doing

Latest Poems

Here is a selection of poems from The Leopard Stanza on Tuesday 24th April.

JUKEBOX O’CONNOR’S | John Williams

The lows that give us cravings, like a stash
or tranquillisers and bottles of Coke
open with a spurt across your floor
and probe around your mouth with a metal prong,
tart as a battery pressed along the tongue.

At Jukebox O’Connor’s they struggle
to pour life into a suit, fix a drink
and swallow anything; heart, mind,
a fistful of matches snatched from the box
the dishcloth, your shoes, the car.

In the kitchen chrome you recognise
another you among all the gadgets,
stepping this way and that as if searching
for a scarce patch of sunlight, blunt and sheen,
part high, part low and part washing-machine.

MALAISE | Jenny Hammond

It’s happened.
He’s not invincible.
A hiccup in his tick-tock life
has changed him.

A hitch, a glitch,
malfunctioning his being
to become a number
on a plastic wrist band.

Nurses bustle,
check, examine,
fill the chart
and then they go.

Ladies trundle trolleys.
“Shepherd’s Pie? A cup of tea, dear?”
Précis latest Coronation Street
and then they go.

Visiting time —
kisses, grapes, a magazine,
some jolly talk
and then they go.

Day shifts to Night Shift,
but time stands still
for the man behind the curtains
attached to tubes and drips.

His identity smudged,
self-confidence erased,
dependent upon strangers.
and the beeping machine.

While back at home
she mourns the past,
scared of the present,
dreading the future.

She has no faith
and yet she prays
that this is not the end.
“Please make him well,” she says.

ANTIDOTE | Jenny Hammond

Hag stones, ring stones, hang-them-on-a-string stones,
Find-them-in-a-ditch stones to ward away the witch stones,
Find-them-on-the-beach stones, hang-them-out-of-reach stones,
Big stones, small stones, protection-from-them-all stones.

Black stones, white stones, not-a-pretty-sight stones,
Hang-them-on-the-bed-post-to-protect-you-through-the-night stones,
Upstairs, downstairs, to ward away the nightmares,
Let superstition save perdition — I’m alright, so who cares!

WHERE DO BUTTERFLIES GO WHEN IT RAINS? | Bert Molsom

Have they time to shelter?
Time to separate life from death,
time to hide their beauty under umbrella leaves,
time for another day’s flight?

They are so thin, so delicate,
so perhaps the rain will miss them
on its way from the heavy cloud
to a crash landing in darkness.

Featured Poet | Paul Freeman

The Leopard’s featured poet this month is the excellent Paul Freeman

Paul Freeman is a 36-year-old male man that lives in Stafford. He is currently working as a lecturer in English at Stafford College. In his room, the world is beyond his understanding. But when he walks, he sees that it consists of houses and trees and dogs and people and the M6 motorway and some clouds. Not all of his poems are about seagulls. There he is, looking a bit gaunt and scowly…

Voice
Larus argentatus

Calls include strident ‘kyow’,
repeated and loud

when used as alarm. In anxiety
a distinctive ‘gag-ag-ag’.

Familiar exalted
‘laughing’ display-call is a
loud, deep and clanging

‘aau…
kyyaa-kya-kya-kya-kya-kya kya…
kyau’.

* * *

Note: A found poem. See: Svensson, L. et al, Collins Bird Guide, 2nd ed. (HarperCollins, 2009).

Townie

Have you even seen the sea? You
with your luminous gob full of chips –
who I saw pull that styrofoam tray from the bin,
smear mayo down the borough’s embossed coat of arms
like pigeon shit over a statue.

I imagine you’ve already been to the tip,
wheeling and screaming in the wake of a tractor
as it crashes through waves of landfill
like a trawler – I’ll tell you later – crushing
the frothing scum of plastic bags.

But still you’ve not had your fill – eyeing
my Marks prawn sandwich as I sit on this bench.
Eyes. Sandwich. Eyes.
I hold your gaze like a crab. Then stuff
the arrowhead of crust

between my teeth, its wholemeal angle
wagging at you like a finger.
Yes,
I am taking the piss. And for a second,
I believe you know this.

School gull

I’ve seen you on my way to work,
haranguing pheasants,
blueing the air with your squawks

then bunking over the fence
to the school where my sister taught.
She said you cause quite a nuisance,

swirling around by the window, caught
like a crisp packet blown in a breeze
and staring at the bad kid sat

where bad kids sit. One look and he’s
gone – flapping round the room for a laugh,
caw-cawing, ignoring the pleas

to stop treating the board as a cliff.
He screams at you still hanging there,
you scream straight back – f–k off! f–k off!

