New anthology for Pimento.

We have a new anthology coming out in March with contributions from all our members. I think it will be a stalwart effort to get it all done. It’s to celebrate 25 years of Pimentos existence.

Published through Amazon, it will be interesting to see our final results and to have a launch in Lincoln at the end of March.

The Poet Continues…..to walk the walk….

Walking the walk......

I saw a man walking today.
We were in the Chrysler 300c, heading to Aldi’s
Via
The deviation
Because of roadworks on  Canwick Hill.

I was coming to a low level bridge
In Washingborough
And saw him
In and out  of the corner
Of an eye.

Why he registered,
I don’t know for sure.

Went on our way,
Shopped at Aldi’s for £64.08p
And got our deisel at Tesco’s.
With the voucher, we saved over £8.00.

We travelled back towards Nocton
Without a hitch at Cannock Hill.

On the outskirts of Branston,
There he was
Again.

The man at the bridge.
How could he have walked so far?
Where was he going?

He was tall, grey haired, long haired
Curley haired,
Dressed mostly in black.
Looked like an ex-rocker.
Head held high aimed at the Horizon.

Was my flitting feeling of jealousy
Something to do with his purpose and gait?
What gracious thoughts had he magiced
Whilst I had been raiding some shelves.

Did I see a pencil sticking out of his top pocket

© Vernon Goddard.

Pimento Poets Next Meeting….

Hi Everyone,

How time is skipping by.

Our next session together will be on MONDAY 14th November, 2016.

Usual time: Arrive any time after 10 a.m. for a 10.30 start.
Usual Place:  Pimento Tearooms.
Usual arrangement: Bring some poetry….let's be reading it.

Looking forward to it and some  bright, intelligent, brilliant poems and discussion…..as usual.

With best wishes,

Vernon

As Above....So below..........................................

Meet the Poets: John Malvert.

Pimento Poets: Meet John Malvert.



Bumble bee

                      Engineers inform me 
that technically, 
the bumble-bee due to its weight, 
shape and size,
should not be able to fly,
as it defies 
all the known principles
of aero-dynamics.

Yet to every engineers’ surprise
it does!

How pleasant to know that even now, 
not everything,
Conforms to the so called
'norm' of things,
and that a bumble bee with wings,
                      has now become an enigma,
and carries the stigma 
of being called 
'odd.






Copyright by: J. Malvert 

New poetry by Maureen Sutton.

Sir John Franklin’s Mitten
                 And Snow Shoes

I want to connect with your spirit,
place my feet upon your snow shoes,
imagine each determined step,
hear the ghostly echo of your footfall,
inhale scented remains of  leather boots.

I want to place my hand inside
your left-hand mitten,
touch its black baize cuff
feel the softness of red silk edging,
recover the warmth of your hand.

I want to read your watch and compass,
follow and time your route, count wild stars,
listen to the bull-seal’s roar, return to the
Northwest passage where the Intuits
in skin canoes found the way through.  

In this alien landscape howling gales
have sculptured ice and snow, forged
icebergs, opened and closed frozen waste.
I want to build you a cairn on the shoreline,
admire your courage, find your remains and
bring you back to Lincolnshire.



Copyright   Maureen Sutton     03 08 2015

Franklin and his 128 officers and crew died during the mission to find the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Artic.  The two ships-Erebus & Terror- were last seen on July26th 1845 at Baffin Bay.
 

The Beautiful Game by Susan Flower

THE   BEAUTIFUL   GAME

We scatter the last crumbs of home-made quiche
And iced cake for bird fodder as we shake our picnic remains
Onto Clumber Park’s grass – still verdant green patches
Thrive despite an August drought and a high summer wind
Makes the heat more tolerable as it snakes amongst tree-tops.

Three thousand eight hundred acres, once the country estate
Of the Dukes of Newcastle. Open heath, woodland, rolling farmland,
Swan-dotted lake, a ‘cathedral in miniature’ chapel, playgrounds
For children and adults, the ubiquitous National Trust merchandise
Of Orla Keirly woven red and blue picnic rugs, wine-goblets, flasks.

