Playing Solitaire for Money

“Playing Solitaire for Money” is a collection of lyric poems, which are contemporary in form and subject. It’s roughly split into three types of poems. The first third are poems about our globalised experience – seeing us as small parts in “a colossal machine”, bit part players in the complexities of modern society. The poems take our everyday experiences and distil them into somewhat surreal, but always truthful scenarios. The middle poems in the collection are more personal – observations on modern life, or ruminations on cinema or fiction. The last few poems are more playful – stepping out into the hidden landscapes on the edge of the city, or conjuring up scenes of middle-class absurdity. Yet there is nothing mundane in these poems. A cup of coffee in a high street chain is a chance to imagine the “impossible narratives” of the “coffee girl” serving the author; getting lost in a maze becomes a question about poetry’s use of metaphor; and, in the poem from which the title line comes, a person’s internal manias become a real life “monster”, that sits on it’s own, “playing solitaire for money.” These two dozen poems are never slight, and always repay re-reading, almost metaphysical in their warping of our recognisable realities.

Six Poems Translated from the Belarusian Poet Erman Yantzcyjz

In 2002 I met a girl from Belarus and was talking to her about poetry and how it would be interesting to have a go at translating poets from other languages. Out of this casual conversation I somehow came across Erman Yanzcyjz, a Belarusian peasant poet. The girl from Belarus kindly gave me literal translations which I was then able to write these English language versions of his poems from. I had hoped to translate some more, but we lost touch, and the political situation being what it is in Belarus (she was the daughter of a member of the government, I seem to recall), it wasn’t possible to continue the experiment. Anyhow, I was reminded of these poems this weekend as Robert Sheppard and Zoe Skoulding are also translating a number of previously unknown European poets and Zoe pointed me in the direction of EUOIA where many of these are published. Though Belarus is unlikely to join the European Union any time soon, I thought it was about time I made these poems more widely available.

The Big Man of the Town

I am a small man, yes! But I have big ideas -
Like the fisherman, who asked to explain his catch -
Goes “THIS BIG”
Arms as wide as his wife’s hips. Yes!

My friend Yannick has a friend who has a sister
Who is married to the Minister of Finance
And that is good. Yes! Everything is family in this land,
And if I am an orphan – I am beginning to learn!

I have to work on this factory line
Checking the metal parts for errors
For, as my line manager always says,
“In this country we have a reputation for fairness!”

Every day at six o’clock we listen to the radio drama unfolding.
Whether the Younger Daughter of the Mayor
Will marry her penniless tinker of a lover
Or be bundled into a frigid wedding with the wrinkled old merchant.

It is fantasy they say! Well, I think not!
A man who has little else will have to dream, I think.
Even a small man like I am now
May become the big man of the town.

I live in Chicago

I live in Chicago -
It is not really called that
But it is best to be circumspect
For you never know who is reading!

So I call it Chicago
After the big American city
Where Al Capone was a number one gangster.
Not that I mean much by that!

When I leave Chicago
Part of me will alway stay -
So when in years to come my children ask me where I was born
I will always say I am a Chicago man!

The Girls Of Belarus Want to Meet English Men

I was dancing at the illegal club with a woman called Katya.
Katya liked me, for she said it was good to know poets!
But I could not afford a girl like Katya, and she did not offer pity!
You see, the girls of Belarus want to meet English men -
Or Americans or Canadians or Swiss or Germans
And there’s nothing much I can offer them in terms of my passport.
Katya is a good-sized woman and she has an education,
Which means she hopes to sign up to be an Internet bride.
Only -: She is a Hostess at present to enable her to afford the fee.
She tells me it is worth it with her tales of Western men
And how that if even they are fat and old and have no hair
Then it will not be much difficult for her to please them.
The rest of her time, Katya says, she will live in a Mansion
And have beautiful cats, and perhaps an affair of the heart
With the Gamekeeper – she has read too much, I fear, has Katya!
I do not spend my spare time looking for an English wife,
Instead I see that perhaps the foreign men are not so rich as they say they are,
And only here when beetroot red with the Vodka and dancing close to Katya -
Can they get away with saying such outrageous things!

