travels are not always Pretty
That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. Peter Mass, Love They Neighbour: A Story of War
Special thanks to Jo Paul for her fabulous “Labelled” 2014
Labelled
i know that shirt
hanging by a thread
with that drip of blood
it was on the line outside
orphanage in Lipik
bombed machined gunned
out of all recognition
its same shirt
now look all
these years later
still crumpled up
like that little boy
who’d witness his parents
being executed
that’s his shirt
i knew i’d seen it before
*
Summer Of ’59
Pauline skirt
tucked up into
her knickers
boasted handstands
against the same red wall
she later holds me against
where i braved for my first kiss
practiced weeks before
on back of my hand
even the pillow
the moment to remember
until we clashed teeth
and i tread on her toes
1993
Our wagons rock
jerk through lines of pot-holes
a foot deep in a cinder path
where children walk barefoot
it’s a ride down
into something i don’t understand
a dog shelter where at least
one hundred families live
who beg out their hands
and cough loud barking coughs
naked kids swapping boredom
for disease under a tap
splashing cold silver
into mud pies
our interpreter – an English Lit student
his family wiped out
is talking of Shelley in a waste land
such as Eliot never saw
“Thumbing From Lipik To Pakrac New And Selected Poems”
first published with Waterloo Press ISBN:978-1-906742-00-3
Not Being Me
– For everyone on the autistic spectrum
Childhood nights were dreams
of being a sheep
then up and outside of a morning
a quick check to see
if by any chance in the night
there had been a change
of being just like all my friends
and not the odd one out
like afternoon dance lessons
spent hidden
in the toilet
out the way because
I couldn’t dance the sheep step
that’s why I dreamed
of being a sheep
so I could be like everyone else
First published 208: “ Thumbing From Lipik To Pakrac – New and Selected Poems” Waterloo Press: ISBN 978-1-906742-00-3
In some ways, this is different from Street’s other work: more overtly politicized, less filled with people, and yet many of the same things occur: spare, usable language; the sound(s) of natural speech condensed to drive the poetry; attention to the power of white space. Anyone engaging with this book will leave it more informed; as William Carlos Williams said: “It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there”. We all die miserably for want of what is found in Peter Street’s deceptively simple yet rigorous work. Everything natural is beautiful and itself and a metaphor at the same time; everything is dangerous and true “remembering those poor beetles / who tested the waters and teased the millions of elms into suicide / even then we were still ignored”. This is a book we all need to read. Caron Freeborn
Caparison is pleased to announce the publication of Earth Talk by Peter Street, a timely collection of highly idiosyncratic eco-poetry…
http://www.therecusant.org.uk/#/caparison-books/4538998565
In the age of Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion, Peter Street once more takes his place as veritable poet of the trees and flowers, giving them radical voice at this time of climate emergency. Melting ice-caps merge with the iceberg sensibility of Hemingway in Street’s economical style, a strange meeting of ee cummings, W.H. Davies and Edward Lear. In these humorous, polemical and imaginative poems we are privy to jingoistic exchanges in a Parliament of Flowers, and the covert operations of plotting beetles. Street’s gift for personifying flora and insecta is no mere accident, it’s cultivated from an arborist’s sensibility, and beneath its whimsical surface is something deeply empathic, polemical and subversive. In Earth Talk the earth fights back against the aggregate damage done to it by the human animal, and Street gives us unique insight into the bud and bug agitators of hisnative Wigan…
Saying No To The Icebergs Sand SedgeCarex arenaria
like all families we have fought
put it behind us
an army is washing
towards us
waves of them
from land of ice and water
we have to be ready
or be washed away
come and stand with us
here next to my triangular stems
shields against their salt-burn
we have to slow those waves down
take the battle to them here
on these dunes
Sand Sedges are natural warriors
we take root colonise
safe in numbers
know what we have to do
are you with us
Daffodil’s Narcissus
Those trumpet Competitions
Was every daffodil’s dream.
The tension was unbelievable
facing other gold winners.
Christ we used to rise up,
And let those cornets rip!
You’d see the Tulips swaying
to our rendition of “Men Of Harlech”
We had the best section
in the country,
with medals to prove it.
Oak Quercus robur
I’ve been here since England began.
When you see me, you see a tree,
not something bent over
all the time.
Come on, stand up straight!
Let’s see what you are made of!
You Japanese Cherries all look the same
with your little confetti bows.
All your good for’s
wedding and coffee tables.
Ships! We became ships,
and went to places you’ve never even heard of,
whether they liked us or not.
*
Howe Bridge (Atherton) Bandstand
for Andy Bubble
A stroll into woods
on a path floodlit
with buttercups and dandelions
past a gang of nettles
lolling about on the corner.
A push through layers of tunes
from last Summer’s brass bands
clinging to your mind
pulling you down into the woods
deeper
towards the young sycamores
gathered around the wooden
bandstand built by someone
who thought his New Jerusalem
is there among the trees
Summer
wildflowers dress up
in their Sunday best
showing off
in summer breezes
swank to and fro
hoping to impress us
before they are sworn at ripped up
discarded
into a green bin
crawling with maggots
*
Dove Tales Adviser Peter Street was diagnosed with autism six years ago. At 70, Street believes his incredible life is in large part thanks to his autism. A qualified Arboriculturist and environmentalist who writes on Green issues, his book Trees Will Be Trees was published with Shoestring Press. He launched his last book, Listening to The Dark, at the Albuquerque Lit Festival, where he appeared during a tour of Midwest America funded by Professor Fred Whitehead, retired. Preeta Press published his memoir: Hidden Depths: Life and Loves of A Young Gravedigger. Street was recently interviewed with the BBC “1800 Seconds on Autism” and Readers Digest interviewed him about his work as someone with five successful poetry books with an international readership. John Harris, in his Guardian Weekend stated, “Peter Street was the most interesting person I have ever interviewed.”
Even when Street writes of the wars of men, a strong current of the natural runs through his poetry. Below, are two poems previously published in Thumbing From Lipik to Pakrac, by Waterloo Press.