The air smells summer- green and herby, we rise from our blankets,
A racing-green painted seat, grab Evie’s ball won at Sheffield’s
Lucky Duck race and fan out in a roughly circular layout,
Clout a hand-ball, kick a high one, and flick an overhead pass.
It is fast, furious fun; the wind as light now as our thoughts.

Evie-May runs deftly as fast as her daddy-long legs
Can carry the full weight of her five and a half years,
Dribbling the ball a specialty, her aim and sense of direction
Charming in its youthful inaccuracy.  Her father plucks her up,
Swings her legs at the ball time and again; we are all dizzy


With laughter as the ball escapes to the lake-edge
Nested with swans and humans clustering its reeded banks.
Evie in hot pursuit, whooping at full-pelt, a red-headed whirl-wind.
The child retrieves the ball, runs back to the pitch, flings herself
Prostrate into its centre.  ‘Man down, man down!’ cries her father.

We make few concessions for her age but often neither does she,
Just envy her  extra stamina and realise we are the noisiest family
At Clumber Park today, but one having the most fun in breaking
Rules and making it up as we go; that’s life, the beautiful game.




Copyright    Susan Flower     2015

Two pieces of work by Shirley Bell.

My daughter says that when I'm dead she'll show her kids this picture
and they'll know me.


I'm encased in ivory faille, high necked, long sleeved, severe.
It's a kind of armour to protect me from the fear of falling, failing,
or of you failing to appear. I thought it would be less than this.
Dried flowers, witnesses pulled in from their everydays to ours,
a registrar, looking at his watch. Unfortunately your mum wants
more. Late born, her twinned afterthought, she has standards
for you, but my dad's dead and it's we who foot this bill.

We're ruthless and we cull the relatives: cheerfully eliminating
aunties, cousins, children under three, which went down
well. I hire the dress; that's cheap. I dress my bridesmaids up
in nighties. (Long, quite pretty, sprigged with flowers on navy blue
and I don't think that they knew). Practical, you always are, you
wear an ordinary suit. For everyday. The gale has flung my veil
across my face, daffodils are lurching, the dress and I are hurtling

to the porch. The choir is singing just for us. Later I learn your mum
has spent the journey down spotting crematoria and graveyards.
Over chicken, your dad gives me the gift of how much
he had disliked me when we met, but now I am OK. I'm not that
grateful. In this photograph I'm back in normal clothes again.
I'm looking at you with a minxy grin. We’re off to Paris. Hah! Later
I photoshop my auntie out and my son says that it is rather Stalinist.




Eavesdropping at the Almeida for Tina

I've started raiding people's lives for inspiration;

it's a shameless way of building up a poem.

You like the way I write my overheards but wish

they could be lighter. The hospital would be dark,

of course, but even in the library the talk was of

a funeral after which 'she can move on', which

I doubt. Now I'm eavesdropping at the Almeida,

hoping for some light-hearted piece of chatter,

polished to an anecdote.  It's my daughter's birthday.

We've come to see James's Turn of the Screw

and have already upset someone at the bar by

queue jumping by mistake. ‘Perhaps next time

you'll serve your customers in order’. We run away

with wine in plastic cups and prop them on the balcony.

It takes an age for us to see the steward in the stalls

is telling us to move them in case they fall and we feel

a bit embarrassed. While we wait for the first act

Im talks about her year in France. I used to go to stay

and she'd come to Lille to see me off. ‘Did I ever tell you

how a guy came up to me after you left? He asked me

to go back to his to make a sex film with him? I said

in French I don't understand because I can't speak French,

and 'Mais....' he said. 'But.... '’ We laugh a lot at this

and I think I'll write this down for Tina as it's still a kind of

exploitation, no? The play's had bad reviews, all the

nuances are gone. But it doesn't matter; obediently I jump

on cue at every scare. Though I do suspect

the audience should not be laughing quite as much as this.


