STYLE
Jackie Stallone’s Nagasaki vacation
Wobbled crabbed. The mushroom, belly-flopped by
parachute,
Harbingered air raid ear-splits.
Implosion tarred on a megacritical squeeze,
In one howling flash.
Skin-rips tasselled her limbs.
The crumpled face
Pussed grisly.
Dior’s rig-out blistered.
The elegant Saké bar jiggled, molten.
HALF-MAST
Captain James Cook was earth-shook
To be weeping at Judy Garland’s final curtain.
Stuffy, rain-splodged beaten tracks,
A wind-leaf, uncomplicated service.
Kill time hearse, three elite Limos.
Wrapped in yellow roses,
The elfin coffin tensed at flashbulbs.
He was a true friend of Dorothy.
SUNDERLAND
Prince Otto Von Bismarck lopes east,
Stages in municipal yards.
The lift jitterbugs debris
Into a thickset hopper. Crumpling bulk-heads
Maul slop-reeking bins.
Hours are sedimentary. Cylinders zigzag, throwback.
Pay’s a miser but back-slapping’s on tap.
In 1998, Christopher Barnes won a Northern Arts writers award. In July 2000 he read at Waterstones bookshop to promote the anthology ‘Titles Are Bitches’ and at Christmas 2001 he debuted at Newcastle’s famous Morden Tower doing a reading of his poems. Each year he reads for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and he partakes in workshops. In 2005, Christopher saw the publication of his collection LOVEBITES published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh.
Bindweed Magazine 