My First Sweet Heart

Have you perhaps forgotten your first sweet heart?
I think not! She will not let go that easily!
My first love was a six year old girl.
When I was a little ahead of my year – I was five -
She took my heart and still has it I think!

We were not neighbours or I would have known her longer.
I met her at the elementary school -
In those days we had to travel some miles on the school bus
And every one of us had to greet the driver in Russian.
But love has always spoken many tongues!

I was what the other kids called a “swotty gob” -
But if I was so clever, I did not hear that!
I got put up a class as punishment for my mouth
And sat at the front of the room not moving a centimetre,
Until the Mistress asked what she had said.

My sweet heart it was who piped up first
“He wasn’t even listening, so how can he know,
He is drawing pictures of rabbits in his book!”
They were Helicopters actually but I was never a draughtsman -
The teacher came over and rapped my knuckles with her rule.

You can perhaps imagine how crimson I went -
I did not know a person there and now they all knew me!
But I must have glanced sideways and seen who had betrayed me
And that was when she became my sweet heart.
How had I not noticed her before? She would be there ever after.

My sweet heart was there at my school for only two months.
The Soviet army had new instructions
And her father was connected to them in some way -
Though I like to think he was a Propagandist not a soldier -
And when he got moved, his family went with him.

But she had accomplished what she had set out to do
Which was to make some friends in the quickest time!
We must have spent that two months in each others pockets.
I still have her fluff there I’m sure!
And when she left – that was when I became a poet!

The Reindeer

The reindeer approaching the house was most unusual -
Although we were on the edge of the town,
They usually stayed hidden from us covered by the thick woods all around.

And this one was a baby with its antlers like felt.
The reindeer made a braying noise like a sore child might.
I watched from the window and mentioned it to my wife.

She has never been a woman with a love of superstition -
After all I am a poet! – I needed to marry a practical woman!
But I saw the vein in her neck swell just like when her grandmother had died.

The reindeer was not taking any notice of the conversation between us
And seemed more interested in searching our outhouse for food.
My wife however was behaving most unlike her!

I asked her what was wrong – and she told me the old story.
How, when a reindeer at the house comes calling it is to take someone away.
It was only then that she told me that she was heavy with my child.

The Good Soil

The good soil! I can feel it between my fingers.
From this fertile ground come all the food I can eat.
When times are good it is enough to praise this soil!
There is plenty for me and my family all year.

The woman I love is from a poor family,
But I have a hope that we will be all right!
For she has a sexy waist – and is very wide!
Which makes me think that neither of us will go hungry.

If only I had a good job, like my cousins, who are mechanics.
Whilst I work long hours on the factory line.
It gives me ample time to dream
But it does not pay me enough to support a wife!

She is not an intellectual woman,
But that is because she has been stuck to the farm
As the only child what choice had she?
And her parents look at me with suspicion!

I tell them that one day I will be a man of substance
But it is not money that worries them but fat!
I am a skinny milksop breed of man -
If I was a Bull, they would not put in a bid!

I killed a wild pig to prove my worth too them.
But her father was not at all convinced.
It almost cost me a leg full of shot -
But I got their agreement by making her pregnant!

Top Hits of 2012 by Bonbon Experiment

A new CD of my musical recordings is now available to download or to stream via my music website.

TOP HITS OF 2012 is the 4th CD under the Bonbon Experiment name since 2007 – and includes the best 12 tracks from my monthly cassette single project in 2012, where to celebrate 30 years of making music, I recorded a cassette single/E.P. every month.

As well as available online a handmade single CD and 3-CD Deluxe Edition (inc. all 47 tracks recorded during 2012) are available to buy. Please contact adrian.slatcher@gmail.com

Track Listing:

What You Were in My Eyes
For All These Days
Before I was a Spy
Icarus
October
Anybody
Kingfisher
Chevalier
Clap Your Hands!
I Want My Woman Tonight
Pale Girls in Suntops
Can You Stay for One Last Dance?