Later on, I’m leaving work, and wonder where you are.
Then see you’ve striped your shit across my car.

Geese

A skein of geese unzips the sky
and lets the sunlight in,
as I unzip your summer dress
and kiss your sunlit skin.

Paul Muldoon
after Muldoon reading his poem ‘Quail’

Indulge me for a moment, if you will,
and imagine you’re a field
mouse or vole
crouched among the stubble

and gleanings of wheat or oil
seed rape, when the oval
turret-head of an owl
– not a barn or little

owl, but something like a long-eared, better still,
an eagle owl – swivels
round, and you’re staring down the barrels
of its eyes; neither of you is worthy of a verb, until

he ruffles
his tweedy feathers and continues: ‘Quail. Quail.’

Fledgling

Outside the old box
the new world,
awaiting your arrival with a grin.

Spat out, sodden,
you lie in the prehensile grasp
of grass.

The warmth of my hands
cannot revive.

–

 

Poems from 20th March

Here are some of the poems read and discussed at The Leopard on 20th March.

THE DUMPY STACKERS | John Williams

We no longer drink from them, the Dumpy Stackers
bought in the decade when things arose in stacks,
one thing upon another from cityscapes, houses, chairs,
to the clink-clank of ice-cubes in a glass.
Now our dumpy tumblers in their cosy box
stare back and say, come let’s speak frankly, no bullshit.
Stack, Build. Hunt through the house
for whatever lines up, pans out,
can on can, plate on plate, brick against brick,
bedsprings curling up to you through the mattress.
Find every edge, lip or bevel,
each mirror where you piece yourself together,
for that long glimpse into the future;
everything stacked in the sky
and you see alley fights with bottles and bins
and they have us from the air in pictures.

 

 

 

 

HAILSTONES | Jenny Hammond

No early morning wake-up sun —
even the birds were silent.
After the Ides, March balanced
between windy days
and the promise reluctant to leave.
She devised a goodbye to remember.
Dancers, born in her storm clouds,
fell from the North Wind,
turning green to icy white
in a frenzied, rowdy “Strip-the-Willow.”
Then melted back,
as if they never came.

BLACK PEARL | Jenny Hammond

The end result of Earth’s eruptive power —
a blackened pearl, an austere, barren land
of lava tongues and coarse volcanic sand,
where craters and calderas starkly glower.
The lava fields extruded to the sea
as round, volcanic bombs were hurled and formed,
and deep, explosive forces raged and stormed
interminably and incessantly.
Deep clefts, volcanic tubes and fumaroles
released sulphurous gas, spewed out hot ash,
the crust an open wound, a hideous gash —
exhaling fire and smoke through yawning holes.
Then, spent, this isle in dormancy has lain
for countless years; but mortals should beware —
the monster, lurking deep inside his lair
will stir to vent his anger once again.

FORGET ME NOT! | Reuben Parr

Forget me not, fine Sir,
Would you? If our paths crossed only once,
Or become entwined into a
Friendship based on trust, spending time
To leer with lust,

Walking through the crowds you cut a lonely figure
Undetected, labelled Mr Spectre,

Headed back to the lost and found,
In and out of sun filled fields,
Up on your shoulders your conscience is tweaked
Both sides, to incite a riotous roar
Within your acoustic flair,

Walking, laughing side by side
All day long and through the night,
Our destination, recitation

Expressing you through these words, forgetting
Did I conjure you or you I?
Where’s my lamp? Take all three wishes

Each day we will appear, oh friend of mine
Escape me you may, but forget me not!

Featured poet | Mark Borg

The next ‘Stanza’ session at The Leopard is on Tuesday 20th March at 7.30pm. Admission free. All welcome.

Our featured poet this month is Mark Borg.

Mark was born in London and educated at Sussex and Nottingham Universities. He lives in Staffordshire and is a qualified children’s social worker and therapist.

AT FIFTY

Love as told at fifty
can be exciting too,
though nowhere near as nifty,
nowhere near as blue.

You have to get more thrifty,
have to be more true
to Time that ticks too swiftly,
the injuries years accrue.

Nor need you act so shifty,
you can give yourself a clue
to how you feel at fifty-
you can tell your lover too!

 ASHES AND LOAM

A man needs to mount his steed at dawn,
ride without a word to horizons new;
a man needs to leave, before too long,
gaze from the porch of a different view.

