2020

When your bluetooth mouse dies during a
zoom call you have to turn off your
video reach your top drawer
and take out batteries
from your vibrator
that is twenty-
twenty in
a nut
shell

(From The Social Distance Project on Instagram)

Notes in My Barefoot Voice

Result, restful, mellow, autumnal.
How the asters cheer me! So old-
fashioned-looking, in the plump
white mug that’s making do
for a vase. In these
strange, uncertain
times, I sit
down to
write…

(From Notes in My Barefoot Voice, Shambhala Sun, July 2002. Submitted by Eugenia Hepworth Petty)

Richard Stallman’s rider 5

Sightseeing

A nonet

Please tell me then what unusual
music and dance forms are present;
I can tell you if I am
interested. If there is
a chance to see folk
dancing, I would
probably
enjoy
that.

(From the detailed requirements that Richard Stallman sends ahead of his speaking engagements)

Richard Stallman’s rider 1
Richard Stallman’s rider 2
Richard Stallman’s rider 3
Richard Stallman’s rider 4

Adélie

They ate blubber, cooked with blubber, had
blubber lamps. Their clothes and gear were
soaked with blubber, and the soot
blackened them, their sleeping
bags, cookers, walls and
roof, choked their throats
and inflamed
their tired
eyes.

From ‘Sexual Habits of the Adélie Penguin’, a banned pamphlet by GM Levick, scientist with the 1910-13 Scott Antarctic Expedition. Via The Guardian, 9 June 2012. ‘Tired’ added to make the nonet work. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

At rest

A nonet

At rest. After much suffering, rest.
Sadly missed. In the midst of life
we are in death. Satisfied
when I awake with thy
likeness. Wife of the
above. Not gone
from love. Thy
will be
done.

I missed a trick yesterday. Having collected all those different length sentiments from gravestones in Histon Road Cemetery, the world was my oyster in terms of (smaller) poetic forms. Instead I banged out this free verse. So here’s a nonet from the same material to make up for it. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.