Oyster - Softcover

Pedersen, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 184697397X ISBN 13: 9781846973970

Verlag: Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Oyster is the second collection from prize-winning Edinburgh poet Michael Pedersen.From Grez-sur-Loing and festive nights to sizzling summers stretched out in the Meadows and Portobello, Michael Pedersen’s unique brand of poetry captures a debauchery and a disputation of characters, narrated with an intense honesty and a love of language that is playful, powerful and penetrative; he vividly illuminates scenes with an energy that is both witty, humourous but also deeply intelligent. Oyster is iced, spiced, baked and beaming for your pleasure.Oyster features bespoke illustrations from Frightened Rabbit lead singer and songwriter Scott Hutchison.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Michael Pedersen (b. 1984) is a poet, playwright and animateur with an electric reputation on the performance circuit and a prolific precedent of collaborations, having teamed up with some of the UK's top musicians, film-makers and artists. He is widely published in magazines, journals, anthologies and e-zines; his inaugural chapbook 'Part-Truths' (Koo Press) was a Callum MacDonald Memorial Award finalist; its sequel 'The Basic Algebra of Buttering Bread' (Windfall Books) received flocks of reviewer plaudits. He is co-founder and circus master at Neu! Reekie! - now one of the country's most formidable literary nights and DIY record labels - and a key creative within Dream Tower Productions. He's also the lyricist for cult band Jesus, Baby! and has written short plays for various troupes including the National Theatre of Scotland. Having travelled the world and taught in Cambodia for a year, Pedersen writes verse that gives a vivid idea of what it is to be young, socially aware and irrepressibly optimistic in the melting pot of the twenty-first century. He also enjoys sewing.

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Oyster

By Michael Pedersen, Scott Hutchison

Birlinn Limited

Copyright © 2017 Michael Pedersen
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84697-397-0

Contents

Obsessive Cannibal Love Poem, 1, 
Starry-Eyed, 2, 
Kung Fu Fighting, 5, 
Gravity, 6, 
Cannae Sleep, 8, 
Highland Koo, 11, 
Big Feardie, 14, 
Swallow the Pill, 16, 
Limelite Bar, Meadowbank, 18, 
Fancy Dress for Fancy Folks, 20, 
Oyster, 23, 
Middle November, Paris, 2015, 26, 
What was Supposed to be an Angry One, 31, 
When you Came to me in Grez-sur-Loing, 32, 
Birds & Trains, 34, 
Ying-Yang-Wrang-Wan-Right, 37, 
When they got together they knew what they weren't, 38, 
Antipodeans, 41, 
Cliff & Noc, 42, 
Rollercoasters, 45, 
Finding Grace, 47, 
James Dovetail, 51, 
life of owen, 53, 
I'm a PC, 56, 
Invitation for Luncheon with Caddy D, 58, 
John Up High, 62, 
Birthday BBQ, 2008, 64, 
Manchester John: Episode II, 66, 
Christmas at Omega Sauna, 68, 
W1, 71, 
W1(III), 73, 
When Carla Moved Out, 75, 
Hey Ho Here Comes Colin, 77, 
Transmorphisizing, 79, 
Greetin' fur Gretna Green, 81, 
Humping Cows, 84, 
FUCK!, 86, 
A Year, Aye?, 90, 
Totem Pole Capable, 91, 
Conversation Overheard in Craigmillar Dental Practice, 93, 
R v Brown, 96, 
Free Personality Test, Sir?!, 98, 
Superstition & Superheroes, 100, 
(In between) Mud & Stars, 103, 
Portree's Lost & Found, 105, 
Guide to Space Proofing your Robot Heart, 109, 
Deep, deep down, 113, 
Hello, I am Scotland, 114, 
Acknowledgements, 117, 

CHAPTER 1

Obsessive Cannibal Love Poem


Today is yes please and now to zipping
your
skin around me, to wrapping up in you
like a winter coat with matching scarf
and walking barefoot on powdered
snow,
you: the flakes squeezing
between my toes; the biscuits I brought
to snack on are your bones baked
and sweetened; like counting stars
I do not think I will ever be done
kissing you: honey all over
and deep inside, I will swallow
your dancing tongue; take your
daydreams into my nightdreams, all
neu-wave heavenly, ethereal gleam
on wet tarmac, enemy of the rain
which fell between us, which has
no business being there.

Other days a text message
or quick chat on the phone
will do just fine –
I never can tell.


