'As I Am' by Paul Mein.

 As I am

He is a man,
as I am,
but he plots in palaces,
holy places, holes in the earth.
His words reach
to soldiers, apostates,
blind followers;
words wrapped around
misguided, blinkered philosophies;
bleak words, excluding words,
inflaming words;
words inciting to hatred, killing
with extreme prejudice ­ the women who dare
to bare their heads,
teachers and writers
who set minds free,
the wide­eyed orphan in
the bombed­out basement,
the doctor trapped by bodies
in bold­drenched corridors,
men like me ­whose ‘crime’ is to
be overheard, seen,
in the wrong place, wrong time.
So I run, walk, carry, crawl
with others like me,
to break, an exhausted wave,
on the razor wire
of far borders,
tear gas and batons
our welcome to uncertain freedom;
ripped from our birth-country
because a man, as I am,
decides which side
of colour, belief, tribe
is right or wrong;
a man, as I am,
who plots in palaces...

©     Paul Mein      26/8/15

New Readings by Pimento Poets on 11th September, 2015.

In connection with the recent exhibition 

‘Picture the Poet’ 

And the Summer School Photography event 

held at  Lincoln University

  Pimento Poets will be reading their poems on:  The Magna Carta, Freedom of Speech and Democracy.

  On Friday 11th September, 2015

  (10.30 – 12noon)

     At The Collection and Usher Gallery, Lincoln.

        

Poets reading will include:  Shirley Bell, Vernon Goddard, Susan Flower, Nic Lance, John Malvert, Celia McCulloch, Paul Mein, Gerry Miller, Paul Sutherland, Maureen Sutton,  and Susan Wallace. 

For free tickets please visit our Eventbrite page http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pimento-poets-tickets-18324328560 or call The Collection on  01522 782040   

Teas and coffees provided  

Free Event.

All welcome.

A recent poem by Paul Mein………Hartland Quay ±1.

Hartland Quay #1

Heave of swell-sea bellows

forge without fire, restless shaper

ceaseless hammer

on the anvil of the coast.

The bay is full - 

a cold cauldron

of relentless rollers

rushing house-high

to spend on the boulder beach,

grope dark openings

of caves at the foot

of high cliffs, layers 

twisted to vertical

by an uneasy torsion aeons ago,

or hurl bursting against

jagged guardians of rock,

cataract to foaming, roiling

unforgiving boiling at their base,

merge with others

in aweful curling spume, careless fling.

A gull glides in vigil on the wind's whim,

clouds drift away, letting

sky and water clear from dull iron

to an iceberg's chill-blue depth.

A boy looks from the quay,

arms outstretched in welcome

to an ocean's power

he wishes were his.

©   Paul Mein    22/7/15 

A Norfolk April by Paul Mein.

 A Norfolk April

We struggle to keep upright,
walking along the sea wall, inches
above angry, bran waves, racing hard,
fast before the cruel-cold of a north-easter;
they break, dirty-white and dangerous,
against the stone wanderers,
imported to defend the coast,
or slap, relentless, against
stoic, thick-planked groynes
stretched between their metal supports,
spotted like an old man's arms
rusted by too much sun.

In the troughs
innocent marbling
gentle froth forming
dissolving swiftly
taking on the power
of racing crests.
Further out, taller end-posts drown quietly,
Gormley figures resigned to their fate.
Still further, the horizon's razor-cut;
deep-sea indigo spills into the sky beyond sight.

Man's work in digging, the sea's in rising -
a blurring of boundaries, a landscape at mercy,
where tides make uneasy those who live where they touch,
eyes casting constantly to combinations
of seasons, the moon, the winds,
creating a rushing, spilling, tree-salting force
which turns fresh water brackish, soaks doubt into hamlets
abandoned to sea-swallow and planners' priorities.

Across column-ploughed fields,
crisp-bordered by hedging,
we see the clear-edged certainty
of flint and stone towers,
churched to the heavens,
pointing to salvation for lost congregations.

©   Paul Mein  1/5/15

Pimento Poets: Winchester - A new poem by Paul Mein.

            Winchester

Betrayed by a glint of errant sun,
the gun that won the West,
its stock century-bleached
with the tree it leant against,
the tree that gathered it into itself
in an unexpected marriage,
divorced after a hundred hidden years.
Close by in forgotten earth,
mouldered scraps of cloth,
potsherds of bone,
a blink of yellow metal ­ fragments of a life
lost in the winning of the land.            