(c) 2013 words and music by Adrian Slatcher. BDM Recordings BDM125

Top Hits of 2012

Beauty

I’m pleased to say that the new issue of The Rialto features my 4th appearance in the magazine – a poem called “Beauty”. Quite a lot of NW poets in there – think you can probably find a copy at the Cornerhouse.

Here’s me reading “Beauty” earlier in the year.

“Her Jazz” for Pussy Riot

I recently wrote a poem to show support for the Russian artists Pussy Riot. Russian translation is by Cat Paronjan.

You can buy the eBook “Catechism: Poems for Pussy Riot” or a beautiful print-on-demand version. 

I read this poem at a Manchester Poems for Pussy Riot reading. It’s at the end of the reading, (about 11 minutes).

 ”Her Jazz” for Pussy Riot

Sonic temples blasting out sound’s whiplash
across time and space; up close to the speaker stacks
at Manchester Boardwalk in, when was it, ‘93?
Listening to Huggy Bear play ‘Her Jazz,’
like a slow fuse burning across land and ocean,
bouncing off the satellites –
into a different consciousness, where the worst
a girl can do is pick up a guitar, put on a hood
and thrash our her version of her jazz –
under the unguarded eye of Mother Russia,
for music has the right to have children
and there they are, Riot Grrl prodigy,
rebels without a pause, waking up this morning
in a jailhouse-rocksteady-all-my-colours-
wop-bop-a-lu-bop-white-riot-kick-out-the-jams-
verse-chorus-verse                               silence
silence, but the noise outside is deafening.

Её джаз для Пусси Райoт

Храмы звука хлещут отголосками
по времени – пространству, прямо у колонок,
на улицах Манчестера, году, – когда же это было? – где-то в 93-м?
слушая, как Хагги Беар играл “Её джаз”.
Как медленно-горящий фитиль по суше и по морю тянется
и запускает спутники с земли
в сознание совсем другого рода, где в худшем случае,
девчoнка, нахлабучив капюшон, возмет гитару в руки
и выбьет из неё свою интерпретацию “Её джаза”,
под тем беспечным взором Матушки-России;
ведь музыке разрешено потомство,
и вот, они, талантливые дети Рaйот Гррл,
бунтари без передышки, сегодня просыпающиеся
под тюремным-рокстеди-все-цвета-мои-уоп-боп-а-лу-боп-белый-бунт-выкинь-коленца
куплет-припев-куплет                          тишина
тишина, а снаружи-то шум оглушительный.

Word > Play (Didsbury Arts Festival)

Hacienda Classics

Today is 30 years since the Hacienda night club opened its doors on Whitworth Street in Manchester. I was 15 at the time so probably first heard of it through the NME, or reading about bands like Cabaret Voltaire playing there. It was probably not until 1986 that I went to see the awesome Age of Chance and I caught it a few times whenever I came to Manchester – though I most a regular after its heyday. Saw the album launch of Definitely Maybe by Oasis. Obviously, the club closed its doors in the late 90s and is now apartments. A party is taking place in the underground car park this evening.  Anyway I wrote this poem years ago, and though I’m sure not all of these songs were played there, I think its a nice tribute to that whole decade of exciting house music that began around 1986.

Hacienda Classics

Jack Your Body, No Way Back,
House Nation, Jack The Groove,

Beat Dis! Rok Da House,
Put The Needle On The Record,

Pump Up The Volume,
You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone,

Let’s Get Brutal! Let It Roll,
Tired Of Getting Pushed Around,

We Call It Acieed! Big Fun,
Touch Me, Ride On Time,

Sure Beats Workin’, Wait!
Respect, Finally, Promised Land,

I’m Talking With Myself,
Justified & Ancient,

An Ever Growing Globe
That Rules The Ultraverse,

French Kiss, Tricky Disco,
Charly Says….Pong!

