the red ceilings

Submissions

2012-02-13T12:25:00.001Z

Due to a lengthy backlog of work that needs to be read the Red Ceilings is temporarily closed to new submissions. Sorry.

maintenant - camarade project ii

2012-01-27T11:01:00.002Z

Rimbaud Redux ~ Helen Vitoria

2012-01-26T15:59:00.002Z

New free ebook available

Rimbaud Redux by Helen Vitoria

For this and our full catalogue of free eBooks and limited edition chapbooks visit the Red Ceilings Press website

A SOFT THAT TOUCHES DOWN &REMOVES ITSELF ~ David Tomaloff

2012-01-11T23:10:00.001Z

New Chapbook out now
A SOFT THAT TOUCHES DOWN &REMOVES ITSELF
by David Tomaloff
[rcp cb16] A6 32pp 4o copies

Available on the Red Ceilings Press site with a whole lot more.....

List of This Week's Activities ~ Maurice Oliver

2012-01-09T20:16:00.000Z

Sunday:

Buffalo my hurry-up wings gardening imperceptible earth sky

back in the breast plate of ingredients to create the concoction.

Monday:

Buy a rain statue of Farmer Brown's henhouse after supper whack

warm bee's wax nonagenarian bizarre pink net may be four miles away.

Tuesday:

Telephone my underground aquifer in Walla Walla and leave a message

that says "Psychotherapy is the label printed inside cotton briefs."

Wednesday:

Show my version of Mount Rushmore to my boss at work and then

quaky severance pay pink slip the hollowed bones a nut does it.

Thursday:

Send an email to the looking glass porter in which you casually mention

your love of linoleum floors in a hammock, swaying in a tropical breeze.

Friday:

Invite the gum wrapper over for Labrador pasta of bullets on a merry-go

round with a custom-made noose for desert. Then rear-end the accordion.

Saturday:

Clean out the entire Texas panhandle of Bible belt tarmacs using a

hand-held chorus of hallelujahs blinking their turn signals.

It's a Long Story, Part 12 ~ Maurice Oliver

2012-01-09T20:14:00.000Z

I have to decide between a haircut or keeping my
doctor's appointment. So I decide there's
no way I could be the child of my parents. Neither am
I a sore scab or hair that falls out in
patches. I feel too energetic, like a brand new dance
sensation just in time Easter break.
Snakes don't lie either. They just sort of crawl to their
next pry and never use the handrails.
Fish are the first to return. I started when I was four,
the alewives making tiny bubbles that
raise to the water's surface. On the eight day it rains.
A Calvary lines up along a mound
on the prairie. Indians, on the other hand, make good tap dancers and a
few times you just
have to rent a U-Haul. I didn't learn much in college but
I did have fun. It smelled like black
pepper and glowed in the dark. My favorite course was
tumbleweed. Milk jugs were a close
second. Puritans lived inside my gym locker and would
beg for a few crumbs of food every time
I unlocked the door. Some would crawl out the passenger window. But it
was the deer you had
to worry about, especially at night. Once I found a carving knife in
the taxidermist. I whipped
out my cell phone and called 911 before it could porcelain embers and
saved the day. I've always
been pretty modest too. My grimace is chili to boot, driven overload to
the nearest bird's nest.
What else? Oh, my childhood story slams the door, then locks the yawn
in jam from blueberries.

Maurice's poetry has appeared in numerous national and international publications
and literary websites including Potomac Journal, Pebble Lake Review,
Frigg Magazine, Dandelion Magazine, (Canada), Stride Magazine (UK),
Cha Asian Literary Journal, (Hong Kong), Kritya (India), Blueprint Review,
(Germany) and Arabesques Review (Algeria). His fourth chapbook was One
Remedy Is Travel (Origami Condom, 2007). He edits the literary ezine
Eye Socket Journal at: http://eyesocketjournal.blogspot.com . He lives
in Portland, OR, where he works as a private tutor.

Stille Nacht ~ Sir Simon Howard

2011-12-18T00:26:00.000Z

So we hustled a creature into a car slamming doors the storm and the cold etc. And drove through black night and glimmersilk day etc. Then we ordered a creature out into that strange calm with flakes of snow falling in our heads. And we felt so heavy and weightless. And there was this smell of chips and she puked up her guts. And for several days we were asleep or dreaming of sleep and my eyes had turned to glass and my feet to seaweed. So we fucking uselessness of art aesthetic theory above vulgar objects of use scraggy neck lips like medicine. And he lay face down on the earth howling for the sheer hurt of hurt and gulped booze and puked up his guts and even puke and shit and piss are recuperable as art loveable as materials of pornography. Then we lifted our exhausted heads from the ground and looked up into the vast blank of a night sky and stormy clouds and here and there stars ripped from the cloth. And we went into a small shop and bought some Christmas cards and for several days smelling of chips the day black as her pale throat in love making her lips thin and. Slamming doors the storm and the cold. And we walked out into the middle of the field and begged them to shoot us to put fucking bullets through our fucking heads. And we drank supermarket vodka on the train out of there etc. and some cunt looked at us and we said we’ll fucking throw you out of the train and night came along the tracks silkglimmering and so beautiful it made us pray. And for several days we were like in a dream only we had nothing to eat and our guts ached and she crossed the bridge to the other platform and the train pulled in and the train looked so small from where we were hanging from the rafters. And there was this old fellow collected the cards of prostitutes from London telephone boxes 16 years ago and he would walk out into the early winter mornings sockless in his shoes and read the messages out loud and we gulped booze and crouched in underground stations and listened to the echoes smelling of chips and the pure wordless snow.

   So we hustled a creature into a car slamming doors the cold and the storm etc. And drove through a blue night and a dull day etc. Then we helped a creature out into that strange calm with flakes of snow falling into our hands. And we felt so happy and weightless. And there was this smell of chips and I puked up my guts. And for several days we were asleep or dreaming of eyes turned to glass and feet to seaweed. Above vulgar objects of use lips like metal. And he lay face down on the earth howling for the sheer hurt of hurt and gulped puke and shit and piss recuperable as art loveable as materials of prayer. Then we lifted our exhausted heads and looked up into stormy clouds and here and there stars ripped from the cloth. And we went into a small shop and bought some Christmas cards and for several days smelling of chips her pale throat in love making her lips thin and chewed. Slamming doors the cold and the storm. And we walked out into the middle of a field and begged them to shoot us to put bullets through our heads. And we drank supermarket vodka on the train out of there etc. and smiled at us and said we’ll fucking throw you out of the train and night came along the tracks silkglimmering and so beautiful it made us nothing. And for several days we were like in a dream we had nothing to eat and she crossed the bridge to the other platform and the train pulled out and the train looked so small from where we were hanging from the rafters. And there was this fellow collected the cards of prostitutes from London telephone boxes 16 years ago and he would walk out into winter mornings sockless and read the messages to himself and we gulped booze and crouched in underground stations and listened to the echoes smelling of chips and the pure worldless snow.

~

And etc. And looked into the heavens where we were nowhere seen our eyes stiff with ice. And he threw up on the bed and sleep the afternoon viciously cold and the cold radiator up against his throat and so on etc. And there was this smell of chips and this fellow collecting the cards of prostitutes from Then we lifted our exhausted heads from the ground and looked into the vast blank of a dayless sky and stormy clouds and here and there stars ripped from the cloth telephone boxes years ago and she curled herself along the bench and put her fingers to her mouth and began to pray. Der gestirnte Himmel über mir und das moralische Gesetz in mir. And we looked along the dirty looking field the hut with its ribs beaten in and its guts spilled out we fucking said the snow is fucking jet black and commuters frantically gulping pills are you a symphony orchestra or stepmother / son porn? Crepitus. And the lovers all lived and worked in an eel factory only allowed out by dark to buy darkness with its wildernesses and information plenitudes. No. Pathos. Number. Umbrella. Coordinate. And he pissed the bed in A&E the gleameringed snail on long string of fire and sublimity. sockless and read And the bizarre like all the limbs were interchangeable and leant out the window a few early passersby their countenances the countenances of angels and dreamily. Slamming doors the cold and the And she slammed the window down on her fingers and laughed and they kept looking at us and left-wing politics when all desire is desire of desire and he sliced the tips of his fingers to escape detection. And two of them walked hand in hand the length of the field and across a ditch and the great sun rolling along a path a few yards away from them and the moon with the shakes behind a chimney and a and bought.

