tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57869242011-10-03T11:43:40.032-07:00Rogan WhitenailsRoynoreply@blogger.comBlogger481100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-76279618816194572412011-10-02T15:32:00.000-07:002011-10-02T15:35:37.393-07:00This poem will appear in the next issue of Monkey Kettle magazine.Placeholder PoemA sense of wonder is wasted on me:Amarcord vitiates all presentlyBeheld wonders which the Lord Lapidary,As shaper of the Pale Blue Dot, sees fitTo append to this middle-aged bitOf my wonder-garlanded life.Wonders and memories – ever at strife!This present wonder is a placeholder,Cowed by the meretricious huesAnd Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-56484297580326440782011-09-18T13:29:00.001-07:002011-09-30T14:31:49.342-07:00The Worst CentreI am the most obscure of the forsaken – At the centre of being unconnected to Bacon; What is your Whitenails number? The dish that held Dolly Godfrey's cucumber Sandwiches is closer to Bacon than me; And my Erdős number is Infinity.What is your Whitenails number,How close are you to my toxic node,Amid the genealogy of slumber,The algorithms of dream mode,Where the dist value Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-25296865449583375502011-08-07T03:36:00.000-07:002011-08-07T06:03:51.555-07:00A few weeks before my 40th birthday, I wrote a song called "Belly Mondegreen". It began life as a boo on Audioboo – very short, just one verse in length. Prior to this, assailed by a fear of getting old, I had been retorting upon old friends by writing hostile poems that made it hard to see how any future reconciliation could be achieved. By the time of writing the song, I had written enough of Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-50562703017345316642011-06-05T12:54:00.000-07:002011-06-14T16:20:35.789-07:00A sense of wonder is wasted on me:Amarcord vitiates all presentlyBeheld wonders which the Lord Lapidary,As shaper of the Pale Blue Dot, sees fitTo append to this middle-aged bitOf my wonder-garlanded life.The first stanza in a poem to be included in my forthcoming collection. Here is a video.Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-72053157975211512852011-05-05T11:41:00.000-07:002011-10-03T11:43:40.076-07:00Ode To The Man Who Claimed He Could Look After My Wife Better Than IHis first name is David, shortened to Dave.The headstone on Sylvia Plath’s graveBears his family name, and I sympathiseWith those crazed idolaters who excise“Hughes” as fast as it’s re-engraved,Their bowdlerism reactively slavedTo the craftsman’s restoring work,But to them I say “Stet! – Dave Hughes is a jerk,Let it stand, it’s Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-92114837876926270702010-10-10T10:10:00.000-07:002011-05-01T15:37:17.897-07:00My new poem on the anatomy of shock is published in the autumn issue of Monkey KettleDippenhall Street’s Narrow North EndIn Shock, Cycling to Roke Farm Nr Odiham Village A deluge of cur, domestic and stray,Having breached the Lidl on Dogflud Way,Is pouring and pawing through Farnham’s centre,Defying the model by failing to enterThose turns that orthodox floods would ingress –Borelli Yard, which Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-53607171430301541312010-03-24T11:42:00.000-07:002010-03-24T11:43:43.315-07:00"Hoon work" for pelf:The MP for Ashfield is out for himself.Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-69095019637703286142010-02-15T11:48:00.000-08:002010-02-15T05:19:39.695-08:00Tan HillWhen darkness shrouds the summit peace, like pollen, spreads.Cows that glow, like dying bonfires, rest on briary beds.Lost lovers with laryngitis pitch their songs of woeOver Arkengarthdale peaks and into Keld below.The inn is out and out the highest in the land,A pole-vault from the sun, a haven for the tanned.Walkers swap their scary talesOf ghouls and farmers on the dales,But if a Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-85459356324647513972010-02-14T08:22:00.000-08:002010-02-14T08:32:14.213-08:00Gretel (and Gravity)This story is just about Gretel –Hansel, it seems, does not have the mettle,Or the time, or ... Some lame excuse.It begins as the midwife starts to induce Labour:Peristaltic breadcrumbs settleIn the birth canal, and GretelBegins to follow the trail;And so I retell the fairytale,With Hansel on leave,And gas and air to relieveThe pain ... Once, there fell a great dearthOn a Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-36899674946390232582010-02-12T06:30:00.000-08:002010-02-14T06:35:34.342-08:00The Trampoline Marathon(with broken rhyme enjambments)It was spring, my eyes were itchy with pollen.You and I and our classmates had volunteered for a 24 hour sponsored trampoline marathon. The responsibility for our welfareLay with a man called Ian Rigg. ThereWas a rule:Any kids found on the schoolPlaying field during the nightWould beSent home immediately.The undersides of our socks were grey Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-46508389336591308872010-02-11T06:29:00.000-08:002010-02-14T06:30:33.762-08:00By and by, those rudeboy druidsWill move to Farnham, marry, have kidsAnd shop at the Lidl on Dogflud Way.Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1074953591992767642010-02-08T12:06:00.000-08:002010-02-14T12:06:57.303-08:00This Morning, Before Visiting The Toilet (The Silver Bowl)We awoke this morning, in an oven glove.It held our bodies, as we made love;And I fancied you could feelMy consolidated evening meal,Lending weight to my thrusts;The soup, the croutons, the crusts,The melted cheese, the lamb on a spit:The unevacuated shit,Lending weight to my thrusts …I was proud of my fatuous lusts;The digested lamb was Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-64559874795841747532010-02-02T12:01:00.000-08:002010-02-14T12:04:56.844-08:00The Caudal Appendage and Haemorrhoids(tried a hot bath, more fibre, taking my overdue books back to the library. Nothing has worked, and it's been two days now … )Oh, “where the sun don't shine” - Overdue, and a terrible fine!Avoid all haemorrhoidal bleeding –Take your books back after reading;Take them back, renew your loan!A lump emerged, as big as the boneThat protrudes at the base of my spineRoynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-30669871340199606492010-01-28T06:24:00.000-08:002010-01-28T06:26:13.830-08:00Ghostly Sightings of the Pornographic LadyIn 1500, a leap year,Two nubile sisters, each sincere,Proposed to the very same man;And this is when the hurt began.1502, two years gone by:The moon and the sun shared the skyAs Verity Limo (her surnamePronounced exactly the sameAs the stretch with tinted windows)Married Walter Obadiah Blows,The fourth son of a glassmith.She had wanted to marry the fifth,Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-37607813221184773822010-01-01T06:33:00.000-08:002010-02-14T06:39:39.744-08:00Kept Man (wi’ ither folks’ coal!)My first-foot benison, as Big Ben chimes:"Lang mae the lums of yir couplet rhymesReek;Though you live from week to week Jobless, dependent and kept,May your rhymes' flumes stay sprucely sweptAnd reeking!" * * * * * * * * 2 in the wee smalls, wearily tweakingLines as shlothy as milky pobbies –Calibrating those rhyming jobbiesTill they rhyme unplodding,As Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-11391963860082300582008-12-18T12:43:00.000-08:002008-12-19T05:44:27.344-08:00Two of my poems, Ghostly Sightings of the Pornographic Lady and St. Enodoc, appear in the 30th issue of Monkey Kettle magazine, available to buy here. The latter poem is also included in my recently published chapbook, In Shock, Cycling to Roke Farm.St. Enodoc The creeping sync of Sinkininny Church;And the sound in thrall to the shells that perchOn the graves is the tunnelling elfmillOf ancient Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-30086648413797181852008-07-13T02:42:00.000-07:002008-09-22T07:17:07.740-07:00My new collection, Ghostly Sightings of the Pornographic Lady, is in stock at the News From Nowhere bookshop in Liverpool City Centre. Here is a poem from the collection, and you can listen to the song version on Myspace.Enjambment Smears and the Sorter’s York The voice, a gentle burr -Defying the bistro clatterOf the knives in Ivor's surname;And there isn't a birder anywhere Who could spish moreRoynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-45125775626371357342008-05-26T03:35:00.001-07:002009-09-14T01:52:57.020-07:00I am the official poet for Shed Week 2008. You can share your shed, beach hut, though not your hide, here. The Rhyme-Botherer’s Garden ShedShedspla! my shed:Just once, let me find shortbreadIn the shortbread tin, not screws;Let the bolts in the jam jars bruiseEasily!Is white spirit as mild as the moistyMizzle of morn, when suppedFrom the gowpen of two hands cupped;As scant in the mouth, as faint,Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-82810492743481509222008-05-02T10:44:00.000-07:002008-09-06T04:43:39.035-07:00The Creeping Sync of Sinkininny ChurchSt. Enodoc churchyard, I am standing beside the grave of Sir John Betjeman. The gravestone just visible to the left of the picture belongs to Herberta Blanche Bone, also buried in 1984.Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-78736329205760652782008-04-16T03:12:00.000-07:002008-08-10T04:22:49.965-07:00Verity Limo is the name of one of the characters in my new book.Summer 2001, I travelled from Chesterfield, England, to work as the sound recordist for a film being shot on the Croatian island of Silba. Soon after arriving, I befriended a young woman called Romina, a friend of the director's, who was working part time as part of the crew, whilst she also enjoyed a holiday on the island with her Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-59351438329053530722008-04-05T13:29:00.000-07:002008-04-11T02:39:25.271-07:00Two stanzas from Kept Man, the opening poem in my new collection.2 in the wee smalls, wearily tweakingLines as shlothy as milky pobbies –Calibrating those rhyming jobbiesTill they rhyme unplodding,As brisk as Wee Willie Winkie's noddingPompom!Who is it loves the man whose nomde plume is Rogan Whitenails?She is as kind as the keep he failsTo contribute towards is pressing.She sleeps upstairs, for Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-37484393976140790882008-04-04T02:39:00.000-07:002008-04-04T02:59:09.268-07:00Me reading a stanza from my new book. I had planned to deliver it straight, but a funny theatre happened on the way to the thing.The first of the ghostly sightings was inThe winter of 1608:Think of the months you associate With spring, with summer, with birdsong –All of these clement months had longBeen winter in Dymperk, so whileThis sighting took place in August, I’llStand by the wintry season Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-61055072477248293802008-03-18T04:45:00.000-07:002008-04-23T04:13:06.798-07:00GHOSTLY SIGHTINGS OF THE PORNOGRAPHIC LADY My new book is the most revealing yet. With poems illustrated by Pilot Tender Foot aka Kevin Campeau, "Ghostly Sightings of the Pornographic Lady" is available to purchase now, price £3.95 (plus £2 for UK postage and packaging). You can order a copy using Paypal (send to Roganwhitenails@hotmail.com). For international post and packaging costs, or to pay Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-58304953019027800992008-03-10T05:40:00.000-07:002008-03-10T05:50:51.519-07:00If you are writer, as you are writing, how do you look? Whenever I am reading Tennyson or Masefield or Hughes, I often wonder what they looked like as they were writing. Transported by the imagery in the poems, but at the same time wondering about the quiet domestic settings in which they were written. This is a video of me writing in my head, stigmata on the bridge of my nose, trying to find a Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-63859129603899418902007-12-14T02:32:00.000-08:002007-12-14T02:34:35.526-08:00new book coming outRoynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-73726150809720623842007-08-07T02:52:00.000-07:002007-08-07T02:58:18.335-07:00In the spirit of Domestic Electro, to celeberate the birth of my new baby boy and the erection of my new garden shed, two new songs are available from me via email - lyrics here (culled from much longer poems):Kept ManLucubration candlelight,My lovely little Crondallite!Having a baby's a riot:Having to think about diet –'Bout fatty acids and vits;'Bout cradle cap and scratch mitts;Spooning CalpolRoynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1157149032788190092006-09-01T15:16:00.000-07:002006-09-01T15:17:12.790-07:00Walter Murch, the Academy award winning sound designer, drinks rabbit dropping sockage every morning, and then he scries using the auto-deepening droppings in his doe's hutch.Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1156184776369468962006-08-21T11:25:00.000-07:002006-09-08T12:51:23.426-07:00The Lability of the Silent EraI found my Dad on the morning of Mothering Sunday, fainted, naked and face down on the bathroom floor. His head was bleeding, and I thought at first he might have had another stroke. Thankfully, this didn't turn out to be the case, and he's back on track.I have recently recovered from a very strange bout of the lurgy. In attendance were the normal aches and nausea Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1129565904846840362006-02-12T09:08:00.000-08:002006-06-18T05:58:49.523-07:00The porpoise is the poor man's dolphin,And you are the poor man's me;The lady-in-waiting let Rolf inTo paint a portrait of the Queen.I was living with Gareth in Krakatau.That’s where we met -In the crater;And I had a serviette -Like