For a man’s like a shark in a goldfish bowl,
with his restless heart and his rootless soul;
stand him at a window and he’ll mist the glass;
show him something solid and he’ll find a hole.

For a man will ride in circles from a loving point,
and keep coming back ’til he figures he’s home;
for a man will keep riding ’til he learns, at last,
that every goddamn trail leads to ashes and loam.

 TO OUR SOLDIERS’ GRAVES

You lie here too young too long, my friends,
you lie here too young too long,
for the springs and the autumns and the springs have come,
and the winters and the summers have gone.

Yet still you lie so still, my friends,
yet still you lie so still;
for you will not be fooled into life again,
will not be fooled by far wilier men,

will not be giving your lives again,
if only, if only you could.
If only, if only you could wake, my friends,
if only, if only you could wake;

for you could tell all the world what it’s like to be hurled
out of warm lives and far into cold,
frozen in youth without wrinkle or fold:
Perhaps, then, we all would awake.

TELL, WILLIAM (HERO)

O let me tell you -
for I must! -
that for every man
who’s ever shot
that distant apple
off the steady head;

for every trusting son
who’s stood tree-strong
and known their dad
would never miss:
there’s a million more
who surprised fell dead.

STRIVEN

But with greater rigour
do the muscles strain against
the webbing cords
that Time weaves round.

Mind, taking issue with memory,
strives to recollect its thoughts,
to gather the scattered mercury
of dreams amid the shattered glass.

As for the heart, that wasted muscle
knows neither stop nor go,
but hammers against its bars,
else schemes its escape to light.

And all for a few more beats,
for one more thought to understand,
one more hand to hold,
rush of day, drift of night.

SMOOTH WORDS

Happily within the meanings of words
I drive my car, obeying their rules,
never straying from the lane of language,
struggling – ever – with the gutturals of grammar.

O, where I’m driving, I don’t really care,
as long as smooth words roll under my wheels,
and whatever words mean – so what, so what! -
as long as they’re spoken, as long as they’re there.

 

Poems from 21st February

Here are some of the poems read and discussed at The Leopard on 21st February.

JUST IN TIME | John Williams

An easy drum to bang, punctuality,
prompt little thuds of deadlines all day long
hammering round your head, formality
deafening your pulse with the prose and song

of millions planning, worrying, waking up
to the bang of the corporate drumstick
marshalling us into line, rousing up
tardy layabouts with the corporate trick

of stamping everything with today’s date.
And never a kind word from the peace wall,
because one inferno’s enough lying in wait
with an easy hell at its beck-and-call,

like those wrecked by success, Macbeth and wife,
punctual both with the message and the knife.

Stumped | Jenny Hammond
[In memory of Thomas William Fletcher-Twemlow, 16.11.1885-18.08.1900]

Eton woke to sunshine.
My voice was breaking,
whiskers bristled my cheeks,
first year boys adored me.

The dorm fizzed in anticipation
of inter-house cricket day.
I loved the game,
vowed to do my best.

My father, squire of Betley Court,
watched with mother from the pavilion,
politely clapping as runs totted up.
Feeling proud, my future beckoned.

Then — crack — no pain but I could see
the horror in my mother’s eyes,
my father’s arms around her,
his heir bowled out forever.

I have a stained- glass window
dedicated to me in our local Church.
I’m touched and think —
better than a tombstone.

And when my parents pray on Sundays,
in their pew behind the ancient screen
of Spanish chestnut,
I observe the tears
that no-one else can see.

Burying Ground | Jenny Hammond

Gravestone loneliness,
weight so heavy that
past slides to present
to hopeless future,
large as forever,
empty as nothing —
a void to fill with
sighs and silent tears.

ON THE EDGE| Geoff Sutton

the Pennines finish here
in a sunken lane
slinking over the crest

red stone crumbles away
beside the thirteenth tee
where aging blokes drag
trolleys across the slopes
hack at the turf
slice a Titleist or a Maxfli
into the blackthorn

popular with fly-tippers
midnght wankers and swiggers

a blurred direction
to catch spunk in a bottle
for collection by the writer
signed Cum

down to a narrow lane
no verge to jump away
from chancers speeding
to and from junction sixteen

to a bridge over the Cartlache
a line of pylons to the Sprink
bracken and birch knoll
for rabbit and badger

not Pennine rockless
but a good spot
from where to survey
the bomb factory with its shredded
workforce and the depot
soon another supermarket
once a sanitary potbank

this is the very edge
I live here