Five Poems by Christopher Barnes

 

COMPLAINTS

(after Riot Days by Maria Alyokhina, Pussy Riot)

 

Parting shot at heavenly cutbacks.

Dust-rolled on video.

Grimace over human rights checkers.

Morose, tight-lipped screws.

Isolation penance,

A breather - entrail-filched mattress.

 

Applaud our one-night extravaganza. 

 

MORNING'S A SNARED WITCHING HOUR

(after Riot Days by Maria Alyokina, Pussy Riot)

 

Planks batten grilles.

Cesspit throne.

Shortwave mumbles voting booth reports.

Peeping Tom wardens overbear;

I challenge bricks.

My soliloquy echoes.

 

 

SENDOFF TO RAGGED EDGE

(after Riot Days by Maria Alyokina, Pussy Riot)

 

Tresses a hash.

Unpitying edifice, jaundiced bricks.

Tottering's a gambit.

Orange madder lift from byway lustre.

The district court roared with frenzy.

Our travelling circus rests.

 

 

BELOW THE MARK OF LUSTERLESS DAYLIGHT

(after Riot Days by Maria Alyokina, Pussy Riot)

 

Barred quarrystone ledge.

'Here's your impositions'.

Rebuff goads brouhaha.

Starvation, frozen-hell migraine.

Toddler endures birthday

Lacking his Mama.

Adamant key

Tightens cell door.

But I'm top of the bill.

 

EARTHSHAKE

(after Riot Days by Maria Alyokhina, Pussy Riot)

 

Mortal discretions are brinkmanship.

Clam up.

SIMs voided in washroom,

Rite-of-passage arrests.

Don't stage-fright.

 

Buy our fetishes

In the intermission.

 

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'.  Christmas 2001 he debuted at Newcastle's famous Morden Tower doing a reading of poems.  Each year he read for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and partook in workshops.  2005 saw the publication of his collection LOVEBITES published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh.

On Saturday 16Th August 2003 he read at the Edinburgh Festival as a Per Verse.

Christmas 2001 The Northern Cultural Skills Partnership sponsored him to be mentored by Andy Croft in conjunction with New Writing North.  He made a radio programme for Web FM community radio about his writing group.  October-November 2005, he entered a poem/visual image into the art exhibition The Art Cafe Project, his piece Post-Mark was shown in Betty's Newcastle.  This event was sponsored by Pride On The Tyne.  He made a digital film with artists Kate Sweeney and Julie Ballands at a film making workshop called Out Of The Picture which was shown at the festival party for Proudwords, it contains his poem The Old Heave-Ho.  He worked on a collaborative art and literature project called How Gay Are Your Genes, facilitated by Lisa Mathews (poet) which exhibited at The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University, including a film piece by the artist Predrag Pajdic in which he read his poem On Brenkley St.  The event was funded by The Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute, Bio-science Centre at Newcastle's Centre for Life.  He was involved in the Five Arts Cities poetry postcard event which exhibited at The Seven Stories children's literature building.  In May he had 2006 a solo art/poetry exhibition at The People's Theatre.