I Got The Power,
You Got The Love,

Open up! Out Of Space,
Waterfall, Get up!

(Before The Night Is Over)
Things Can Only Get Better,

Satan, Firestarter,
Leave Home, Son Of A Gun,

Feel The Sunshine!

Sonnet

Sonnet

The sound of your voice and the sight of your departing,
The nape of your neck, and the way your hair falls -
Did I not make clear how much I admired you?
Without history of such, how might we be starting
Out on a journey without being mistaken.
For you’ve already passed by so many places
Without me present, so how might I compare
As a guide to that journey you’ve already taken?

The whispering nothings, the sound of your breathing,
And is it only lovers who notice these changes?
For though others may stay in my life for longer,
My heart only thumps when I know you are leaving.
If I once took for granted I now know what’s missing,
The space in the room, cold air I am kissing.

I wrote this a few years ago, as part of a sequence, but it was the only sonnet, and I found it again recently, and realised I quite liked it. So, as it’s Valentine’s Day this week, and the Guardian’s asking writers for their favourite love poems, here’s one I wrote earlier. Its not been published anywhere.

New Story on Fleeting Magazine

I’m pleased to say that I’ve got a new short story online at the lovely Fleeting Magazine, home of much that is short and good. The story is a little confection called Footnotes in Search of a Story.

My Life According to the Albums of David Bowie 1968-1983(A story for National Short Story Day)

Its the shortest day, which means its National Short Story Day, and here’s one I wrote a few years ago, which maps the characters life against the albums of David Bowie, I hope you enjoy.

1. The World of David Bowie (Collected early recordings) (1968)

My name is David Jones. I read the Daily Express because my father has had it delivered since before the beginning of time and reading between the lines of all the stuff that he reads, I can tell there’s a revolution going on. My father mutters about Hippies the way he used to about Socialists. I can see the pictures and if I balance my portable radio at a certain angle I can catch Radio Luxembourg which is still better than Radio One, though I like John Peel’s Perfumed Garden, and hear the songs that make here, where I live, seem another planet. I have to get out. My mother makes us all eat dinner at the same time every night. There is nowhere to go. My father wants to set me up with an apprenticeship. He thinks I might make a passable draughtsman if I “get a proper haircut” and stop drawing from “that dangerous imagination of yours.” Something makes me want to go and study an art foundation course in Birmingham but I might as well ask to be put forward for the next Apollo mission. My father and I have one bridge between us: for an hour a week we are sat down watching “Civilisation” together. Neither of us say a word, but Kenneth Clarke is as close as we have to a mutual friend. But this isn’t civilisation; this is the suburbs.

2. Space Oddity (1969)

There’s a man on the moon and I’m watching it happen over egg and chips. My egg is the sun, the chips are the stars, a piece of white bread is the Apollo mission pod and this dollop of ketchup means Blast! something has gone terribly wrong and Buzz and Neil and the rest are all turned technicolor. On the television though everything is going to plan. “They’re probably filming it on a movie set in Hollywood,” my father grumpily suggests. I keep schtum. Until it’s in the Daily Express he won’t believe a word of it, certainly not something he’s seen on the Gogglebox. My mother is saying “stop playing with your food,” and “tug your tie in to your shirt if you want to keep it out of the egg.” She likes it now I’m at work. There’s a whole new list of rules and regulations that she can insist that I follow. The kitchen door doesn’t do much to hold out the smell and the sweat and the steam of the cooking; and I can almost taste the sickly smell of boiled over milk. My mother is looking at my hands. “What?” I say. “You can go wash them,” she says, “I’m not having you at the table looking like that.” I expect to see them covered in blood, but no, its the inky imprint of a day lurched over the draughtboard. Each step up the stairs to the bathroom makes Neil Armstrong’s small step seem small and insignificant. I wonder. Is this it? Is. This. It.