Copyright  Shirley Bell

Skating with Father by Celia McCulloch

Skating with Father


Winter mist against the window glass,
the kitchen smells of oil-stove heat and cedar wax
and we're wearing thick wool socks that scratch
our legs. First we laid the pasty wax, my father and I,

and now his dark, tall figure begins to glide
across the floor. I try to follow but just can't slide
across the sticky goo until I put my feet in his smooth tracks
and then he swirls and loops as skaters do, over and back.

He hums his monotone of Skaters' Waltz. He spells words in wax
for me to guess. He whirls, hands held high, ballerina-style.
I do the same. Then I stand on his size 12 feet and we run across the tiles.
I follow every crazy move till we end up a giggling pile

as my mother comes through the door
stamping snow from her feet.      She frowns and we feel poor
excuses for workers, ashamed somehow. I simply asked you to polish the floor,
she says. Must you always make a game of work!


Copyright   Celia McCulloch

SHRIEK Vernon Goddard

Shriek.

It’s the middle of August,

Dry year behind.

Think.

Reach ahead for words with legs,

Something to move this along.

Link.

Well, August can be the driest of months.

Parched and arid.

Trace, instead, the sea of seaside,

The ebb and flow,

Ebb and flow:

Lift of dew

Fall of rain.

Silver sliver of pond,

River rock and roll,

Laden leaves, dripping mist.

Waterfall waves

Headlong

Heady

Heading.

Dizzy

Drizzling

Dropping

DownPour

Like inked words

To mark the paper.

Outside my window

A wild sky

Shrieks.

Clears the dust

From a dry heart.

Vernon Goddard.

1st Draft 9th August, 2015

Maureen Sutton: The Lincolnshire Poet Laureate Award for 2015.

Recently, one of our leading members has gained the Lincolnshire Poet Laureate award. Her winning entry is below. 

Congratulations to Maureen Sutton:

        Shaped by Sound

       The sod beneath my feet has absorbed
       the plough-man’s tread; boots softened
       by creak and bend, one leg always higher.
       His clicking tongue called commands:
      ‘Whoa, turn’, furrows run deep in fenlands.
       The weight of horses’ shoes indented clay.
       Harrow and plough have cut through earth
       sparked limestone.  Ridge and furrow
       have written their own psalms.

       Bird-song: crow, cuckoo, peewit, sky-lark,
       each composed a chorus for sunrise
       ceaselessly calling through changing seasons.
       Invisible winds, breezes, storms, howling gales
       lifted and shifted top-soil, sculptured willow,
       hawthorn, hedges, oak, and ash to a sacred grove
       defining enclosure, boundaries, ‘right of way.’

        Ancient towers and steeples have absorbed 
        the prayers of my ancestors. I hear them in my  
        mind’s ear, clear as village church bells.
        Dykes and ditches diverted water-courses, pushed
        back the sea, reclaimed the land where green 
        mists still rise.  All flow with their own rhythm 
        like migrant geese leaving and returning.
        This is my county. This is Lincolnshire.

Maureen Sutton

March 2015

Pimento Poets: Next Meeting.

English: Allspice or pimento (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We have a meeting on Monday 13th July, 2015 at the Tearooms in Lincoln. Please bring some poetry with you and we will start at 10.30 a.m.

Cheers, Vernon

Pimento Poets: Nic Lance pays a tribute to Le Tour starting from Yorkshire last year…..

LE GRAND DEPART   by Nic Lance

In a landscape rugged and wild
Lycra-clad cyclists wheel easy, ride easy
Cheered on by sun-kissed crowds

They wend their way
Down vale and over dale
By becks and falls,
Along dry-stone walls,
Up limestone escarpments.
Out of breath...
But what a view!


-“It started on a white line
In t’ middle of road
Here in Leeds -
The Depart Fictif!

-The what?

-The Depart Fictif.
Le Tour de France started here with
The Grand tour of Yorkshire
It’s only the biggest cycle race in the world!

-What are you blabberin’ on about?

-Honest! The Tour started here in Leeds!
Believe me!

