WELCOME TO VIRTUAL DODO NINE - JULY 2022
Welcome to the ninth virtual show from Dodo Modern Poets. This event takes our tally to more than 230 performances and contributions since launching in April 2020. We thank all our poets for continuing to send in such stimulating and enjoyable work.
We are grateful to viewers who take time to enjoy the shows and send us their comments. Your support is of great value.
The latest outing begins with two exceptional featured acts, Zolan Quobble and Julie Stevens, followed by 14 open mic contributors.
We hope you enjoy the show and welcome your feedback.
Zolan Quobble has been
active in many creative and performance organisations including Worthless
Words, Apples & Snakes and Goldsmiths PGDip Creative Writing. He was
co-founder of Fordham Park Festival (You Can't Kill The Spirit), founder of
Deptford Kite and secretary of Silo SE8 Musicians Collective. Bands include
Chicken Sidecar, One True Dog and now LOFE. Publications include U-I Poems and
the Tooth Agenda. He's now concentrating on solo music projects. He has read at
Dodo Modern Poets.
https://zolanquobble.bandcamp.com/
Julie Stevens writes poems
that cover many themes but often engage with the problem of disability.
She is widely
published in publications such as Ink Sweat & Tears (Pick of the
Month, Oct 2021), Fly on the Wall Press, The Dawntreader and The
Honest Ulsterman.
Her Stickleback
pamphlet Balancing Act was published by the Hedgehog Poetry
Press (June 2021) and her chapbook Quicksand by Dreich (Sept
2020). Her next collection of poems Step into the Dark will be
published later this year by the Hedgehog Poetry Press.
Find out more about
Julie’s work at: www.jumpingjulespoetry.com
Best wishes
Patric Cunnane
PR Murry
DODO MODERN POETS
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In February 2022 stubborn badgers returned to their old setts on Princes Parade, site of a controversial building project at Hythe, Kent.
The builders are in
But
badgers won’t go
They’re
not leaving homes
Lived
in for years
Through
good times and bad
Overcoming
all fears
The
badgers believe
They
belong to this site
Where
grand badgers raised them
To
fight for their rights
A
housing estate can go somewhere else
As
long as it goes, brock couldn’t care less
Badger
lore was learned in these parts
Not
to be torn from tender brock hearts
The
builders are in
But
badgers won’t go
They’re
digging in tight
Watching
little brocks grow
The housing estate must find a new
field
Brock
won’t go, has no wish to yield
Take
your bricks and mortar and shovels
You’ve
come to the right place
If
you’re looking for trouble
Loraine Saacks
WHEN YOU SAILED FROM GDANSK
When you sailed from Gdansk, in the early twentieth century, with your close kin,
you were but only eighteen –
an adventure, for sure – as yet, you felt no chagrin –
far back, Boleslaus III, born in eleven-zero-two, thought your ilk might just fit in,
though he didn’t see bumping off big brother, Wenceslas, as a sin,
for surrendering to German King Henry, and appearing quite keen.
Fast forward once more, to nineteen-zero-six, and your adventurous maritime cruise,
Dobrin on the Vistula was thrilled that some families cut themselves loose;
though John Maynard Keynes saw you all as ‘Fifth Column’ Bolsheviks,
ready to hide in a horse of wood on Ramsgate beach, aping the ancient Greeks!
You always knew how to create a home and you married in nineteen-zero-eight;
minding your mother, three younger sisters and two older brothers, was no feather weight, but two older sisters, their spouses and children never dreamed of their horrific fate, they elected to remain in the new Nazi domain, and any rescue was far too late.
You’d weathered the Great Strike, the following slump and saw your progeny swell in size;
they were industrious, in many a sphere, as their new motherland bid to compromise;
then came the sharp shudder and halt – everyone left in your homeland complies
the default in the Third Reich, meant it could never – or ever – humanize.
Emigrating and finding joy in a span of a staunch thirty-three years ended with grief and tears,
wholesale death to your near, promised a future of sorrow and fears
your grandchildren only know their forbear’s face is made of stone,
and your grandmother wants only to wail and moan all alone.
Yan Li
Grenfell Tower
No fire alarm.
No hose pipes.
No sprinklers.
No way out.
I run on fire.
My flat flames.
Stairways fume.
Highrise glows.
Cladding burns.
Walls bake.
Smoke squeezes
through the door.
Snake tongues sweep
the floor.
Mobile lights
flash.
Clenched fears punch.
Bang bang bang on the
window.
Voices break for
help.
Children scream
shrill.
Toxic gases
choke.
A mother drops her
baby in prayer.
A man raises his
arms.
Who brings this
horror?
I cannot breathe.
I seethe. I shout.
Firemen dash in -
dash out.
Metals melt.
Up roars inferno.
Grill-roasted.
Men jump to the
ground.
No way to help.
No arms to save
more.
No way up or
down.
No more hope.
Who brings this
horror?
I sear in anger.
In ash there are no
tears.
What power sets us on
fire?
Don't cry, my
love.
Don't fear, my
love.
A mother walks across flames
In the air to save her child
Kevin Morris
"Your a Joker" She Said
"Your a joker", she said,
Doubling over in laughter.
"If you didn't laugh
You would cry",
Said I.
And after
I felt proud
That I can still engage
With a girl, half my age
And make her laugh Out loud.
I hear Eliot's footman snicker.
The stage
Lights flicker
'Ere the curtain does fall
Covering all.
Barry Coidan
Losing a pet
Bury them next to the shrub they
sheltered under in summer’s rains.
Place a small cross, inscribe their name,
sigh when weeding the spreading catnip.
Embroider a quilt to spread on the bed
where they slept. Pick up discarded toys to
pack away in a black box and hide
in a secret place.
The man
who tried to live forever
But didn’t...
Killed instantly crossing a busy road.
He had a backup plan.
A large cryogenic installation
in the grounds of his mansion
But scraped off the road
he was a mess.
There was the back up’s back up.
A few of his T cells in a petri dish.
First a toe, then an eye, two ears, a brain.
Frankenstein like he was re-created
but with no thoughts, memories, or emotions.
His earlier brain, kept in a jar its contents and
his life downloaded into the new brain.
The man who tried to live forever
was reborn a wiser man.
The next day he cautiously
crossed the street.
Oliver Nealy
Who’d Have Thought / This Time Last Year
Who’d
have thought, this time last year.
That
I’d be standing, before you here.
I’d
hide at home this winter time.
Trying
to escape the thoughts in my mind.
I’d
run and run but get nowhere.
The
feelings inside too much to bare.
Anxiety
held it’s grip on me.
No
matter how much I tried to flee.
The
storm around me grew and grew.
Things
were getting much worse, I knew.
It
felt like I was missing.
From
reality I was slipping.
I’d
question if I was really there.
I’d
look around me, and blankly stare.
Could
I break free from this storm?
Could
I ever return to some sort of norm?
The
storm threw everything at me.
It
seemed that there was nowhere to flee.
Finally
I decided enough was enough.
I’d
head towards this storm, no matter how tough.
I
wouldn’t hide or run away.
I’d
say to my thoughts, you can stay.
I’d
make anxiety my friend, not my foe.
And
to my new life I’d begin to say hello.
I
sailed into the storm and not away.
And
slowly I got better day by day.
I
was knocked about from side-to-side.
It
wasn’t easy when I didn’t hide.
But
as I got closer to the centre,
I
realised things were getting better.
Then
it started to become clear.
That
there wasn’t actually any storm here.
The
waters here were smooth and calm
I
was no longer afraid of constant harm.
So
I sailed on into the sun.
And
continued the new life that I had begun.
ANON
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