There was this fellow he never seemed to be without a friend and they walked all day from street to street till they were out in open country and one of them made pictures and they would stop at houses and shops and go into pubs and try to sell these pictures and not often they sold a picture pictures of everyday objects like children or trees or a robin on a garden fork and at night they would simply die and the next day they would be alive again and then the situation was reversed. For there is nothing that cannot be recuperated, be it a situation or an art that concerns itself with piss shit snot puke with broken bodies dislocated shoulders things abandoned rank food etc. And one night it was snowing and the fellow and his friend walked an empty field mysterious messages in footprints and one of them the fellow who made pictures stopped to wipe the snow from his lips and then his friend was gone and he was alone. And there was a smell of chips and she puked her guts up the underground and other passengers looked at her and she said you want me dead and they said we all desire death like desire desires us and that was recuperated and night night night etc. So with his friend gone he took out the picture he had made and looked into it as snow fell on it and he wished that he could be alone now that his friend who was never without him was gone and it got lighter and was day hard and brilliant and we walked out into the middle of the field and begged them to shoot us to put fucking bullets through our fucking heads. And he wrapped the picture he had made and left us there and it was so quiet it was as though there was that except for the traffic on the road at the field’s edge. Etc. That’s what they were hoping for. There’s no symbolic order against the symbolic order of order, ordure or no ordure. He said I used to love to dance. He said I wish I had a warmer coat. He said it’s gloomy in here we should put the light on. They said did you make this picture? And hit him and kicked him etc. And she hadn’t eaten for several days and it was warmer then and raining.

Simon can be found at walkingintheceiling

Rules of Disengagement ~ Austin McCarron

2011-12-15T19:51:00.005Z

Harness the energy in pools

of heated water but do not

release

the flame until silence burns.

Greet the world with your back

turned and know it is

filled with companions of stone.

Outcasts the soul of blood is full

of riots and dissent

and the spirit of

perfection is a light that wounds.

Beware the high minded and

deformed who gather in doorways

like homeless beings

on the edge of a sudden crowd.

Austin is from New Zealand but has lived in London for many years. Poems appeared in various magazines such as Great Works, Decanto, Neon Highway, Survivors' Poetry, Message in a Bottle, Moodswing, Van Gogh's Ear and others

The Hunger of Starvation ~ Austin McCarron

2011-12-15T19:48:00.003Z

The food is not well.

Huddled around wooden

flames it eats hardly at all.

Its skin is like stripes of water.

The fiery wind twists its bones.

At its table scraps of dust with

light blue veins. All its

conversation is with animals.

Stuck in its mouth tremors

of dry vomit,

the gnawing

sensation of eternal dissent.

Around my Winter ~ Austin McCarron

2011-12-15T19:47:00.000Z

Around my winter more

strict elations

and shorter versions of rain.

On my face life is printed and

it seems only the eye bled by

tyrannical races is not alone.

There is light but it is like a

photograph of noise

and sees darker sounds arriving.

Before a tower of blinds I watch

inexplicable figures write on my

calendar words to be forgotten.

Minimum Security Prison Dentistry ~ S J Fowler

2011-12-11T01:52:00.001Z

Mr S J Fowler's latest from the wonderful anything anymore anywhere. Go get it!

"Imagine a Boys Own Paper landscape with True Crime architecture. Laurence Harvey dodges from building to country trying toevade CCTV whose sound footage runs through Babelfish. The smells areJack London, the light is Genet and the memories are Edgar Lee Masters. Equally in words is Steven Johannes Fowler's MinimumSecurity Prison Dentistry: elegant, coldly funny, at times emotional, textured with occasionalaccidental/intentional solecisms; but getting the work done. Nowadaysmost pages labelled "poetry" are unreadable and uninteresting: thesegive hope. Anyone who can name-check Joe Arpaio and Jacky le Mat, and referencethe cover-texture of an Anselm Hollo book from the sixties rides my particularrange." Tom Raworth

where he grew

2011-12-11T01:43:00.001Z

I sicked up ~ Bobby Parker

2011-12-11T00:15:00.001Z

I sicked up a bit on the way you say 'beautiful'. We agreed to swap stories in the garden. Midnight moon kind of Miles Davis choking on cheap vanilla ice cream. My story was about a man who wakes up one morning to find that his hands have turned into a bickering old couple. They argue about cigarettes and wine, a whore from 1949. Yours was about a man who sicked up a bit on the way his girlfriend said 'beautiful', and so she suffocated him in his sleep using a dressing gown once owned by Elvis Presley.

The Outline Concepts Take Before We are Given Their Examples ~ Charles Freeland

2011-12-08T20:08:00.001Z

Eulalie knows where the sky is vulnerable. She paces about the rectory. Three bald-headed men confront me in the garden, and I am reminded of the Iliad. They recite their prayers with the tips of their tongues forever in contact with the roofs of their mouths. As if they have been coached. Eulalie dabs at my elbow with a piece of cotton that looks, in the dim light of the universe, like the outline concepts take before we are given their examples. Everywhere the mountain groans. It’s as if we were expecting souvenirs, says Eulalie, her patience worn to a point that glints. And what we got was ordinary apples.

On Self-Strangling Semiotics ~ Charles Freeland

2011-12-08T20:05:00.001Z

I have been doing nothing but practice my whole life. And still, I have yet to move beyond the point of origin, of drawing up and reflecting in my head. The whole world has yet to get started. It has yet to step forward even a millimeter. But you – just look at the ease with which you tear at that bunny! The dead glossy gaze you give with your enormous eyes! It’s like you are made of the very substance that is the opposite of doubt -- whatever that might be. As if you had been born fully-formed. And of adult stature. Otherwise, you’d be left wondering why you have to keep sloughing off skin cells at such an alarming rate. Why you feel the obsessive need to study all those old novels.

Charles Freeland is Professor of English at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio. Twice the recipient of the Individual Excellence Award in Poetry from the Ohio Arts Council, he is the author of a dozen books and chapbooks including Eucalyptus (Otoliths), Eros & (Fill in the Blank) (BlazeVox), and Five Perfect Solids (White Knuckle Press). His website is The Fossil Record (charlesfreelandpoetry.net).

poem ~ James McLaughlin

2011-12-07T23:03:00.001Z

- as riverbank slipping

colour fest to cone line

how outline

- peel if irregular

as characteristic

and establish red

cool does

the sudden with flower

and contagion

- if fly rite and asking

go something

as played frond

on the widen

wire stem blue

- it afterwards

now falling if on

and transitive by

a verb wide

or noun tip

- so generate force

in this way were

sleeves of this warm

- stretched hue

woke tone

yawned lay

go particular continue

of time

budget

- collectively violation

physical spire

on green

resplendent condition

other than novel

- environment or type

intrinsic of some

pink to

disposition for reed

scent as appearance

place or the

- portrait on aspect

the grace versus

Locked in, or out? ~ Patrick Williamson

2011-11-23T16:07:00.001Z

Locked in, or out? by Patrick Williamson

brand new limited edition chapbook out now..

To buy this and browse our other chapbooks and free eBooks visit the Red Ceilings Press

Dick Erasures ~ Laura Wetherington

2011-11-12T20:59:00.001Z

The lovely Laura Wetherington adds her fab eBook to the Red Ceilings Press stable with Dick Erasures.

To see this and our complete list of limited edition chapbooks and free eBooks visit the Red Ceilings Press website

Slip ~ James Mclaughlin

2011-11-07T15:39:00.000Z

New limited edition chapbook available..

Slip by James McLaughlin

Visit the Red Ceilings Press website to see this and our complete list of free eBooks and limited edition chapbooks.

Minimum Security Prison Poetry

2011-10-25T22:44:00.002+01:00

This looks good...and lot's of Red Ceilings people...

Wednesday 23 November

and free!

A Kind of Awe ~ Joshua Jones

2011-10-25T19:27:00.001+01:00

A Kind of Awe by Joshua Jones

New limited edition chapbook out now (£3.50 inc p&p UK) from the Red Ceilings Press website.

