Lunar Baedeker

Lunar Baedeker
A silver Lucifer
serves
cocaine in cornucopia

To some somnambulists
of adolescent thighs
draped
in satirical draperies

Peris is livery
prepare
Lethe
for posthumous parvenues

Delirious Avenues
lit
with the chandelier souls
of infusoria
from Pharoah's tombstones

lead
to mercurial doomsdays
Odious oasis
in furrowed phosphorous

the eye-white sky-light
white-light district
of lunar lusts

Stellectric signs

WING SHOWS ON STARWAY
ZODIAC CAROUSEL

Cyclones
of ecstatic dust
and ashes whirl
crusaders
from hallucinatory citadels
of shattered glass
into evacuate craters

A flock of dreams
browse on Necropolis

From the shores
of oval oceans
in the oxidized Orient

Onyx-eyed Odalisques
and ornithologists
observe the flight
of Eros obsolete

And "Immortality"
mildews
in the museums of the moon

NOCTURNAL CYCLOPS
CRYSTAL CONCUBINE

Pocked with personification
the fossil virgin of the skies
waxes and wanes

- Mina Loy

Wham! Bam! Story! Slam!

Continuing my recent run of literary activity, this Wednesday 10th March I am reading at Nikesh Shukla's excellent short story event, Wham! Bam! Story! Slam! at the Free Word Centre in Farringdon. Come along! Also reading are Stuart Evers, Nirpal Singh Daliwal, Sophie Cameron and Nimer Rashed.

THEN after that, and looking ahead a bit, I am appearing at the Troubadour Cafe on Monday 10th May as part of the Coffee House Poetry at the Troubadour series of events (who wants to go out on a Monday night? But still...) along with several of my fellow Flambard authors for a lovely evening of err.....poetry reading. As well as me will be the lovely Kelley Swain, Rebecca Goss, Ellen Phethean, Cynthia Fuller, Nancy Mattson, Jackie Litherland and Wanda Barford.

Top Writing Tips in Woman's Own

Yes - the womens' glossy mag is mine today with the triumph of a small entry and photo of me in this week's Woman's Own. Page 21. In the interests of megalomania I am reproducing the page here.

Storytails

So the Storytails event went really well on Sunday and you can hear a podcast of the stories read as well as read the stories for yourself on the Storytails website. You can also download me reading my story "The True Story of Betty Rizzo" from iTunes - that Gabriella - she's a clever one. If you do listen, apologies for probably: mumbling, falling over my own sentences; breathing too hard. I was dealing with sitting on a twirly stool that wanted to go the opposite way to me for most of the reading.

The venue for Storytails, the Pangea Project in Stoke Newington, is really homey and warm: they also deliver breakfast in bed on the weekends to those lucky Stokey inhabitants that are nearby enough. Stories and breakfast all in one place! It's kind of amazing. My better half and I discussed reasons why there aren't similar establishments in Surrey. We came to no good conclusions.

I have also been in touch with the amazing illustrator Faye Durston who works on New Fairy Tales alongside Andy, Claire and me. Have a look at her beautiful drawings and paintings on her blog. Faye has her first book coming out with Macmillan soon.