-Over here?
The Tour de France in Yorkshire?
Nah!  Why would they wanna do that?
You’re winding me up!
What are you on?
Cos I want some of that stuff!

-Listen to me - everyone’s talking about it
Where’s tha bin?

-I’ve bin wokin’ in Scotland – I’ve bin on t’ road,
I’ve heard nowt
I cum back to find the whole place closed for road works.

-Why d’y a think we couldn’t park on t’ road for bloody days?
What were all them crash barriers doin’ eh?
Look yonder at t’ yella sign – what does it say?
‘Closed for le Tour de France’
See!

Le Tour de France in t’ dales?
That can’t be right. Come on, tell me I’m dreamin’.

-You’re not dreamin’ it’s happened here!
Right under your very nose
Gerrit in you head!

I don’t understand owt.
- Yorkshire’s not exactly t’ Alps, is it!
Why would they bother to cum ere?

-Becos it’s God’s own county!
That’s why.”




After Leeds, they’re given a second send off,
This time a right-royal send-off
At “Harrwood“(Harewood) House.
The peleton and trailing cyclists stop, 
Together with escort motorcyclists,  
Camera bikes, spare bikes on car roof racks,                                                                      
Vehicles, sponsors and a convoy of support teams.
They hear out La Marseillaise and 
God Save the Queen
Played by the band of the Royal Engineers. 

The Red Arrows do their tricolour “crop spraying”.
The Duke and Duchess of York (...oops, sorry, Cambridge)
Are accompanied by Prince Harry. 
Ribbon cut, the cyclists are loose.
They coast along, but this is still a mock departure,
Not, the real depart, which is further down the road!

So after two warm-up starts,
There’s a third start, at the zero kilometre marker
– this one actually counts.

But just at the very moment the flag goes down, 
TV images break into a thousand cubist rainbow fragments.
The real depart was beyond belief,
Beyond cultures, 
Beyond TV,  
Beyond transmission ... 
Beyond comprehension!



The potholes in the roads have all been patched up.
The riders pass the great stone arches of ‘Le Viaduct d’Arthington’,
On to Otley, where three men break away.
The red team Lotto are going well too.

Down vale and over dale.
In the distance, le Cow and Calf 
 - great rocks deposited by giants -
Swing into view, 
Although legend has it that a woman spurned
Split the rocks apart,
Or something of that ilk.

To Ilkley (Ilkla Moor Baht’at and all that)
Cyclists, head down over handle bars,
Won’t see the yellow jersey hanging off the church tower. 
A helicopter whirls around the le Château de Skipton  
As the cyclists file through the outskirts of the old wool town.
They go round the “wrong” side of the roundabout!

The peleton wend their way 
Down vale and over dale.
Wheel hubs spin by Buttertubs
Where butter was once kept cool before market,
Then over the river Swale and on to le Corpse Way.

Down under, 
Darker and deeper, 
In the old lead mines,
An underground arched ceiling
6ft 6 inches tall,
Where men could just stand
And where horses used to pull
Great tubs of ore.
Now the dank darkness is the domain
Of helmeted pot-holers 
Who come in search of new caves,
Far from the jubilant crowds above.




All over the Yorkshire Dales
Pubs are adorned with Yellow Bikes.

Not to be outdone, 
One shop knitted a bike! 

The county has gone cycling mad!

A drawing of Shawn the Sheep, riding a bike,
Pops up in a school playground.

Artists have decorated fields
For a helicopter’s eye view.

There’s a bike in hedge
With a man in the hedge! 


This might seem like a tall Yorkshire tale of
When Le Tour de France headed up north and met the Dales.                                                                                                             When British cycling was given the recognition it truly deserved -
Cycling was literally put on the map.

However, this tale does not end happily.
A spit and a throw from the Harrogate Finish line,
Cheek by jowl, elbow to elbow, 
In-the-frantic-full-on-sprint,
Mark Cavendish fell 
And in a splice, 
He was out of the race.
Over & out!

Holding his bruised arm,
A shoulder dislocated,
Bemused.

