Congratulations to Bindweed contributor, David Punter on his poetry collection Stranger which was published by Cinnamon Press.
David has contributed poetry to Bindweed and has been published in Issue 10. You can read his poems which were published in July 2020.
We wish you all the best with your latest book, David!
Grains of Sand
imagine
crossing the Sahara
with the Tuareg;
sleeping
under one vast canopy of stars,
consoled by constellations
that once looked down
on ancient forests
and wind worn mountains
older than these here now.
it all repeats itself-
the river beds and rocks
return to the sea,
where temporary strangers
sit like Robinson Crusoe
on loud, tractor raked beaches
in smells of salt and missed mussels
watching the waves,
thinking inside them
coming and going
like friends to be afraid of-
as nature retunes herself
ignoring our significance
becoming grains of sand.
Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. He is the editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/. A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms. He is also the editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal. https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/
Congratulations to Bindweed contributor, Stephen Mead on his recent poetry collection The Anatomical Intimacy of the Heart published in March this year.
Stephen has contributed poetry to Bindweed and has been published in Issue 2 and Issue 10. You can read his poems which were published in 2016 and 2020.
We wish you all the best with your latest book, Stephen!
The Gospel According to Mr. Eric
Where to apportion blame?
Anchored deep into a storm-tossed Atlantic Ocean, festooned by humungous oceanic garbage gyres, bent, drenched, & twisted under near permanent rain clouds, some of us (that’s we/not them) are now fully marooned; our sole succour lies in sampling whatever poxy sanctuary there remains dotted around these flood sodden isles, in order to catch our breath, & temporarily shelter from a noxious miasma emanating from arseholes all around. Initially a tasteless whisper, oft repeated, broadly recognised, & in the fullness of time vaguely accepted- it drifted, until its realisation, albeit still nebulous, appeared somehow inevitable. Quickly, a confederation of opportunists coalesced to embrace claim & media stewardship over this new false dawn, with its hybrid discontents, drawn from deep multifarious bowels of irritability. Adroitly, manoeuvring across a rudderless, floating, faux democracy, a patchy fear of dishonourable global redundancy was evoked by numerous perfidious sophists; self-pitying bilge aside, a dilution of national identity, & most alarmingly, general fears of losing personal benefit entitlements arose (just so many dependent on this bloated state)– so, soon such querulous voices, rallying behind a renaissance of sovereign power, became deafening (tellingly Blighty’s fabled lost intellect from yesteryear wasn’t recollected as having been of much value, or any great loss– only its muscular exertion of Imperialism). This reactionary notion, now epidemic, congealing ubiquitously, settled & most grossly manifest as an endemic sickness, rooted deepest beneath those heartlands, where flag-waving-buffoons happily-cheer on an undisciplined, over extended military, huge gulfs between indebted, vulnerably weak billions, & the unassailably strong (awarded anointed human forms in monarchies, hereditary, aristocratic oligarchs, home-grown VIPs, & tax avoidance emperors). These insensately patriotic, primarily English areas remain fertile ground for state-surveillance agencies seeking to increase staff membership, via gullible volunteers. Subjects of suspicion, find ourselves awkwardly ensnared, within a shrinking island culture; rampant historical revisionism, & overbearing bad-faith, affecting fellow subjects, into protracted, idiosyncratic bouts of Folie à deux, itself playing havoc with state-orchestrated, gnarled, ancestral, & ever mutating Stockholm syndrome– we ache for respite, from acute strains applied from left (if you think there’s nothing scary about tomorrows world, abandon hope now) & right (wallop, that’s for nothing son– now do something). Have we done something wrong?
Congratulations to Bindweed contributor, Yuan Changming, on the publication of his recent poetry collections: (R)e.volution and Limerence.
Yuan has contributed poetry to Bindweed and has been published in Issue 11. You can read his poems, which were published in January 2021.
We wish you all the best with your new books, Yuan!
Bindweed Magazine 