"Two-Headed Boy, all floating in glass... I can hear as you tap on your jar"

“To break the tension, Fermi began offering anyone listening a wager on “whether or not the (atomic) bomb would ignite the atmosphere, and if so, whether it would merely destroy New Mexico or destroy the world.” –The Manhattan Project, US Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources.


Before the harvesting and fermentation of barley and grape,

before the synthesis of amphetamines by Nazi chemists,

before the discovery of celestial mechanics,

dialectical materialism and female anatomy,

we discovered fire...
 
 
Melissa Mann's superb lit-zine Beat the Dust has kindly featured one of my recent poems 'The Nihilists' alongside some brilliant writing from Stuart Evers, Belinda Webb, Ford Dagenham, Simon Crump, Salena Godden, Catfish McDaris, Steve Finbow, Heidi James and Ashley Stokes. The poem's partially inspired by W H Auden's 'Spain' and it's about me and my friends' misspent youth. It's a confession of sorts bar stuff that can never be spoken of. There's also a list of some stuff I've been reading and listening to in the past year (a few videos of which are below).
 
It's the first poem from a new collection I've finished called Two-Headed Boy, after the Neutral Milk Hotel song, which should be out in the New Year sometime (I've just finished a pulp novel called 'The Drowning Bells' which I have to type up over Christmas, not sure if it's drivel or not but it'll soon be winging it's way to publishers rejection piles and bins soon either way, along with begging letters, ill-founded claims of greatness and the usual death-threats).  
 
A second poem from the book 'Ghost in the Machine' (inspired by a reading the mighty Tom McCarthy gave - and by inspired I mean stolen from) will be appearing in the Black Herald Magazine, edited by Paul Stubbs and Blandine Longre, who are fantastic poets and all-round good sorts in their own right. It'll be on sale soon (can be pre-ordered on the site now) and we'll be reading at the launch in Paris (date and venue to be confirmed) in the New Year. If you want to see a grown man, drink-sodden and shambolically trying to 'perform' with the barest grasp of the English language let alone French then come along. The other readers will, needless to say, be magnificent.
 
But for now, some delightful music from the wireless (if there's a better song this year than the first I haven't heard it)....