Visit us for our full catalogue of limited edition chapbooks and free eBooks...

bar

2011-10-14T23:56:00.002+01:00

New release ~ Maintenant: the Camarade project

2011-10-07T12:15:00.000+01:00

Delighted to announce the latest limited edition chapbook from The Red Ceilings Press...Maintenant: the Camarade project featuring Tom Jenks & Chris McCabe; Patrick Coyle & Holly Pester; Sam Riviere & Jack Underwood; Sandeep Parmar & James Byrne; James Wilkes & Ghazal Mosadeq; Emily Critchley & Tamarin Norwood; Sean Bonney & Jeff Hilson; Marcus Slease & Tim Atkins. With an introduction by Steven Fowler. £5 inc P&P (UK)

Visit the Red Ceilings Press website to order and view our full catalogue of chapbooks and free ebooks

roadside savants ~ David e Haase

2011-09-23T13:38:00.000+01:00

New free eBook out now...roadside savants by David e Haase. Visit the red ceilings press for our full catalogue of chapbooks and free eBooks

Notes for Fatty Cakes ~ Andrew Spragg

2011-09-22T23:09:00.000+01:00

“DING-HEY”

Unprompted, she exclaims, &
again: “DING-HY”
The oars suck at water

& clonk
in their
rollocks.'

The follow-up to Andrew Spragg's sell-out debut The Fleetingest (Red Ceilings Press, 2011), Notes For Fatty Cakes is uproarious and mannered, with tenderness by the shimmering and deliciously shifty bucketload. Anything anymore anywhere

Between Soundings presents
Notes for Fatty Cakes
8th October 2011, 8pm

Poetry Cafe, 22 Betterton St., Covent Garden
London WC2H 9BX
£3

To mark the release of Andrew Spragg's Notes for Fatty Cakes (published by Anything Anymore Anywhere) Between Soundings has prepared a performance of the text with sound from Julie Groves and Matt Cockshutt. Utilising ambient recordings and live performance, the music has been composed as a specific soundscape response for the occasion.

Praise for the book:

'Notes for Fatty Cakes flickers through the landscape of demotic, roun
ding up the tribes of lenses language uses from plank to Planck: a mini-epic journey in the running heads below which letters, reportage and refrain record as I eyes an other."Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Genre-kebabs on a skewer of wit.'
Tom Raworth

sneeze poems ~ David Tomaloff

2011-09-16T23:29:00.000+01:00

BRITTLE

on the ten
, Lincoln
to Riverside

like some unused
breath still lodged
within my skull

GHOST PARTY

on the ten
, Lincoln
to Riverside

a white
, unused breath
like an invitation

the rugged
silence
of strangers

giving way
to speaking
in tongues

GESUNDHEIT

the brewing of
a natural disaster

an igloo
a sore penny

a smash &grab lurch
for a little piece of life

the devil has been sleeping
; dust exchanged for dust

WORK ~ Nikolai Duffy

2011-09-14T13:58:00.000+01:00

I want to be over there but I’m not because I’m here because this is where they pay me to be and we have to pay the mortgage and at lunch I eat sandwiches in the office with the door closed and carry on with what I was doing so I can leave a little early maybe if the day’s been good to me and is this really what it means for a day to be good I don’t know but when people ask me what I do I tell them that I am often here and I tell them what being here involves and I don’t normally mention that I’d rather be over there with you because they might take it the wrong way it depends on the person and the time here goes along and I could always stay longer but longer would never be long enough so when it’s gone dark I put on my coat and walk my day backwards and most of the time I don’t think of myself as this and often just go through the motions even though this is what I thought I wanted to do and I guess I’m lucky because now I’m doing what I wanted to do and not many people can say that about what they do but I’d like to be doing other things too and much of the time I think I’d rather be doing those other things than these things although if really pushed I think I’d probably just rather be at home with you can someone pay off the mortgage please and thank you

THE TALKING CURE ~ Nikolai Duffy

2011-09-14T13:57:00.001+01:00

and he said I don’t even think it’s you anymore he said talking to her who wasn’t there anymore but who was there all the same, less and less now, but there nonetheless, the way a person can inhabit you without your realising or asking but more importantly, without their asking or wanting to be there, wriggling to get out because you can do this to a person, put a person inside you and not let them out even though you shouldn’t because people are people and you have to respect that and even when they’re inside you they’re also outside and so it’s only a fragment you have which isn’t what you wanted even if you think something is better than nothing but then outside they’re not the person you thought because you have taken a piece of them and changed it and them and you realise you can’t win even though deep down if you gave yourself a minute a second even you’d realise it’s not about winning and so you want to turn around and say you’re sorry and let’s start over but can’t and won’t because what if nothing is offered and this is a thought you can’t entertain even as you say I don’t even think it’s you anymore

DYING IN THE NIGHT-TIME ~ Nikolai Duffy

2011-09-14T13:57:00.000+01:00

Outside the window cars go by in the night. They are loud and have wheels that go round on the road surface which make a noise too that doesn’t remind me of much apart from the fact that I cannot sleep because the noise the cars and the road make is loud and it is their noise that keeps me awake, although it was a dream of dying which woke me in the first place because after I had died in my dream I woke myself up because I wanted to check I was still breathing which I was which I found comforting until I began to hear the intermittent noise of the cars on the road outside the window which is now keeping me awake and although I am happy because I am alive I would also like to go back to sleep because otherwise I won’t feel so bright in the morning and will complain about the noise of the cars on the road in the night-time and not that I died in my dream which should perhaps bother me more than it will.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY ~ Nikolai Duffy

2011-09-14T13:56:00.002+01:00

I wanted to write it all down but I see now that I haven’t.

FRAYED SKIN, A TASTING

2011-09-08T23:07:00.000+01:00

A review of J. Bradley’s “A Patchwork of Rooms Furnished by Mistakes” by David Tomaloff

Most of J. Bradley’s work seems to have in common at least one important and endearing characteristic: J. Bradley can blow your limbs off with sentence-shaped grenades and manage to leave you laughing about it. You will hear yourself say, “But wait, J. Bradley, I think you missed one.” You will gladly hold the last of your precious appendages out toward his mouth, pleading him to finish the job. You will fail to remember the last time you enjoyed bleeding this much. You will wince as the shrapnel penetrates your skin. You will smile.

J. Bradley’s chapbook, A Patchwork of Rooms Furnished by Mistakes (Deckfight Press, 2011), achieves nothing short of this effect. Within the treads of his nine-poem hit-and-run, Bradley fends off emotards, expresses his want for the scoliosis of Greyhound buses, repairs his dresser’s lockjaw with the dentistry of wedding invitations, and threatens to ruin your geometry without showing his work. The latter should not suggest, however, that his work does not show. Between humorous juxtaposition and brilliant, mind-bending surrealism, Bradley’s words manage to eloquently embody the vast human landscapes of regret, anxiety, yearning, and colossal expectation with disarming sincerity:

I will eventually earn
our names on voice mail
greetings and address labels.
I will not lose your laughter
like spare change this time.
(Frequency)

and:

I’ll build a bridge to you
out of my mistakes. For once,
I hope I made enough of them.
(To The Rebel Who Stopped Rebelling Against Urban Planning)

You will note you are at once ashamed and relieved to be human. You will hear in your heart the words, “Damn you, J. Bradley,” followed by some random, hollow threat. You will hear your mouth say instead, “Thank you, J. Bradley” and “may I have another?” He may offer gauze and sutures. You will blissfully resist.