a waiter -Over my arm, draped neatly,Which vanished completelyEvery time the volcano erupted;But apart from this, uninterruptedServiette-wearing could be enjoyed,Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1129564848792297522005-08-16T02:50:00.000-07:002006-05-13T06:06:55.066-07:00------------------------------------------------------------------------------CurtainsMy Dad has just got back out of hospital after spending four or five weeks there with a mystery malady and irregular heart rate.A man died in the bed next to my Dad's whilst I was visiting him one afternoon in the Acute Ward. My Mum had left the ward to buy Dad a PatientLine card so he could watch the TV, and Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1129564324372531562005-02-01T08:45:00.000-08:002005-12-28T03:27:20.853-08:00---------------------------------------------------------The doctor is hopeful that Dad will make a good recovery in the 100 Acre Wood. He is continuing to make good progress. Last week, my sister and I were standing next to each other in the front room, leaning with our backs against the radiator, whilst we watched my parents compete at Scrabble, as they always do on Sunday mornings. It was likeRoynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1106217303728717782005-01-13T02:34:00.000-08:002005-02-23T02:01:06.963-08:00------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------My parents and I had our Christmas dinner together - just us three, this year. Both of my sisters had decided to spend Christmas with their partners' families (my nieces in tow, naturally), and my wife, three months pregnant, was in Germany with her own Mum and Dad. Realising that all future Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1129560286888333972004-12-17T07:41:00.000-08:002005-10-17T12:24:04.773-07:00---------------------------------------------------Immortality and MicturitionWe found out in November, whilst on holiday in the Norfolk Broads. I pressed Norma to buy a pregnancy test in Cromer, plied her with diuretics for the next few hours (censored detail: mechanics of pregnancy test) ... and when that epiphanous second line manifested, I felt like a bus had hit me.. .. There were no Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1129560022374495762004-10-25T04:19:00.000-07:002005-10-17T07:46:47.256-07:00----------------------------------------------------My Many, Many Brothers-In-LawBrother-in-law No. 1At a Christmas party, in a paper hat,He asked me what I was good at –I never said, but I blushed:Standing up, with my back to the seatOf a toilet that I have flushed,I can tell by the refilling soundIf the toilet is blocked - before looking round.The time between flushes is shorter;And I know the Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1093341884754555422004-08-24T03:03:00.000-07:002004-08-24T03:12:23.270-07:00------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I trundle in my sleep like I'm working a potter's wheel, each night building a new pot of regret on the tournette of a dream. And nothing smells edible anymore: when I walk past a chip shop, it smells to me like a pet shop; freshly sliced bread tastes like the dead skin pumiced from a foot during a Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1093342261857302342004-08-03T03:08:00.000-07:002004-08-24T03:11:01.856-07:00------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two of my tracks were played on London's Resonance FM last night, and I've been invited on to perform live. If my Mum's in accordance, I'd like to take her along to the studio with me, as she is singing on a song I'm currently putting together in Cool Edit (I suppose there's a risk that having a Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1088244170960434022004-06-26T02:56:00.000-07:002004-10-27T08:17:08.196-07:00-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Are Friends Electronic Mail? (Hair Thickness and the Strange Case of Lesser Tit)
The following were posts made online to the I Love Music discussion board (I am ‘Lesser Tit’, although the replies are real and from authentic contributors):
In a knittingly louche and idle moment I decided to try and guess my best friend's Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1085485251724738852004-05-25T04:39:00.000-07:002006-11-10T07:52:18.680-08:00THE FLEECE KIDSRoynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1081512611141397082004-04-01T00:10:00.000-08:002004-06-04T03:04:47.750-07:00-----------------------------------------------------------------
A Voluptuary under the Horror of Lactation