All that Alpine training and pre-race recce
Down the tubes.

Down vale and over dale...

                                   
                              
                                                   © Nic Lance   2014
                                                       

Spring Dust by Susan Flower.

Spring-dust


We speed by hot lime fields, emerge into milky fans’ sunlit
Filters through awakening woods, ground-pocked with bluebells’
Flashing ultraviolet; cloud- pink sky shafts   pierce an earth redolent
With winter- crumbled detritus; spores, rich brown mould, lichens.

Our tourer hood back; a red lacquered, leather courtesan’s fan,
Its skin -brittle aged pleats display a controlled wantonness.
A single shuttered eye without lid; one cinematic  observer.

My yellow scarf gusts and eddies; a parachute sulky in wind,
Frothy parasols of cow parsley, creamy blobbed antennae
On spindled legs; such linear green and herby tripods.

The air dances, April  shimmers; spring’s white dress flicks
Back raindrops as we speed through cloudy puddles.
Time shivers on its axis, trembles at its irregular edges.

Spotting a single- track we turn onto a drovers’ road
At the foot of a tumulus, a white stile and old barn’sroof
Tiles glow brokenly in the sun; shifting terracotta planes.

We climb the hill hand in hand, breathless with laughter,
Your brown arms strong and sinewy, your hands pulling me
Up and over the steep precipice, ringed with buttercups

We lean together, heads touching, faces tilted as one,
King and Queen we sit on golden couch grass
Throned immortals we gaze and gaze down over vales
Watch shadows dapple fleet hills, hear distant bird call.

Glimpse far away a sparkle of blue, a slick of sea calm
As our afternoon; you take my face in your hands
Plant a tender kiss on my lips, warm in the breeze,
We crush the flowers naked beneath our bodies

Copyright Susan Flower 2014.

Next Meeting of Pimento Poets

Please note that Pimento Poets will next meet on Monday the 9th March at Pimento Tearooms. Please bring some poetry with you. We will commence at 10.30 a.m.

Vernon Goddard.

New poetry by Shirley Bell.

Emigration

That was a dandelion year, their faces turning with the light,
illuminating every roadside verge with their yellow countenances
on midsummer’s day as we drove you away from us.

From Thursday’s visa to Sunday’s plane you were unloosening your grip,
at such a speed, I never quite caught up with you. But your face was filled
with happiness, like the flowers’. How strange to see you loping to the gate
without a backward glance into a future in a new world we’d never seen.

Dent de lion. Those flowers have teeth; they bite me now whenever
I think of that hectic flight. I love your happiness, I love your wife,
but I still recall the years you flourished here with us.
And there’s still that morsel of me left that was sad to see you go.

We’ve visited. It’s alien to us. The flowers are different there,
the squirrels big and black; chipmunks don’t come in cages,
we can taste the dead skunk’s odour as the wheels roll over it.
Chickadees and hairy woodpeckers populate the trees that we don’t have.

Everything was like a dream I half remembered from all the films,
where I didn’t see those wooden houses. She always talked to us,
of our buildings made of brick and stone, the narrow roads which hug the
old boundaries, meandering through years of ownership. It came to life.

Hers is such a big country with so much space for you to stretch and grow.
Wildernesses press up against the highways, so many roads to cross
and cross again a continent. This is not a small world

Copyright by Shirley Bell.

Our Next Meeting…….

English: Uploaded from flickr.com Creative Commons section under an Attribution License. By Russell J. Smith. http://www.flickr.com/photos/russelljsmith/146216894/ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pimento Poets next meet on Monday 9th February 2015, commencing at 10.30 am. A warm welcome awaits you at the Pimento Tearooms near Bailgate, Lincoln.

