Every year there is a Cheltenham Literature Festival and this year the poet A F Harold is planning to do some sort of poetry mash-up from suggestions and the like on twitter!
This started on the 1st of September. I have already tweeted stuff like the title of poem I would like to read but has not been written!
The main twitter account involved seems to be @Chelttwitfest.
Chris, the brain behind Escape Into Life tragically died, a young man a little older than me. My reaction on hearing of his death was a mixed one but the thing that pained me most was the idea of all his work and endeavours dying with him. This fortunately has not happened in many ways.
One of these ways is the Chris Al-Aswad Prize – an award for those breaking down the barriers in art. As I have a thing about science and art and barriers and the like – this is right up my street which is why I have donated my time/effort to the Award.
I urge you to go and look at it.
For those who have read this poetry blog for a while – he is the man who inspired me to keep the Visual Poetry Journal.
If you are talking about the award on Twitter then there is a #TYChris hashtag to mark it.
Alaric the name unfolds
Warrior King of legends mold
Uber Geek in strange Nu Spk
Two in one
Wearing black for fun
Alaric my Wonder Geek
Fighting zombies in his sleep
Forking daemons
Spawned zombie child
He’ll fix the system for a while
And when it breaks
He’ll battle all night
Until his code spins out what’s right
He is my Warrior Geek
Saving the world for his child to keep!
Life is back lit
Throwing you into silohette
Obliterating detail
Just shape
Form visible
In existence’s gloamy half-light
If done well
You may regain
Colour
A look of Dark abundance
Smoldered on emaciated frame
Glaring out defiance
Igniting me
A fist full of Nitro
Hurled to the wind
A cage of napalm
Exploded by this will alone
I swear I will not forget you
And I will not hate you
You contained enough for us both
Two worlds – pearls side by side
Identical, intricate and beautiful
One lacks crime
The other spice
Heavy bruise horizon
Dripping blood
Of solders trapped in time
Skitting through the world
Bashing out brains
To decorate the pavement
Again and again and again
Fresh packed anger
Leaves no air
For seedlings of life
To grow
And so their roots
Rot in festering waters
Of hope blighted
By disappointment –
Compost to the
Mushrooms of hate
Blooming on the grave
Of love
Buried 6ft deep
Beneath fresh packed anger
The cycle repeats
Consuming mudslide of the detritus of mind
Slipping as slurry down this fractured slope of soul
Towing objects battered in the turbulence of heart
Depositing a load of SHIT in the terminal moraine of me
Ice blistered lips singing in praise of the heat
Hoping for a tomorrow different from today
The sameness of opposites, the co-evolution of extremes
Unknown to them – Just as well really – Let them dream
Unknowing of sun blistered lips singing in praise of the cold