Relevant links:
J. Bradley: (http://iheartfailure.net)
Deckfight Press: (http://deckfightpress.tumblr.com)
A Patchwork of Rooms Furnished by Mistakes:
(http://deckfightpress.tumblr.com/post/5626351139/patchworkofrooms)

David Tomaloff (b. 1972) is a writer, photographer, musician, and all around bad influence. His work has appeared in fine publications such as Mud Luscious, >kill author, Thunderclap!, HOUSEFIRE, Prick of the Spindle, DOGZPLOT, elimae, and many more. He is the author of the chapbooks, A SOFT THAT TOUCHES DOWN &REMOVES ITSELF (NAP) Olifaunt (The Red Ceilings Press), EXIT STRATEGIES (Gold Wake Press) and MESCAL NON-PALINDROME CINEMA (Ten Pages Press). He resides in the form of ones and zeros at: davidtomaloff.com

Jesse Bradley's The Juijitsu of Macking and David Tomaloff's Oliphaunt are available to view and download at the Red Ceilings Press

the little shed of various lamps ~ Nikolai Duffy

2011-09-07T13:38:00.000+01:00

the little shed of various lamps
by Nikolai Duffy

limited edition chapbook [rcp cb10]
A6 44pp 40 copies
£4.00 inc. p&p (UK)

Visit the Red Ceilings Press to see this and the complete catalogue of chapbooks and free eBooks

Andrew seems popular ~ Mark Cobley

2011-09-02T22:31:00.001+01:00

Andrew seems popular
~ Mark Cobley

Available from
Knives Forks And Spoons Press

Edward is lazy.

They asked him to swim.

She isn’t careless.

George isn’t a gardener.

She is brave.

Richard didn’t become a red barber.

She is dangerous.

Sarah doesn’t seem so selfish.

I’m not a spy.

Frank hasn’t become a computer programmer.

Matthew hasn’t become a bus driver.

Andrew’s uncle didn’t become a photographer.

Sandra doesn’t look brave.

She isn’t kind.

Catherine will become a police officer.
She isn’t skinny.

He isn’t a bartender.
They aren’t brave.

He isn’t a banker.

He isn’t crazy.

ANDREW SEEMS POPULAR, by MARK COBLEY

ISBN 978-1-907812-64-4

£5.00 23 pages

Broke as a Clean Dick Dog ~ Alex Stolis

2011-09-02T22:13:00.000+01:00

New free ebook out on the Red Ceilings Press.
Clean as a Broke Dick Dog by Alex Stolis.
Available on issuu and as pdf
Visit the website for the complete list of ebooks and limited edition chapbooks.

roadside savants [extract] ~ David e Haase

2011-08-26T01:57:00.000+01:00

roadside bermuda triangle

your isosceles
angles positively python
aa gorean

fibonacci flowers
bloom fractal
geometry

tactile gentle
sensory hearthair
is fog-ghost lost

roadside salesman

his oversized teeth
sweat & glass eye
wanders & he recalls

those movie moments singing
a gulp of carbonated polymers
sluices nicotine stained mustache

catalog brides machine guns
& prostheses he thrives how to
slick outside my event horizons

roadside whirlygigs

all spins on
road blinding vertigo
cornrows of song
clicking wind
perfect anomalies
sourtilt
centrifugal sunrises
into pirouette
palsyballet

roadside carnival

& we meet
most by foot
some by me

we pause
against each other
at sepia

split to
different rides
listening the fourth

note between each word
echo unbirthed future

roadside briderunner

her stretchmarks
never go away
she denied forensic petting

virginity of indecision
white silent tonight

her pony tail macrame
windmill swings counter
pointing breasts

David e. Haase, a former Trout Farmer who lost his government subsidy, lives and writes in Denver Colorado. He is has recently been published in Short, Fast and Deadly and In Between Altered States and is forthcoming in Metazen among others.

An ebook of Roadside Savant maybe forthcoming. We hope so.

wikipedia says it will pass ~ Diana Salier

2011-08-24T11:02:00.000+01:00

New free ebook out on the Red Ceilings Press.
wikipedia says it will pass by Diana Salier.
Available on issuu, as pdf and .mobi (kindle)
Visit the website for the complete list of ebooks and limited edition chapbooks.

New Chapbook out! Building Murder with a Smile ~ Bobby Parker

2011-08-17T14:00:00.000+01:00

Building Murder with a Smile by Bobby Parker

limited edition chapbook [rcp cb9]
A6 28pp 40 copies
£3.50 inc. p&p (UK)

visit the Red Ceilings Press to order

poem ~ James McLaughlin

2011-08-12T10:42:00.000+01:00

The mind confers

if the red tipped

green eyed Anthurium

sewn in folds

gathered into a sort of white abyss

gives almost a flavour - a reaction

as remit inclination

a nuance forgiven

on each stalk

contained flickering on

a single crystal rain

drop

just ready to die

or bounce

The Lesson of Furniture ~ Chad Redden

2011-08-10T11:02:00.000+01:00

New free ebook out on the Red Ceilings Press. The Lesson of Furniture by Chad Redden.
Visit the website for the complete list of ebooks and limited edition chapbooks.

selves incorporated ~ Iain Britton

2011-08-10T10:10:00.001+01:00

one by one       I stand up

           stand down

                  self helping

                  self replicating

persons unknown tighten screws in wood

             tighten voices in boxes

silence is fleeting

         in this deep end of the forest

   a parrot tunes up its windpipe

a horse snuffles messages in grass

         a steer locks horns

             with a zodiac punter -


I pace out

          my peripheral notification

    and keep to the outskirts

    of where I live /       / amongst houses

which burrow out of sight /
which sprout periscopes each morning

my focus is full on

       beyond the boxed-in estates

               wooden palisades

                   the incestuousness of families

                possession by conquest

a self-centredness

     makes groundbreaking progress

my chimney’s calligraphy

           suggests a shrinking of substance

                   of head space

            of where to stand

                        what’s in it for selves incorporated

I contaminate the gardens

of my belonging /           I do it silently

as if it were a privilege / a duty / a thing which has to be done /
a necessary marking of carved posts / a smudging on the silver-green
blades of summer’s new grass

domesticity ~ Iain Britton

2011-08-10T10:07:00.002+01:00

is a window      a condensation hole for the eye

a shabby curtain

she overthrows a fanatic’s impression

of a blue sky

       sees what I see

   a fountain in the mouth

           of a girl

dolls lined up on a hot day

new clothes already old

she procrastinates

a pleated look is the thing

           the minas spark in confusion

what exits the house
will be far different
from what enters

she pursues          the behavioural habits

of a heavy electric stage band

            which brightens the city

excites streets

the curious of the streets

the walking sleepers

the universal ventriloquists

practising conversations

               on a night’s exhumed corner

    the expectation

is a second-to-none instalment

of living for the minute

she ignores why I’m here

        black hands

            sketching mythologies

   of orchids / white geraniums / a grape vine

                   trapped on a trellis

she’s labelled her garden

          for the hard of sensing

written of love’s pictured pedestal

                   in a ghost story

Iain has forthcoming publications in Moloch Journal, Anything, Anymore, Anywhere and The Black Herald Press.

Oystercatcher Press published his 3rd poetry collection in 2009. Kilmog Press (NZ) and 4th in 2010. The Red Ceilings Press published an ebook 10 Poems earlier this year.

Leap Year ~ CL Bledsoe

2011-08-04T16:05:00.000+01:00

New free ebook out on the Red Ceilings Press. Leap Year by CL Bledsoe.

Visit the website for the complete list of ebooks and limited edition chapbooks.

buff my pylon ~ SJ Fowler

2011-08-01T14:09:00.000+01:00

complaining is the central interest of millenial American poetry
as we British poets watch the road for the terror of
the dung beetle to battle with a shitball in the carrot’s groin
who causes us so much fear because we are afraid of getting
the stink on our fingers and accidentally touching the brow
of eyelashes and then sweating black like a robbery so that
corrupted tears stream into our eyes and blind our gift, struck
down like the one walking amongst them folded into a
fucking quitter from a rough area who wasn’t given a chance to
succeed because he was from somewhere and not because he would
watch fifteen hours of television warble catwipe per day and would
n’t know the die blaue wheelbarrow full of newly rescued human
excrement if it hit him in the mouth like a beetle frown though he
does know break neck and untrimmed bush and an appeared smile
so vice versa sleek is his application for funding, his pen like the
intimidating shape of a bouncer, a soldier conditioning just for
Easter and yes it turned his life around, he can afford again, soon to
be parsimonious, kipping hemp & barley ween shouting “hard work
a mean business” until he daft swift slips and I’ll be happy, the whole
time I was writing anyway and my stuff is solid

from Minimum Security Prison Dentistry available from Anything Anymore Anywhere later this year

don’t buff my pylon ~ SJ Fowler

2011-08-01T14:07:00.001+01:00

for b.morris

our general is Gobbles, who gobbles art with a spade
who gobbles a nibless fountain pen, who lives on prize
living winnings, who lives on poorly tendered taxidermied
tits, who lives on no wit, who will dig for bones
who loves the saliva smell around an untrimmed bush
who will give a barrage of mutes, who tests low water quality
I know Ben Morris has dignity but the bilett homosexual
deepcut rape makes me frustrated at my mother-in-law or
something or another pigeon unearthed concerned
and encased in weed & bronze so dinner is finally ready

I have a Hackney Hanuman massage, a rubbing of the monkey
Elvis cancer of the bowels, an iron tire does nothing to halt the snow
towards a peace treaty, toward the siege of Copenhagen and Mikkel’s
bloodshed precum. O kindnesses! thoughts of you & grime music
pussyole apparently useless as a bus driver report
about being warm & smiling while peacefully asleep
while finding courage for the hardest yard, where the pink
& furry Shawnee Renee in the most charming of places
cannot fail like the acoustic guitar, a dead instrument
read the fingers, read the lettered tattoo Legavim Huy
Voram Soboda: to trashcops the dick, to thieves freedom.
Lublu Halvu Varenie Sahar: I like halva, marmalade, sugar.

from Minimum Security Prison Dentistry available from Anything Anymore Anywhere later this year

window licker ~ S J Fowler

2011-08-01T14:05:00.001+01:00

Can we move-in together
            please, to Elephant + castle?
like lions, live free
            vows renewed in paradise
soon our civil service will be done
            & we might couple in choice
our love compelled, sealocked
            we love like pirates
we might soon love in lieu of women
            and her dastardly gap
will we be unused to must, & slackness?
            will we, hard cons, be able to fag?
I know of my own love, rock
            very well, you my soft fox
my hot fock, what have I left
            but hope of high rises & fresh luck

from Minimum Security Prison Dentistry available from Anything Anymore Anywhere later this year

Fights ~ SJ Fowler

2011-08-01T14:01:00.000+01:00

SJ Fowler’s new collection ‘Fights’ is now available to order from Veer books via Paypal at Veer Books. The book is £9.00 + £0.80 If paying by paypal use the payee address ESTAPHIN@HOTMAIL.COM
(Stephen Mooney – editor of Veer).

Arcadian ~ Simon Howard

2011-08-01T13:13:00.001+01:00

You live near where you live
& a scattering of beaks & a claw
is exemplary a coolness & tears
jaggededly melting in the sun

scratch the words & consider
negation of negation. A field shimmers
= putrid glass. You know you are
imaginary & laugh like laughter.

At the conclusion
music shifts some trees a little & makes them this insubstantial.
You've slept in dangerous rooms
though I'm un-beautiful.

More of Simon's work can be found here

Uncle Salvador's Cigar ~ Gordon Mason

2011-07-29T21:15:00.002+01:00

The limited edition chapbook, Uncle Salvador's Cigar by Gordon Mason is now available from the Red Ceilings Press website. Lovely!

This is not Poetry. #poetry ~ Joseph A. W. Quintela

2011-07-22T13:58:00.006+01:00

New free ebook out on the Red Ceilings Press.
This is not Poetry. #poetry by Joseph A. W. Quintela.

Visit the website for the complete list of ebooks and limited edition chapbooks.

The Juijitsu of Macking ~ Jesse Bradley

2011-07-12T12:46:00.002+01:00

New free ebook out on the Red Ceilings Press.
The Juijitsu of Macking by Jesse Bradley
Visit the website for the complete list of ebooks and limited edition chapbooks

The Red Ceilings Press reviewed

2011-07-12T11:05:00.005+01:00

Andy Spragg's The fleetingest, David Berridge's BLACK GARDENS and Nathan Thompson's Questions for Painters are given the once over by the fine Mr Colin Herd in the wonderful 3:AM Magazine...

Rear Naked Choke ~ Jesse Bradley

2011-07-08T11:31:00.004+01:00

I diagnosed myself with a severe
crush on you. The only treatment:
holding your hand and slow dancing
to the sound of something random.

I’ve got a brown belt in the jujitsu
of macking. Your sentences
get past my guard easily.

When you ask me which member
of the Wu-Tang Clan I’ll do it like,
I’ll answer “Old Dirty Bastard”,
not because I like it raw though.
Being beneath you will make me
loudly inarticulate.

Jesse Bradley's free ebook The Jujitsu of Macking will be available on the Red Ceilings Press website very soon.

inspired remnants ~ Howie Good

2011-07-08T11:24:00.000+01:00

New free ebook out on the Red Ceilings Press.
inspired remnants by Howie Good
Visit the website for the complete list of ebooks and limited edition chapbooks

Laika ~ Nicholas Beaumont

2011-07-07T10:35:00.004+01:00

I wanted to do something nice

for her - she had so little time left to live.

I took her home to our kids who threw

a ball for her, and my wife gave her

a bowl of brown jelly. She’d come

such a long way from the mongrel we

found in Moscow, shivering in doorways,

sniffing footprints in the snow. We didn’t

tell the kids about the preparation,

keeping her in gradually shrinking cages,

locking her in cupboards for weeks at at a time;

or the announcement to the world shortly

after launch: that there'll be no return

mission, Laika will die in space,

doomed to an eternity of bouncing

comically off the walls of her

space-coffin, a furry corpse oblivious

to the stars and planets shooting past like

street-lights. Sometimes its easier

to believe what I tell the kids: that she’s

still up there, alive and well, whizzing

around the universe in her tiny metallic

football, yapping at aliens and traveling

further than man ever could.

Sylvia ~ Isabell Dahlberg

2011-07-05T13:24:00.002+01:00

I

Sylvia sat still.
She sat where they left her.
They left her where she sat when they came
They came after having finished the 24 hole golf course
After that, they went out to have dinner.

Sylvia sat still.
She sat where they left her after having gone out to eat something.
She never ate.
That is, she ate, but she never went anywhere else to dine.
Dining elsewhere was for those who lived in their own houses.
She lived in a house, obviously, but she did not own the house.
Or the bed.
Or the chair she sat in.

Sylvia sat still.
That was what everyone said.
She is so still.

Sylvia sat still.
Maybe she is no longer capable of moving.
She is very old, I mean.
Not that old.
But still.

Sylvia sat still.
She sat in front of that window.
Gazing upon the world.
Sucking it in.
Sucking at least.
She makes ghastly sounds once in a a while.
I wanted to bring the kids but was afraid she might scare them to death.

Sylvia sat still when they rolled the others off to bed.
Not that she ever said anything.
She never uttered a sound.
But it was as though that sitting of hers, so still, was a cry to be left where she was.
At least that is the way I thought of it.
She is gone now.

II

After that first time, several more were to come.

I did not intend to
I did not want to
But you did
I know

The cries of the children in her breast.
Low, never hesitating but propelling her into that wheel
(of lost fortune)

The falling we cannot do without your falling you must fall or we will die
Is that what they told you
Who told you that
I don’t know. The children.
Who’s children
Not mine. They were never mine. They were just his

And she ran into the nights into the wass the fires and the frightened masses
She fell into the hearts of the masses and she remained there until …

She was in our hearts, she is
We carry her
But who could have carried her then

No one

Could I still have been here
You know you couldn’t. You were lost the day you were born

III

Sylvia, I see you
I see you there among the other women
That group of extrordinarily intelligent and blazingly beautiful women
Of all ages, young, old or halfway here or there

Sylvia, I see you there at that broad big table
It’s fine wine and dining
Fancy clothes and smoke rising towards the ceiling
Your'e the fanciest bunch of razorsharp ladies I have ever laid eyes on, Sylvia

Me?
I am just dwelling in your company, trying to suck some of your skills
In a room of my own

Isabell Dahlberg b. 1972. writing music, poetry, and more. lives and works in Malmö, Sweden, with two cats

On the Toad ~ J D Nelson

2011-07-02T00:54:00.000+01:00

New free ebook ~ On the Toad by J D Nelson. See more free ebooks and limited edition chapbooks at the Red Ceilings Press website.

