5.24.2010

Olly Todd

I would like to introduce Olly Todd, who will be reading at the launch this coming Wednesday at the Amersham Arms, New Cross. His poetry is wonderfully fresh and stark. It has a subtle engineering behind it that levels you on a peak half way between the wholly absurd and the absolute real.


Tower

Weekend, glittering Wells.
The wind spoke through our mouths
but when died down, said more
as we kissed on Glastonbury Tor

- cold wet stone where bishops hung
waiting for their lullaby -

my mother’s ash lined wind spoke through our mouths
and as she died it down out of nowhere whistled more
as we kissed in the Tor’s mist.
I love in this violet layer where depth will surface.
Where shines the mirror, bounces three candles’
heat to your chest and you call a dance in
winter’s clothes to punch the one sun’s ray out.
The sun’s one ray in.  As gospel as bullseye-
anything ringed is a target.
As this call, my daytime vigil pierced for my kin,
so quietly tonight may your skin sing my skin to sleep 


Olly is a professional skateboarder and lives in Elephant and Castle. He has had his poetry published in Clinic and Vice magazine.