hello sinister. sorry for the delay in your weekly, ornithologically inspired, poem, but there seems to be a bit of a poetry kick on the list lately anyway, which is of course GREAT. (must be the autumn.) as ally 'old bastard' cook and owen 'blackmailing sod' aka the narrow wizard hinted, i (and the poetry parrot) was in glasgow for the weekend. i won't bore you, but i had a lovely time and thank you everyone who made me welcome. i also had the knicker-wetting experiences of a) handling an original copy of tigermilk for the first time and b) seeing struan's church (which hasn't even got a bloody steeple - what's a church without a steeple?) but at no point did i try to initiate attempts to stalk band members. at all. anyway, here's the poetry. and yes mr narrow wizard, one is by me, but i thought i should give everyone an alternative as well. so there's also one by the american poet billy collins, who i rather like (and have in fact met, but that's another, and quite boring, story). you have to guess which is which. (not very hard.) On Turning Ten The whole idea of it makes me feel like I'm coming down with something, something worse than any stomach ache or the headaches I get from reading in bad light - a kind of measles of the spirit, a mumps of the psyche, a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul. You tell me it is too early to be looking back, but that is because you have forgotten the perfect simplicity of being one and the beautiful complexity introduced by two. But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit. At four I was an Arabian wizard. I could make myself invisible by drinking a glass of milk a certain way. At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince. But now I am mostly at the window watching the late afternoon light. Back then it never fell so solemnly against the side of my tree house, and my bicycle never leaned against the garage as it does today, all the dark blue speed drained out of it. This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself, as I walk through the universe in my sneakers. It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends, time to turn the first big number. It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me I would shine. But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life, I skin my knees. I bleed. Holiday Romance A dry, bleached beach day. You come back smelling of salt wind, open spaces. Each grain of sand you brought with you to bed is slicing through my skin. They irritate like grit in an oyster, worm their way inside my moving flesh, rip tiny, ragged holes along my thighs, roughening, thickening my blood. I turn towards you; they scrape across my breasts, embed themselves inside. I spit out pearl. ------------------------------------------------------------ ahem. and the poetry parrot liked glasgow so much it's flying back there next to Calumn Shearer, to say thanks for putting me up and because i know he has something to share... luv archel xxx ps: everyone who submitted to or was interested in buzzwords - slight change of plan. i'm now doing it as a web zine instead, due to budget and other stuff. i'll keep you posted though. ********* Rachel Playforth archel@iname.com +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+