Pimento Poets: Meet the Poets: Sue Flower

Homecoming

I take the Romany’s sprigged heather,
tuck its pink tight buds curled like
baby fists tight as a talisman,
blue with longing, into my bag

I am pierced mid-flight
by a hint of traveller she sees
within – an Irish woman 
On the grandmother side

Ellen Glancy unschooled, catholic
in tastes and religion, 
Pawned her soul for potatoes
that lay rotting,bleeding
into darkened sod

Her pilgrimage to England
and Alfred, then retracing steps
to Enniskillen for the wedding,
returning   to peg washing
not in a whipped north-easterly
which cut the souls

Back cross grey waters
fretful and choppy, till her own
broke a tidal wave, her firstborn.
Homesick for emerald patches,
 a mercurial sky tilting meniscus
struggling for freedom

Iron rain lashes my face,
her slashed smile a rent petticoat.
Merging the troubles one with another,
I take her hand in mine,
it lies still but warm, without
need for words

C. Susan Flower 2012

Pimento Poets: A new poem by Philip Dunn.

 Abandoned Lines




1  Outward  - 30th September 1939


The platform had emptied like a
scuttle its coal, leaving only
Miss Geddes, (a tear in her eye?)
and the guard with his flag raised,
half- turning away;
a volley from the carriage doors
dividing them utterly from
those now dispatched,
parcelled in promises,
labelled like luggage.

Dressed, in haste, in Sunday best,
cardboard cases quite abandoned,
fingers clamp the lowered windows,
faces press the filmy glass, to
see the last familiar landmarks
vanish in the smoke.

Then, as at some hidden sign,
the watching crowd dissolves away.
Seats are sought and places settled,
squatters’ rights secured by threats,
or captured by treaties
cemented with sandwiches.

The carriage expands with the hollowness
of questions that can’t be answered.
Bare thighs fidget
on the threadbare moquette.

c. Philip Dunn. 

Pimento Poets: A poem by Shirley Bell: The Scarecrow Christ.

The Scarecrow Christ

The fields are flat and brown, it's hard to think
they'll ever stand high with corn, flare with rape
again this summer. For now the scarecrows lurch
at crazy angles. They trail old coats and rags.
Polythene bags flap around the suggestions of
their shoulders. And yet the wind lifts
their shoddy clothes and they are touched with
magic; they always seem about to fly.

It's Sunday and I've taken you to Chapel.
Everything is grey and earnest. There's no
incense here, though  a sense of well-meaning
sifts gently through the air. I don't think I belong.
It's Lent and the sermon is all about temptation.
I feel I would not pass those tests. Now I see
distraction in the corner of my eyes; a painting.
When I can, I take a picture on my phone.

It shows me strips of cloth, snarled around
an empty cross, a tenuous fabric
lifting in air currents, tangled with light.
Something. Nothing. Faith, elusive as a sigh.
A scarecrow pinned to a stick.
Leaning forwards, with the wind stirring its tatters.
And always on the point of alteration,
by some sudden unexpected angle of the sun.

c. by Shirley Bell.

Pimento Poets: Shirley Bell, a new member this year……..

We have a new member: Shirley Bell.

Shirley joined us at the last couple of meetings and read some of her works.

Her biographical details reveal an interesting and diverse background:

Married for 42 years (!) with 3 adult children and 3 grandchildren. With her husband, Shirley Bell has run a cactus nursery for many years, written and illustrated gardening books for GMC publications, and worked as a wedding and social photographer.
In the past substantial selections of her poetry were published by Faber and Faber in Poetry Introduction 6, in Six the Versewagon Poetry manual, Anvil New Poets and Outside The Chain of Hands and she was published in magazines including Ambit, Poetry Review, The London Magazine, The Spectator and many others.

Her poetry has been broadcast on Radio 3 and she also had a small pamphlet published by the Wide Skirt. She has read her work widely throughout the country including at the South Bank and the Arvon Centres in Yorkshire and Devon.

Recently she completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Lincoln, and in 2013 she published a pamphlet ‘behind the glass’ as part of her course and compiled and edited an anthology of the work of the students on the course, The Black Path 1, which was published in June of that year.

Her poems have recently appeared in The Rialto and The North and in a new anthology 'fathers and what must be said', published by Rebel Poetry.

We will be posting some of Shirley's work in the next few days……...