I've changed my name to Limiter Whitenails for my next collection, Authentic Rejection Letters Interspersed With More Scatology and Pyrotechnical Self-Pity - a run of one copy, published in December by Indoor Fighting Press. Someone recently nominated me to go into the Neglected Poets Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1063106440788661582004-03-04T04:20:00.000-08:002008-08-22T11:07:02.386-07:00------------------------------------------------------Woking Wolf-whistling Woking,Where everyone is soakingIn whistle-spit:I watch them, as I sitWith the woman I call mine –Craven, lascivious, malign.Wolf-whistling Woking,Where everyone is choking,Through blowing so hard.The flowers growing in the graveyardAre watered by the whistles of mourners:Through rounded mouths, tight at the corners -Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1078837233619051342004-03-01T04:06:00.000-08:002004-06-04T06:22:24.820-07:00------------------------------------------------------------------
Gradual Violence
I recently did an early morning desert island discs-type radio interview with Rony Robinson. I couldn't sleep the night before, and was rubbing caster sugar into my gums as I waited in the reception area of BBC Radio Sheffield. I was trancing with anxiety and fatigue: my eyes felt impossibly wide, like a giant Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1085578754430154972004-02-28T06:26:00.000-08:002004-05-26T07:01:45.953-07:00------------------------------------------------------------------
The lead is twisted, recoiling,
Dragging the plug - slyly toiling
To plug it back in,
And whilst you sleep, the plug will spin
And stretch like a flower
Searching for light;
It will find the socket in the night,
And bloom with the dawn ...
These words are taken from my new track on Electromancer, called OCD and the Phototropic Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1084293208155105802004-02-26T06:07:00.000-08:002004-05-26T07:50:00.340-07:00-----------------------------------------------------------------
My Fib – Your Reply
My fib:
I'll soon be off to work in the Namib region of Namibia - a cool coastal desert with sand dunes and gravel plains. I've been told I will need some headgear – made of breathable fabric, and flexible enough to fold into a rucksack. I've already got a baseball cap, but want something else a little Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1063105507537661322003-11-10T04:05:00.000-08:002004-05-26T06:40:23.100-07:00------------------------------------------------------
“We can’t talk, ‘cos we’re dead”
We are dead,
Bobbing in the sea.
An accident.
Our skin is blue,
I turn to you and I say …
“I love you”,
And a wave makes us almost kiss.
You say: “I’m not sure
Anymore, about us”.
We can’t really talk, ‘cos
We’re dead,
But, somehow, I spoke
And I heard what you said.
I search your eyes for the Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1063104084155213412003-09-09T03:41:00.000-07:002006-01-14T06:19:25.840-08:00Gladiatress is a soon to be released feature film, starring the Smack the Pony team, and with a Rogan Whitenails-cameo. I appear as one of two gauche Roman guards that haul Sally Phillips's character away to be executed, in a short scene that was shot over two days last December.All throughout the previous year, I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get work in the industry as a Boom Op., and Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1063883173654823582003-07-18T03:05:00.000-07:002006-11-10T07:48:37.390-08:00Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1112714324048022212002-09-18T08:15:00.000-07:002005-04-05T08:25:36.903-07:00------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In 1998, Indoor Fighting Press published the first of my two books, both called 'Failure Crawled up my Leg?'. The tantrum-aetiology of the title poem, as it fumes about failure, suggests at one point that my unfulfilment can be traced back to the humiliating experience of discovering a forest tick Roynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5786924.post-1112714698407254802002-08-15T08:19:00.000-07:002005-04-05T08:26:15.836-07:00------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------My new book is available through amazon.co.uk. It's called 'Failure Crawled up my Leg (2002)'; ISBN: 0953456617; published by Indoor Fighting Press. I played my first gig on the 'Failure Tour' a few nights ago - at the Old Queen's Head in Islington. I read some poems and sang a few songs from my new Roynoreply@blogger.com