from Like Milk ~ Richard Barrett

2011-06-27T13:09:00.000+01:00

Different sizes of last week and our desire, you suspect
and whether you like friends and I know that. I'm happy I think
with the cooperation - I think. was the game that I found from you
so put doubt in with the partner: to see me happy but. and surprised
on two things. And (a) free coffee - there is something about such behavior
and last weeks plan It seems to say therefore (b) so From the above -
give it to me and give me the series! or anyway I mean close to friendship
to love to pieces is it? ‘I do not seriously think I'll consider any romantic thoughts about you’, with, want it or ‘us' though. You have been different
And frankly, What you know this "God" failure makes me learn about coffee -
and the history of food, I say, it's amazing to me but then I would say that
and I just hope it's great (the “coffee”, that!) more, maybe too, maybe they made a start to get close to the truth of things in the middle tho’ - sort of
to say they are all waiting for you. I want to say that I'm in serious and so
I'll say one way or another in my office every morning and then head down
tho’ only once last week the name came (and it was Christina we found out) and we started talking early. we said - about the possibility of romance and This Introduction came early one morning (I think it was a café that Tuesday)
which was, or was it not really very busy, hey? mmmmm?

so I just use the 241 offers now for the dining room
at high noon &, the first reason keeping me going
like how you say you are a cup we share. Tuesdays
& I would like us to discover a large cup of coffee is
as humorous as Christina thinks maybe and maybe
is as personally surprising I think, as I think this was
to Christina. with ideas to reduce my opinion further.
But not you! who told me ‘write that report’ I started
to Even as a day is his personality & like that coffee
that you say And "and why would it be better not to?
But It seems to show that you can try to spot the ridiculous but, The more
the more you talk gives me ideas about what might be appropriate or not to a message of sorts, and maybe I think I really can think about writing the report

from Like Milk ~ Richard Barrett

2011-06-27T13:08:00.001+01:00

a message saying ‘the bill does not achieve anything, I said

with this plan you get I hope, you at least partially, you agree

with how bad it is believed that the bill in a way should to read minds

so that’s you then me, because now boredom is appropriate

to what is just I say, in fact

tell me you do not think there is too much when I'm better than the story about the Bill. &the expression of

with your marital relationship at the end of the story, it confuses me

yet I wasn’t to know too much about religion, I thought

they both had guilt though, so I said adultery and I was impressed’.

what kind of thing to do though I thought /& it would be terrible to lead to it

like that through negative family & friends. I said, fleetingest, the attraction

was in fact, Then, told me it was this, of course –

the point of speech, freedom

of the innocent and of the naive, or just channels - Maybe. you play with me?

As, You do not I did not expect to What you do / I think it should, but they do not though, something – I really can’t believe - I never once thought about the letter - I think, you could eat my head if you wanted to – However, Frankly, Things can still happen. frankly, I know, I think, because I studied the problem alone, just to try to think where you can download it in reality and not only that I did not mention in my brain what can happen

Olifaunt ~ David Tomaloff

2011-06-23T14:02:00.000+01:00

New free ebook out on The Red Ceilings Press - Olifaunt by David Tomaloff

For this and more free ebooks and limited edition chapbooks visit the Red Ceilings Press website

Brains Scream at Night ~ Paul Sutton

2011-06-12T14:40:00.003+01:00

Recent Red Ceilings poet Paul Sutton's latest collection, Brains Scream at Night (BlazeVox), is now available to buy direct from Amazon

And it is very good! I promise you!

Every poem is a decapitated head held up by a single hair ~ Serge Pey

2011-06-10T21:26:00.000+01:00

New ebook out now!
Every poem is a decapitated head held up by a single hair by Serge Pey, translated by Yann Lovelock and Patrick Williamson.Check out the Red Ceilings Press for our full catalogue of free ebooks and limited edition chapbooks.

Questions for Painters ~ Nathan Thompson

2011-06-03T11:13:00.000+01:00

Questions for Painters by Nathan Thompson

Check out the Red Ceilings Press for our full catalogue of free ebooks and limited edition chapbooks.

Fat Hen ~ Andrew Spacey

2011-06-02T10:51:00.000+01:00

Brackenbury’s chenopodium
a goosefoot revival in a field

with uncanny curvature
versus long gone man, Kettle,

on all fours pulls up the root.
It is a pain like a tongue bitten.

His wife hangs loose white hens
from beams in a washed outhouse.

Only the poor remember The Lows
where slides the smiling pike.

Red is in the cooling sky and I
have clear views before roost.

Lapwings, graceful in well
oiled madness articulate that gap

between then and now. In this enclosure
birds altering the breath, a weed

dormant in time common as muck
disturbed, anticipating the man.

Beauty of absorbing your own flesh ~ Andrew Spacey

2011-06-02T10:49:00.001+01:00

Benefits of eating ones fat
visiting yourself or father dehydrating

the heat unseasonal is an argument we’re
shaking like sheep with blowfly

pluck a thought out of long grass shadow
place it on a thermal

you will see a song and thus
dismiss conflict in one rising

or cool your breath with tadpoles
dieting for the future their wee pool

precariously buried in full sun
there is screaming out of all

this Sunday sleepin we do it
and if not you can still haiku it.

Andrew says...

I have had a few things published in the past, articles for magazines
and newspapers,plus one small book some years ago now.
Currently a teacher - drama - organizing plays/reviews but have worked
down a coalmine,tended livestock and tutored foreign students in
English.

Red Museum ~ Steven Fowler

2011-06-01T10:22:00.001+01:00

Red Ceilings regular, Simon Fowler's Red Museum
(Knives Forks & Spoons Press) is now available on Amazon.

Gemstones ~ Paul Sutton

2011-05-26T20:35:00.000+01:00

Gemstones by Paul Sutton

limited edition chapbook [rcp cb5]
A6 20pp 40 copies
£3.50 inc. p&p (UK)

Available from the Red Ceilings Press website

No comfort ~ Annie Kerr

2011-05-25T10:42:00.001+01:00

There was no comfort in her,
just a thin promise
left unsealed
of some unknown need
meeting the rare curl of her lip,
the broken angles of her touch,
with rare words
always on the sly side of silent.

She was sandpaper to your cheek,
firelighter drawn as lipstick
to your wet mouth.
She was fuse
that you could never spark.
She was bad seed and venom
spilling out of a basket
useless for the task.

She held the apple you hungered to bite.
When she bowled it under
a mile long freight train
grinding between her track
and yours,
she waited
just to see
if you could resist.

bird in the reed ~ Annie Kerr

2011-05-25T10:41:00.000+01:00

bird in the reed
caught by the foot
snagged by the crowd
that always wants more
every protest song
ends in rebounds
like bluebottles map
a perspex box

hints of riffs
drop like bells
in a doo wap fuzz box
fight with the tough cut
of afternoon Pool
in a blacked out bar
jazz club sleaze
and banned cigarettes

white rasp of spit
in a breath hot tube
bites the harmonics
wet with hail
dented cymbals
make indoor rain
river it into corners
of wood and velour

blue smile of bass
rubs like making fire
every spinal nerve set alight
and sparking
he’s headbanging in a gale of glory
a dribble bank of memories
still wet on the floor
like a colour blind test

Nasturtiums ~ Annie Kerr

2011-05-25T10:38:00.000+01:00

Above the humming snake den,

unafraid of the fall,

they mock the breeze,

clamber and claw at the high wire fence,

roar into the street,

shriek at passing girls.

All tongue and tendrils,

they call out in brazen, rude red,

laugh in loud orange,

spit maroon blood,

swear yellow obscenities,

make shy heads turn.

Annie Kerr writes every day with a pen and paper, mostly when out and about rather than sitting at a desk. She finds inspiration in the wild places of Britain and the quirkiness of her adopted home town of Brighton. Her poetry has appeared in various online journals and has seen some success in competitions. She has recently risen to the challenge of reading some of it in public. She works as a musician and has a blog called Inkhaven.

BLACK GARDENS ~ David Berridge

2011-05-20T11:31:00.001+01:00

BLACK GARDENS by David Berridge

Check out the Red Ceilings Press for our full catalogue of free ebooks and limited edition chapbooks.

