16. Alex Oliver
“If you’re going to Hooton Roberts, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair”
Alex Oliver’s peculiarities could be due to a fragmentary education; or his parent’s religious zeal, or his own retarded development. Or just his Irishness. All of which might explain his societal odd-fit. Embracing this, he contrived to explore the unlikely, in global travels. Varied cultures and experiences fed his writing - which became his spiritual home.
His choice of word or phrase are somehow a langue of surrealism - and the abstract. A writer friend suggested his verse to be like collage - the parts may seem unrelated, but viewed as a whole, it makes sense. 1960s San Francisco might have suited him better than South Yorkshire, but we generally accept that nirvana is not of this earth anyway. It is recommended then, that you accept his gracious invitation, to a place with no rules - just natural laws.
Alex regularly updates his own substack of original thought provoking writing. More of his poetry and songs can also be found online
Poems
Flat-Earth
Tea-cosy hat and duffle-clobbered through gaps in the wind shoes slip and slide snow with a munch, swipe and snatch in the star-dark park We stagger crowflies, disregarding paths hidden in the thumf and flumf of white-over Brass levers and flapping arms sputter out fate in pints to stand foaming as we stand foaming by the sock-dried steaming anoraks of fire faces you know. faces you don’t know. faces that know you know that you know them not and faces that you know want to know what you know So tune the guitars to sea-side in the buses are off slithering night Wind the dewy-eyed grandfather and let social machinations hum dissonant tunes Old Father Goose has hijacked the moon as she pushed up a flood and we drowned in the wake Her yellow blindfold made us gasp at the helplessness of the flat earth; While lost plectrums of the years wedge beneath the fitted storytell bench seats And as dusty, forgotten songs telling of other times tangle in oily clock fluff We pause for an absent-minded “aye” <<<
The Snail
Galaxies spin linear re-wound, repeated in diminishing patterns beyond infinity Exhibiting art before we etched in caves and before the mudflats of unknown eras lay wormcast in a youthful sun Where guesswork now digs and the dumb landscape bares cryptic witness Glossy shell lip-wet and lacquer-fresh, flaunts the helix of aeons and trails glittering genetic histories in the muddy miasma of goo beyond your own silver spit Shining under a thousand suns and more perhaps making a brief bubble - you hold no clues to what you’ve witnessed Meanings, symbols, constructs of the never mind, never matter crumble through time’s workshop etched in conservator’s blues and ochres Lime-quick and tarred flint-struck and Star-Carred Lost on the moors where once burning sedge smelled like a rainy stubble-burn and snails fried Earphone, chariot of the sun triskele whorl Nazca carpet trailer Song of the Thrush ram's horn conch-call slower than us but with less time… snail <<<
Beyond the Elder
Go round the roses tie a token to the oak When the sky passes a new time for fates to run I set out my wealth for all eyes to judge me fair and grant my kin all they might need… When that day came, a still air hung sweet with late season’s reaping Seahorse and leprechaun clouds played dare across the red moon-rise And Venus rode out glittering like a jewel in a dark forehead Beyond ancient days, histories had passed from rasping skins, scraped with flint to sharp tongues in flaking narrative Much was misconstrued, written contra-wise The scatter-brain sgraffito scoring scars of truth that squirmed beneath the litter of a thousand lies; but The hare persisted and birdsong kept the dream alive And as if it were calculated by a star-driven mechanism, events converged like a tide playing pinball with the planets Causing our collective conscience to flood we were lightning-ridden, shaken by angry fathers; The battle rage was on us like a lover, like a killer… like the very gods themselves… And I set forth, unaware of where to go or how I might get there… <<<
Nay Crochét
Narrator: "The tea-towel curled in his ear at the speed of light coorse ’e cried, struck by ’ bottle-opener tight lid extractor insulating glove fire staunch, breathing apparatus, headscarf and Souvenir of Skegness" Dad: "You bang on t’ wall when you see’ rent" Lad: "oreyt, soz" Narrator: "On Pottery Street and Goosebutt You don’t burn slack on washdays" Mum: "An no footy when’ washin’s out" Dad: No oil for’ ‘inge Lad: "no butter fer’ bread" Mum: "an whatever you’re thinkin’…" Mum ’n’ Dad: "NO" Narrator: "Distemper peeled from soft timber Trivets rusted for lack of blacking, and the range burned the crust but you still scrubbed your steps and swept n swilled your bit" Mum: "Not like them doilys on’ Ryecroft Gardens wi roses n cabbages" Mum’s mate: "’n’ electric washing machines ‘ark at them mangles; no sweaty windin’ for them" Mum: "I bet they squeeze their own wine" Dad: "And old man Brewer getting’ coals in wi’ his rattlin’ owd barrer Not like muggin’s wi’ bucket full er ’oles" Mum’s mate: "An’ that Jack Staves wi’ lorry ‘Apples ’n’ brown pears an’ lovely ripe bananas’ ee sez Bananas, I ask yer" Mum: "Papers delivered bi some kid on a bike. Mindst thee, they get all that racket from dairy bottle-washers up at bloody six an’ Roundwood Steel lookin’ an soundin, like World War Two" Mum’s mate: "Then Sunday when we’re off fishing or down’ pub they’re all on their knees in church" All: "HaHaHaHaHaha…" <<<
Sloe Black
It was a coal black, sloe black, black black sloe sort of night that danced not towards dawn but ran back and forth into the dark forest of crumbling, crushing myth The tide had stalled in a starfish spin a strand-boat, quick-sand, sloe sand sucking lamb of sacrifice a ducking mother craft knit into night spelled d-a-r-k-n-e-s-s Missing missed still not a mermaid murmur or Tracey trace No tell-tale itinerary, or glitterflake tell on the goodness my oh gosh and gracious of helpless necessity in the night Spelled O.M.G. In the grizzly grip of hopeless groping clung to fret and flux of harbour light and harbour dark and threatening nothings in the park they patrol the boats of improbability across murderous moors of malcontent and six or seven saline seas who shush the secret shores Then in the first frantic light of misery’s mithered morning In that silver, fish-skinned ill-limned lame lampoon of a day Sadly the circus would not take such a scrawny, buck-fanged, foul-mouthed waif But you know who did <<<
Incident in Old Rawmarsh Library
I tiptoe by surprised arch windows and heavy timber doors their brass handles smoother than a thousand worn and thoughtful hands - and I slip into the dark, varnished void Paperback-to-back passages of silent musty shelves paper-weighted in time, remain unmoved by the foyer clock where people greet with nudges and nods Brolly-shaken, kagoul-squeaked summer-shifted, satchel and sandal rattled In a darker corner, where purple fluff clings to furniture feet and floor-polish deposits form islet ‘V’s a parquet tile moves Distracted, I rock it with a shoe it is loose as a fairy tooth Pulling out a random book - - the excuse of the malingerer - I halt my stoop as someone lurks their finger whispering alpha-numerics They go, and with my finger-nail up comes one end Tipping the tile out, I gaze into the pitch-black space; black with nothing and pitch A girl urgently whispers “I didn’t know there were others” I start slightly and: “Others?” I echoed With a finger to her lips she beckoned me to follow Alarmingly near the reading table She eases up a tile… a book bangs shut and we freeze The library holds its breath After a spy-brief pause, we continue, repressing sniggers With the deftness of habit she eases up the tile In the space below are sweets and a message fixing my eye she hisses: “I hide them for my friend” “Wow”, I breathed, “Who’s that?” “I don’t know” she heaved, clenching her knuckles A cough brings us back before its echo died And as if exchanging study notes, I point at my book She nods and points we part the librarian glides by… <<<