Starry-Eyed

There are scientists with mouths
agape, eyes gazing
at Saturn's rings: a satellite's sink
and swing make it so, unveil
space secrets, star trails, objects
born of light and dust.
If a bell rings in space
they'll have an idea how it
sounds, they probably put it
there: can a bell ring underwater?
you're maybe thinking – me
too. Not a bell but a crash
in the rings has caught their eye,
a swell of disturbance created
by a creature: Peggy.
At the time of writing, reader,
Peggy has never exposed herself:
what's seen is the ripples
pulsing, ripples rising. We
know what she's not: not
a moonlet, which would part
the dust more violently – so
a non-moonlet – not biblical, not
a fish, the ripples are not akin
to those on Scottish lochs. Peggy
leaves a hole in the rings like
an antique brooch needling
into a cashmere scarf
– the gaps in the rings will
reform and bauble yet always
be different; not the same
as water, helixed and twisted
through propeller blades
which remains water, but
not so different either.

They're hunting Peggy's ghost,
slug tracks, mouse droppings.
Don on the job,
satellite-wise, is Cassini.
Leering and loitering best and longest,
after years of Peggy
shadow-stalking, Cassini's
reign on Saturn's lip
is trembling to a close. Retirement,
sure, but Cassini will not
come home, instead will capture
one last supreme
and crowning image of Peggy.
One last before plunging into
the fast flying debris. One last before
eternal destruction.
A martyr to the moves of Peggy,
perhaps touching the same
dust, perhaps, in the future,
being part of a dustbin elbowed
out the way as Peggy
rushes by, a snowy smear
of glowy smudge, penumbra
winking down, and grinning
through the nebulae.
Scientists will call the end
of Cassini a migration.
Mission complete,
they'll clink Champagne
and plot another probe.
The end of Cassini
will be a 75,000
mile-an-hour collision,
a jet propulsion watched
from an earthly laboratory.
Cassini will get a moment
of silence before the drinking
starts; Cassini is carrying
the question of life,
Cassini is a genius
in just one word, not
just a scientific success
but an act of desperation:
requited and unrequited love.
Cassini has left
the space business.


Kung Fu Fighting

I should like to karate kick
all your insecurities
square
on
the chin
(KIAI!):
perfect force
and
flawless precision;
a trained, toned,
muscular limb.
To date, I've just
been shoving at 'em,
pub brawling,
odd prod
in the ribs or
jab tae the chest.
If I finished
the job, sparkled
'em, if your world
stopped wavering
because of them,
would you still need
my arms and legs –
you'd be so
strong yourself?


Gravity

I love you,
she said, as if wearing someone
else's skin,
as if clocking in
then out
of the nine-to-five
that tired her bones.
I love you, she said
with the forced verve of waves
gargling oily pebbles from
a spill, its fringe, a congealing shoreline: talk
laced with salt, a tongue
socked in sand. I love you,
she said, with the mechanical bareness
of a warden clamping a car
to the pavement,
the payment meter and itself;
choking on diesel that once
made an engine purr; a majestic gull sifting
through a city's birthing gunk, cum,
love's tragic overspill.
I love,
she said.
I love
you,
with the frankness of caffeinated truths
in the morning after our own golden Armageddon
which is as welcome as Nirvana.
I love you, half price,
with the candour of when we never really knew each other,
bridal curiosity ringing, rings setting up the eyes.
I love you,
in a way
we never touch upon in joviality;
in a way
we never rediscovered that raw sexuality;
in a way
we have time to tread
water – that's no good thing.

I love you, with saccharine warmth
for our own self-pleasantries.
With everything we're floating.
We promised to make things float.
Were we not supposed to (this once
made us) FLOAT?


Cannae Sleep

If not for that blasted boiler bellowing
as if hawking up soot and phlegm
or a nettling sensation parading
over freckled skin; if not for
your legs jolting like a wind-up
toy gone bananas or the fact I
hear breath, feel and nearly see
breath at the foot of the bed; if not for
roving creatures smearing
handprints over the damp,
rattling window on which
the moon has painted itself,
I'd be sound asleep, blissfully dreaming,
sculpting plots so gratifying
I'd applaud myself on waking,
remarking, well dreamt kid,
in the manner of a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 184697397X
• ISBN 13: 9781846973970
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Zeichner: Hutchison Scott
• Anzahl der Seiten: 120
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland