Shores of Night

This is my new year poem, I hope you like it. http://transatlanticproject.podbean.com/

This is the first entry for the Transatlantic Project. Kirstin set me the words Mildew, Metal and Dusty. http://transatlanticproject.podbean.com/ This the poem: The Box I keep my heart in a metal box Trapped behind a legion of locks Trapped so long, the locks are rusty The box is old, its surface dusty Inside the organ beats but slow Entombed by my grief an age ago And yet its voice still haunts my sleep Drawing me down to the dungeon deep I wander the halls wrapped in slumber My steps by thought unencumbered. And there, through the thick stone wall I hear its anguished beat, its frantic call I claw at the stone, wear my fingers to shreds Bash at the wall, using only my head Rending the moss that grows on the wall The mildew,the mould that covers it all The ancient bricks shake, crumble away My blows force them to crack, giving way. Beyond lies a long forgotten room, As still and silent as an ancient tomb In the centre sit...

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to 2013, check your coats at the door and find a good seat; we’re going to be here for a while (let’s hope they clean that crap off the windows this year, eh?). Traditionally we resolve to be better at this time of year. Mostly, these are unrealistic; we fall back into old habits almost as soon as we start trying to change. If we had the time and energy we could affect the changes we desire, make them stick. As it is, we try to do them in the coldest, most miserable month in the year with lots of things for us to struggle through; work, cold, dark, the comedown from Christmas and New Year and money worries because we’ve all almost invariably overspent. A hard day at work leads to unwinding in front of the telly with a pint and fish and chips, because it’s more comfortable than going for a jog or sitting alone, trying to do something new. Last year I laid out a grand plan to try and get myself motivated and found the wheels fell off almost imme...

One of the things I'm hoping to launch in the next few weeks is a poetry podcast, with my good friend Kirstin Steitz, an amazing poet who lives over on the other side of the puddle in Missouri. She has a poetry blog over at   http://ohmyfoes.blogspot.co.uk  and her work's pretty awesome. https://soundcloud.com/stevecotterillwriter/the-writers-poem As a test I've recorded a piece of my own poetry, which I'm uploading here as it's an old piece. Hope you enjoy (and that I don't make too much of a pig's ear of it *grin*). The idea for this comes from David Morley, one of Warwick University's Professor's in Writing, who often posts videos of himself reading his poems in the countryside to YouTube. As such it's something I want to explore, a way to get more people listening to, and enjoying, my work.