Lot 466 ~ Gordon Mason

2011-05-16T13:05:00.002+01:00

A 19th century lead garden figure of a man dancing and playing a tambourine with a square base on a carved stone square plinth, 195cm high x 46cm wide

Tambourine beaten steps
dance on an honest floor
to contraband applause
kept in a cage of finger bones.

Balloons of scarlet silence
drift from bloodless brains
as thoughts tuck deep
inside broken hand mirrors.

Death lets the music creep
while no-one sees the devil
sit in the whisper cold
of night’s black limousine.

Lot 168 ~ Gordon Mason

2011-05-16T13:04:00.000+01:00

A Paul Beau & Co Montreal brass and copper ink and desk blotter ends embossed with foliate medallions

Letters poke out from inkwells
a spliced nib away from words.
A map reader knows the shortcut
through inked paper butterflies.

Ribbons intertwine the night sky,
a discarded blue blouse
dragged along a picket fence
like an indrawn breath.

Ghosts are swirled by silence
that pirouettes in echoes.
Who thawed the moon?
I, said the silk spider.

The projector sticks on the same slide,
a crow posed still as a figurine.
A fountain pen writes poems
to be folded sharp as paper aeroplanes.

Lot 506~ Gordon Mason

2011-05-16T13:02:00.000+01:00

Neill Dallas Brown (1938 - 2003)
Bather and Black Dog, 1973
Pencil, 20cm x 20cm

She bathes out
her black dog day
in the calm pool
below the fringed wave.

Her breasts blanch
and magnify
as the surface sheen
snaps the cups.

Blades of surf
cage her hair
to her cheeks
and cut out the knots.

The wave drapes
over her shoulders
and the sky goes on
living above.

The Scavengers of London ~ Tom Watts

2011-05-05T21:33:00.000+01:00

The Scavengers of London by Tom Watts

Check out the Red Ceilings Press for our full catalogue of free ebooks and limited edition chapbooks.

the fleetingest ~ Andy Spragg

2011-04-28T20:28:00.002+01:00

After selling out in less than a week the fleetingest by Andy Spragg has been reissued as a limited second edition of 30 copies. Get yours from the Red Ceilings Press while you can!

14 sonnets ~ Simon Howard

2011-04-22T21:03:00.001+01:00

for Mark Cobley

Some days they make offer

to be strangers to kill me

where i slept.

Rosy sun pulsing

river tenderly

i’ll wear my old blouse

swim on the fires.

The thing silenced is gone

it arrives in mysterious

reality mad scene fluttering breeze.

Some years absurd pop song

a dark river under

bright river over

my smirk.

Sombrely love with a shadow in other’s

shadow & police dog handling

received evils.

i’ll throw coin

at the windows tormented

like a child’s birdsong

in a hailstorm.

Cool dry medicine on beds

of snails they hypnotise

cartoons get them to imply.

Some days make offer

to strangers when where

sweet thro corrupted shoot

from tripper.

I’ll wear my new blouse tenderly

swim in the ashes

asleep wrapped in curtains.

The best circumstance is deletion

the wildernesses of our lips

their ghosting truth

quotient.

Dark river popular

the moon fallen entire

the river a boat rowed by snails.

That no love

is possible

capitalism eyes

where undark shimmered night sheet smile nowhere.

Dead bird flying thro daytime

was no night sung

by her lips at time.

No one was

where & the television

was crying 3

am traffic & shit.

Simon Howard has a wonderful chapbook out with The Red Ceilings Press called Adrift. There are still a couple of copies left.

Ten Clouds ~ Andrew Nightingale

2011-04-21T10:12:00.002+01:00

Ten Clouds by Andrew Nightingale

Check out the Red Ceilings Press for our full catalogue of free ebooks and limited edition chapbooks.

Lincolnshire Wolds ~ Nicholas Beaumont

2011-04-19T18:31:00.000+01:00

my excuses

autumn's my I that

wolds on there or

lincoln which to winding

now kicking wold’s streams

skylarks map

used winding train

used leafs under streams

whispering wind

not the sky

wolds on last

& press that bulge

clinging catch to shoes

the across catch

catch to bulge

this not last

your rim of sky

bulge lincoln rim of sun

Nicholas Beaumont is a 21 year old student studying for an MA in Creative Writing at The University of Lincoln. In 2010 he won the Nigel Winn Memorial Award for Best Piece of Creative Writing by a Student Studying English. Nicholas will be published in forthcoming issues of The Cadaverine and Vinyl Poetry, as well as a collection by Tower Poetry set to be published in the Summer. Nicholas is the founder of Wheelbarrow Press, and is poetry editor for literary arts magazine b[liminal].

Out now ~ indigo not violet by Paul Sutton

2011-04-15T11:10:00.000+01:00

indigo not violet by Paul Sutton

Check out the Red Ceilings Press for our full catalogue of free ebooks and limited edition chapbooks.

S J Fowler ~ Book Launch

2011-04-12T11:33:00.003+01:00

SJ Fowler book launch at the Blue Bus

{Red Museum}

with Knives, Forks & Spoons press

www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk

April Tuesday 19th 7.30pm

at The Lamb, 94 Lamb’s Conduit Street,
London WC1N 3LZ

'A tremendous and persuasive surge of the red and the black: conflicted doctrines, scorched paper. Gothic scripts and plague-year screenplays for an apocalyptic cinema. Death chess. Heretical crusades. Hurt flesh. Fire angels. Madness. A grimoire for a haunted river-city. The poetry lies in the interpretation of malfated woodcuts. It is sinewy, knotted, persistent. And true.'

Iain Sinclair

Also to be released, the chapbooks:

Fights XIX: Johnny Tapia with Oystercatcher press www.oystercatcherpress.com

Fights XX: the Songs of Salvador Sánchez with the Red Ceilings press www.theredceilingspress.co.uk

{Drunk} ~ Steven Fowler

2011-04-12T11:30:00.003+01:00

{Drunk}

if you loved me you would dry out first
like fishstock
like bone & salt
like peace, like pretence
like a seaslug
so I can
lend a harpoon to your copuswomb
& not feel guilty

security passes feature a likeness
seen the light of the computer
let us not dwell on what lights the screen
so pink & tan
weeping

ingested plantfood
betrayals & headlice
raped on her gap year
there is only helpless here

the intentional repetition
of the why
even when its clear in books that…
marxists & dead peasantry
gaps in physiology
seven in the corner of seventeen

the thirsty wait patiently
the drunk can never drink enough

Taken from the lamb pit, a collection about Rorschach tests.

{Old} ~ Steven Fowler

2011-04-12T11:29:00.001+01:00

{Old}

I awake fully clothed
how disturbing
that in my 40s
I still gladden the several tracks of youth

at least in youth you now have company that follows you in
wearying homes in speech
torn from the morning
‘oh it was a weight’

Married, you sink in the tarpauling of the indoor pool
pulled out the gown rope
‘too tired, I am, from carting this weight’
fold the blinds neatly before bed
poor us

do not look a child up
be steady on the doorstep
expect the clot
smoke bleeds

you fathom her swallowing
needles & shit diseases
but are too self-conscious to follow suit
‘I am not myself. I am just terribly tired’

what else
but tired
when you are so sick?

Taken from the lamb pit, a collection about Rorschach tests.

{Wrong} ~ Steven Fowler

2011-04-12T11:24:00.001+01:00

{Wrong}

not as smooth as it should be

not as round

also also not as flat

breasts hang like fried eggs

on the neck of buttocks

penii retract into hip cavities

like ready samurai

hair everywhere

or not anywhere

there is the wax limp

and to be imperfect in Rio de Janeiro

to not be bikini-ready

is a poison trifle, to be small

or round

to be 30 kilograms

& not the space, age or race

to cope with girth

they can cope!

a bluelight on hotel stains

Taken from the lamb pit, a collection about Rorschach tests.

Out now!...Poetry for Girls & Others ~ Gareth Durasow

2011-04-01T12:07:00.001+01:00

Poetry for Girls & Others by Gareth Durasow

Check out the Red Ceilings Press for our full catalogue of free ebooks and limited edition chapbooks.

The way the pen sticks ~ Rupert M Loydell

2011-03-31T11:43:00.002+01:00

Funny is foil to forgetting
self-sabotaging betrayal.

Believe what we hope
threatens to numb both ways.

