Michael Blackburn

A recording of the poets and novelists who read at The Smallest Arts Festival In The World, which took place in the house of Michael and Sylvia Blackburn (Lincoln, 1991). Performers include Jonathan Coe, John McGill, Martin Stannard, Sue Dymoke, David Belbin, Brendan Cleary, etc. Plus music specially composed by Duncan Chapman.

Some poems from The Revolution Was Not What It Seemed, available for immediate download from Amazon Kindle.

A reading of 'Kaspar is Dead' by Dadaist artist and poet Hans Arp. Translated into English by Michael Blackburn.

Sourced from a biography of the infamous Cagliostro.

Or, Anyone Can Be Rembrandt, poems 78 - 100. A poem a day from the second year.

Year Two: poems 52 - 77; a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Herewith a citizen-centred version of the New Year's speech bestowed upon our wretched selves by the Glorious Successor, Comrade Brown, rendered not less intelligible than the original by having been processed through an online cut-up engine then converted into human-sounding talky-talk via a free text-to-speech software program.

All Health and Safety procedures, regulations governing Equality, Diversity and Multidigital Intercomplexiarity; and EU Directives on Necessary Innovation and Control of Resistant Individual Creativity been complied with. The work also adheres to the voluntarily imposed guidelines required by the Dynamically Cohesive Plurally-Centred Non-Offensive Communities Unit.

But that's enough of that shit. If you think this is bad, remember the reality is worse.

A text version is available on www.scribd.com - add /michael blackburn (with the space).

Year Two; poems 26 - 51; a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

The second year commenced in March. Poems 1 - 25; a poem a day for 365 consecutive days (again).

A poem sourced from the Second World War novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (original title, Pilote de Guerre).

Poems 341 - 365 of The Days, How They Pass: a poem a day for 365 consecutive days. The final episode of the first year.

Poems 321 - 340 of The Days, How They Pass; a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Poems 301 - 320 of The Days, How They Pass; a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Poems 281 - 300 of The Days, How They Pass; a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Poems 261 - 280 of The Days, How They Pass, a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Poems 241 - 260 of The Days, How They Pass: a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Poems 221 - 240 of The Days, How They Pass; a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Poems 201 - 220 of The Days, How They Pass; a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Poems 181 - 200 of The Days, How They Pass: a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Poems 161 - 180 of The Days, How They Pass: a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Poems 141 - 160 of The Days, How They Pass: a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Poems 121 - 140 of The Days, How They Pass: a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Poems 101 - 120 of The Days, How They Pass: a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Poems 81 - 100 of The Days, How They Pass: a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Poems 61 - 80 of The Days, How They Pass: a poem a day for 365 days. The poems in each podcast are now available in pamphlet format and are available free (though some contribution to postage would be appreciated). Please contact me via Podomatic for details.

Days 41 - 60 of The Days, How They Pass; a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

Poems 21 - 40 for 'The Days, How They Pass'; a poem a day for 365 consecutive days.

The first 20 poems from 'The Days, How They Pass', an experiment in which I aim to write a poem a day for a whole year. Partly to keep me writing and partly so that I have some imaginative record of each individual day apart from a diary entry.

Revisiting some poems from the 1980s and checking them out for their relevance to today. 'Backwards Into Bedlam' was published by Joe Soap's Canoe in 1986.

I carried it/like a lost/vampire movie/all night quiet/like a shadow...

'Digital-Dichter', an affectionate (and short) homage to Stockhausen, as imagined in any Kunsthalle of the mind...

A poem from my 1992 collection, 'The Prophecy of Christos'. Governments and media behave today as if terrorism had just been invented with 9/11. Those of us who can remember the 60s, 70s and 80s know this is not the case. Terrorists of all kinds were at work all over the place - Northern Ireland, Italy, Germany, Canada, South America, the Middle East. etc. Count von Spreti was a German Ambassador in Guatemala. He was kidnapped and shot dead in 1970. Wiki entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_von_Spreti#_ref-1

Three short poems about driving: 'Returning from the Supermarket', 'Moon' and 'The Worst Car I Ever Had'.

Well I guess everyone's had one of these or has been one.

A triptych of short poems about the James Brothers (William and Henry) as they might have been in a parallel universe.

My Name Is Wyatt Earp. A short metafiction. Childhood hero becomes existential mentor.

Bee's End

A dozy, dying bee
lands on the arm of my blue shirt.
I flick it away and it falls
to the pale, warm slab at my feet.

How long has it been, bee?
Twenty days? Thirty? Perhaps not that.
Eight hundred kilometers of flight
for half a teaspoon of honey.

Work, work, work,
wearing you out.

Now you're crawling alone
with the last of your pointless pollen,
waiting for the end.

It's nearly over, but not yet.
The ants have seen you.
And here they come, those bastard ants.

Another flash fiction.

TWISTED FISH

I have a brief hallucination
of small crisp leaves lying
like pieces of dried-up skin
on riverine paving stones.

Tourists move in shoals
beneath the trees.

I reach the place of plunder and brag:
needle and memorial,
statues of twisted fish.

Westminster: I have come too far.

A copper in shirtsleeves stands
at the stern of a boat as it turns into the current.

Such is the river: choppy and brown; it slops and smacks
concrete, wood and brick,

agitated about something.

A flash fiction.