Find a quiet seat and sit for a while. Sip tea and enjoy.

VICTORIA ROAD

It was there you said you felt
the first tentative flutter of new life,
catching your breath as you caught your eye
reflected in the antique shop glass.
I think of us perfected there
and how I was infatuated by
that string of amber beads
roped loose about your neck,
each glowing round distended
at the point of birth.

The mirror holds us still,
among the post-imperial bric-a-brac -
your hand in mine; the other hand encompassing
what was engendered there.
This is where we take our bearings from:
the cluttered grandeur
of a faded age: cracked china cups
with gold edged around the rim,
frail christening robes of the long dead;
great drops of Whitby jet.
Ian Parks is described by Chiron Review as 'the finest love poet of his generation', He was born in 1959 in Mexborough, South Yorkshire. The son of a miner, Parks grew up during the declining years of the industry - something which was to have a profound effect on his later work. His first collection of poems, Gargoyles in Winter was published in 1986, the same year in which he received a Yorkshire Arts Award. From 1986-88 he was writer-in-residence at North Riding College, Scarborough. He was made a Hawthornden Fellow in 1991 and was awarded a Travelling Fellowship to the USA in 1994, spending most of his year in New England. He did research into Chartist poetry in Oxford and was one of the Poetry Society New Poets in 1996.

His collections include A Climb Through Altered Landscapes (Blackwater, 1998), Shell Island (Waywiser, 2006), The Cage (Flux Gallery Press, 2008), Love Poems 1979-2009 (Flux Gallery Press, 2009) and The Landing Stage (Lapwing, Belfast, 2010).


This is the last Tea and Sweet Words for a while joining us next month will be Andrew Oldham with a new column Life on Pig Row.

Put the kettle on, find a comfy chair and put your feet up. Here are some Sweet Words from poet Gaia Holmes to enjoy.


Photo credit: deanjenkins from morguefile.com

I'D LIKE TO LIVE IN A FRENCH FILM

where the thin tea-brown light
paints me wise and beautiful
and the sound of my neighbour
playing Elgar on his violin
seeps through the walls
and makes
a stinging soundtrack
to my life.
Nothing will be bland:
you will be addicted
to my skin,
you will smoke
stumpy Gauloise cigarettes,
fill your car
with lust and violet clouds
as you drive through storms
dodging
monstrous wind-fall trees
and crashed telegraph poles
just to get to me,
just to plant little kisses
like forget-me-nots
at the top of my thighs.
And in the morning,
every morning
the wet streets will shine
like pewter,
the world will sound
like Paris and rain.
The air will smell
of hot sugar,
swollen dough
and carousels.

Reproduced with kind permission from Dr James Graham's Celestial Bed by Gaia Holmes (Published by Comma) RRP £7.95. You can purchase a copy here.


Gaia Holmes is a Luddenden-born poet whose work digs beneath the surface of mundane, urban life to reveal a remarkable seam of exoticism. Her carnival of characters - bingo callers, burger sellers, critical theorists - are all cast from the least expected places but, rejuvenated by Gaia's verse, find a new voice and a new ability to captivate. Gaia is a graduate of Huddersfield University’s English with Creative Writing BA, and has previously made a living as a busker, a lollypop lady and poet in residence at Bradford Libraries. Her poetry has appeared in Brando's Hat, Dreamcatcher, Mslexia, Pennine Platform, The Slab, Staple and The Yellow Crane as well as in two anthologies: Taste (ClanU) and You Can't Make a Hamlet Without Breaking Some Heads (Bluetouch).

Dormouse is having a Valentine's lie in. Here are some Sweet Words from writer Andrew Oldham to go with your morning cuppa.

Photo credit: sideshowmom from morguefile.com


THE GROTTO

They say the roof is made of crystals;
The kind that glimmer when candles are brought in,
But they must be brought in on a summer's evening
When the grass pollen is high,
and the flowers are turning to seed.
I think of the lovers that came here
Clutching jam jars with lights in
Watching the shine in each others eyes in the flickering light
But eighty years on and the grotto is waiting to be restored
The walls have turned to moss and mould and
Instead of lovers turning to each other with flames
You turn to me and say it looks like a witches coven,
We laugh and for a moment we shine.


Reproduced with kind permission from Ghosts of a Low Moon by Andrew Oldham (Published by Lapwing) RRP £10. Signed copies can be purchased here.

Andrew Oldham is an award winning writer and poet. His work has featured in The Sunday Times, Ambit, The London Magazine, Interpreter's House, North American Review and Poetry Salzburg. His poetry has been broadcast on BBC 4's Poetry Please. He lectures on creative writing at EHU and the OU. He lives in Saddleworth where he curses rain and climbs trees to face North winds.