Words surge into things.
Letters might bring sleep,

we might have something
to say to each other,

contrary to intention.
At most we would laugh.

On our way ~ Rupert M Loydell

2011-03-31T11:42:00.000+01:00

I am starting to be an old man,
will not get out of here alive.

Something shocking;
no other possibilities.

Techno slowed
to merely a pulse,

an improvised song
within the mid-range

lost between bass
and high notes.

Dry leaves underfoot
and a dog snoring.

The slow turning of pages
and the emptiness of evenings.

Cars in the distance.
A fine sense of utopia.

SOAP ~ Rupert M Loydell

2011-03-31T11:41:00.001+01:00

I like the way this soap I've just opened
has SOAP stamped on it. Bad science fiction
has info dumps to explain to the reader
how worlds work; onscreen that means
signs everywhere. Why doesn't the sky
have SKY written on it in the clouds?
Why doesn't the wall have THIS WAY UP
in contrasting bricks? If I was dyslexic
words might appear broken up, interrupted
by globes of light. Since I'm not it doesn't
and I know the names of most things I use.
It's good to know that soap is soap and
words is words, at least most of the time.

Complete Absurdity (Bullshit Bingo) ~ Rupert M Loydell

2011-03-31T11:39:00.000+01:00

Sustainability Week only lasted three days,
as there wasn't enough stuff to do. Meanwhile,
we rewrote our degree in an afternoon
and pondered ideas of parity before considering
the real differences between our two sites.
We are only a bunch of excuses away
from chaos and contempt, unless you
take the bus. Nothing has been decided
but you have bought a pile of secondhand books
just in case there is nothing to read.
We needn't have worried about being lost
because they had put out photocopied signs,
but afterwards, wind and rain had been at work
and there appeared to be no maps, no logic
to campus layout or design. If we satisfy
the criteria, we may be eligible for subsidy.
Believe it or not we had to divvy up
the building costs and allocate the tarmac;
what a lesson in complete absurdity!
We have to start to say 'this is what
is happening here', begin to strengthen
our relationships and decide where we go
with the brand we seem to have inherited,
perhaps created by mistake. The media
need to be convinced, made to get it right;
only then we can sustain ourselves in the future
and start to live in peace. We can't go on
like this, there is nowhere to meet up,
only the barnlike structure that sometimes
serves up tea. We have always lived
in a half-way house, always had to make up
the time and fake the experience. We need
to be invisible, allow crossover and seepage,
embed ourselves in the infrastructure,
live in clusters which we have to create.
All facilities must be open to all and we must
change the way we use our time. Ambition
is reflected in the way we use the space,
how we use resources and barricade ourselves
into the small damp rooms we call our own.
There is the strangest kitchen I have ever seen
and I am slightly afraid of newer or bigger systems
but it may be reassuring to know that it seems more
and more likely that we will all become cross-fertilised
and able to traverse boundaries and disciplines.
We will have to make an effort and organise trips
to the other side. Beautiful hotels can facilitate
small meetings within a massive space, we can't
even get a decent cup of coffee. Can we own
a physical space, give ourselves an identity,
a presence in the world? Nowhere is completely
out of bounds and although I don't want to go on
about my own particular situation, we do need
a working model, need to allow more time
for dialogue and discussion like this to happen.

Rupert Loydell is Senior Lecturer in English with Creative Writing at University College Falmouth, and the editor of Stride and With magazines. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including the recent Boombox from Shearsman, and A Music Box of Snakes, co-authored with Peter Gillies, from Knives, Forks & Spoons Press. He edited From Hepworth's Garden Out: poems about painters and St. Ives for Shearsman, and Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh, an anthology of manifestos and unmanifestos, for Salt. He lives in a creekside village with his family and far too many CDs and books.

Tree by James Mc Laughlin

2011-03-30T12:36:00.000+01:00

We are delighted to announce our latest free ebook -
Tree by James Mc Laughlin.

To see our complete ebook catalogue and our limited edition chapbooks
visit the Red Ceilings Press

To view or download a copy of the ebook click here

New chapbook out now...what's in a ~ lars palm

2011-03-25T21:54:00.001Z

what's in a by lars palm

limited edition chapbook [rcp cb3]
A6 28pp 40 copies
£3.50 inc. p&p (UK)

Available from the Red Ceilings Press website

Sonata ~ C J Allen

2011-03-22T14:30:00.000Z

The sound, like sand, her blonde hair makes,
reflected in apartment blocks,
polished towers, cobalts, zincs,
that rise in geometric chunks.

The way her language has a smell
of cinnamon or ethanol,
and glows like pearls, impossible
as she is tall. That’s all. That’s all.

Climbing Death of Vine's Stagnant Splay - Felino A Soriano

2011-03-21T11:26:00.000Z

We are delighted to announce the latest addition to the Red Ceilings Press ebook series.

Climbing Death of Vine's Stagnant Splay by Felino A Soriano.

To view more of our ebooks and our recently launched chapbook series visit the Red Ceilings Press

To view or download the ebook click here

Ten Poems ~ Iain Britton

2011-03-10T13:33:00.021Z

Our latest offering from The Red Ceilings Press e series of online and downloadable booklets.

Ten Poems by Iain Britton

To view or download the booklet go here

To see our complete collection of ebooks and poetry chapbooks visit our website www.theredceilingspress.co.uk/

from NYC poems ~ Nigel Wood

2011-03-09T13:04:00.003Z

speech falters & fades
to another kind of silence

dreams turning to dust
washed away in the downtown rain

glasses reflecting the dusk
beneath the concrete freeway

a vocabulary of decay
clogging october’s larynx

the city an empty page

breathe it in &

let it out

from NYC poems ~ Nigel Wood

2011-03-09T13:03:00.000Z

infectious grace & absolute beauty

clouds filling the sky

sounds & phases that almost

get remembered

the world is the book, my friends

& the wonders

are all around

Nigel Wood came from nowhere and has been working his way back there ever since.

New chapbook available now! Fights XX by SJ Fowler

2011-03-01T10:27:00.000Z

New limited edition chapbook available now!

Fights XX- the Songs of Salvador Sánchez by SJ Fowler
24pp A6 Limited edition £3.50 (inc p&p in the UK)

For further information visit the red ceilings press

Eighteens by Eighteen

2011-02-28T13:37:00.001Z

An anthology featuring 18 poems of 18 words from each of 18 poets

Richard Barrett

Mark Cobley

Emily Critchley

Alex Davies

Stephen Emmerson

Alison Faulds

S J Fowler

Susana Gardner

Harry Godwin

Christine Hamm

Jeff Hilson

Emily Howard

Simon Howard

Peter Hughes

Tom Jenks

Linus Slug

Maria Teutsch

Tom Watts

Available now at Knives, Forks and Spoons Press
£9 (A5 107 pages) thats 50p a poet!!!!
Bargain!

In the Garden (jan unit) ~ Monty Reid

2011-02-15T14:52:00.001Z

Our latest offering from The Red Ceilings Press e series of online and downloadable booklets.

In the Garden, by Monty Reid

To view or download the booklet go here

To see our complete collection of ebooks and poetry chapbooks visit our website www.theredceilingspress.co.uk/

Made of Brick ~ MP Dean

2011-02-14T11:52:00.000Z

A house was made of new bricks.
A house was made of cold bricks but they warmed up.
The house had warm bricks and cold bricks.
At night the air was cold but some bricks stayed warm.
In the roof it was warm.
When you climb up into the roof it is surprisingly warm.
You climb up into the roof and the bricks look old.
In the roof the bricks make it clear to us that they are old.
The old bricks elsewhere wear plaster and paint and pebbledash.
We see bricks that are black, with mortar that is dry and loose, in the roof.
We step from the warmth of the house into the pouring rain.
The garden gets greener as the sky gets more grey and the rain drips
From the pointed leaves, buoyant with the weight.
This grey rain will fall on all the houses in their street.
We will hear a small thunder as they run up stairs.

Untitled ~ MP Dean

2011-02-14T11:50:00.000Z

I am eating some potatoes.
I am peeling some potatoes.
I will be,
I am unpeeling some potatoes.
A brown bird says
Open and
Shut
Open the case,
"Dawn was
All Rose."