A Model 73 Winchester was found leaning against a juniper            
tree in Nevada’s Snake Mountains. It had been there for 130            
years.


c.           Paul Mein.  17/1/15

Related articles

• 1882 rifle sparks archaeological quest in Nev.
• Undisturbed for 130 years, the Wild West rifle left against a tree

New event in 2015…...by local author, Paul Mein.

'Voices in a mystery' - an Easter cycle, is a collection of poems by  local poet, Paul Mein.


The poems form an exciting dramatic cycle, looking at the events of Easter through the eyes of ordinary people such as the carpenter who made the cross, the doctor who signed Jesus' death certificate.

They also present unique perspectives on other, better known characters - Barabbas, Judas, Mary Magdalene.

Performed by a group of enthusiastic, experienced readers and performers called 'The Nine', the work is being premiered in the newly refurbished Southwell Library on Wednesday, 25th. March at 7.30 p.m.

There are further performances at The Lace Market Theatre, Nottingham, Sunday 29th. March at 7.0 p.m.and St. Wifrid's Church, Calverton, Tuesday 31st. March, 7.30 p.m.

Also at St. Peter's Church, Nottingham, (next to Marks and Spencer) Friday, 3rd. April.  The cycle will form the centrepiece of the church's Good Friday afternoon service. Don't miss the opportunity to see this unique presentation.

Further details from Paul Mein pjmein42@gmail.com

Pimento Poets: New poetry by Paul Mein

Solstice II

We talked arm-in-arm

as we used to,

leaning in to one another,

caught up in family legends,

winter warmed on the sun side

of a bustling Fulham street -

a rare morning of ordinary comforts.

c.    Paul Mein.  21/12/14

Pimento Poets: New poetry by Paul Mein

 Solstice I

Hollow days before Christmas -          

I watch for angels          

listen for the swan-swoop of their wings          

across city rooftops          

wait for coldcrack night skies          

believe in a star.          

I look for childhood certainties          

to recapture bedtime story, Santa Claus faith          

second time around.

c     Paul Mein.  21/12/14

Some Photographs from the Poetry reading earlier in the year at Waddington…….

Pimento Poets: A new poem from Paul Mein.

A hero, on the beach, with his granddaughter.



My granddaughter roams, barefoot,
on pooled and seaweed-slippy rocks,
gathering mussels, cockles,
razor clams and small crabs
in a hessian sack, ready for the meal
I promised her.

The pot already boils
on the driftwood fire I made earlier,
hunkered between boulders,
the sea quieted,
the wind calmed,
the voices in my head fogged.

I watch child and tide, one for
carelessness, the other for craftiness.

Catching on the salt air, smoke from the cooking fires,
                       the hum-busy of mothers at the washing place.

I look out distant
to the pounding sea,
grey relentless energy,
shifting presence
breaking rainbowed
on tireless hidden reefs...

...see, through light's bendings,
shades of my long-ago crew
sailing guideless, dark-blind
through sheet-tearing tempest
or rowing backbroken on
oily, becalmed waters,
cracking out 'land ho'
through parched lips,
gapped and scurvied gums,
pale against weather-struck faces,
hard-pulling with saltcracked hands
against an outgoing tide...

my eyes fill, spill from the corners,
trickle to salt-lie on my lips.


“Why are you crying, grandad?”
the child asks. Unnoticed,
she has beaten the tide in
its race to meet me.
I tell her I'm not really;
this is something which happens
sometimes to men who are old and tired.
“But you're not old, grandad,”
her faith in my immortality unshakeable.
“So why are you crying?”

...and I tell her that
their spring is not ours,
their winter dying not the same,
their motion in our space and time
suspended...

But she is busy
showing me the contents
of her forage sack,
asking, “Is the fire on?
Can we cook these now?”
We hold hands on the way back -

I sense her more careful of me,
as if  something settled in her world
has moved slightly, unexpectedly.

I'm pleased to get out of the wind,
away from the sight of open sea,
my vision limited to the fire,
the roil of water in the pot,
my granddaughter watching,
waiting her portion.



©  Paul Mein    20/10/14

Pimento Poets at the Drill Hall on 25th October, 2014…..

From left to right:

Back row: John, Susan, Paul and Vernon.
Front row: Nic, Sue and Maureen.

Smiles all round from the Pimento poets before their readings at the Drill Hall as part of the Sound Festival, Lincoln.