I was born in Liverpool and started writing at the age of about eight, right up until my late teens when life got in the way. I took up writing and performing poetry again several years ago with a " Poets and Pints" group, before joining City Voices in May 2012. In 2015 I published my first booklet of poetry, "The last Pictish man". I had two poems accepted for The Poetry of Staffordshire, an anthology published by Offa's Press, and have read several times at 6 x 6 Reading Cafe, with my fictional short stories and an excerpt from my "work in progress" novella "Finding Frank" My poem "Listening to Jupiter" was one of six prize-winning poems in the 2016 national "Write Science" competition. www.funpalaces.co.uk
click button text for link White noise
His head was filled with it; nose, mouth, and eyes stinging. Ears ringing with the clang of shovel on the white death-dusty kaolin rocks of Cornwall. Clogging his breath, crystal meth for old skool potters cloud-busting into raw lungs. The nightmare of exhaustion, his chest burning. Wheel turning; clay into china cups by means of fire ©June Palmer August 2015 White clay was transported from Cornwall to make “china” ware. The dust was eventually deadly to the lungs. Until 1960’s and 1970’s it was still often shovelled by hand from the back of the transport wagon or lorry |
Listening to Jupiter
Call it what you like The music, the language of the cosmos is ours The expanding universe, the supernova; red-shifting light from distant stars Does it matter if dark energy exists, filling the space between galactic islands; engimatic energy imagined but forever unseen Far-off galaxies bending space and time across the vast dimensions, the observable universe. Can we glimpse our past? Tweak gravity. Particles are good vibrations: music. An ensemble of invisible strings. Science may confuse it yet planets sing, and underlying unities of nature hear. I have listened to Jupiter; am sure of the music of the spheres. ©June Palmer April 2015 Music of the spheres is an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies - the Sun, Moon, and planets - as a form of "music" not usually thought to be literally audible, but a harmonic, mathematical or religious concept. The idea continued to appeal to thinkers about music until the end of the Renaissance, influencing scholars of many kinds, including humanists. The 101 (Stone – Hanley) From this small town to a city centre, in the centre of nowhere. With pouts and frowns girls wait for the 101 their legs exposed and white as February, longing to be gone Octoberish winds slam the dressed-for-summer party wenches in their Primark glam. Shop-window kittens huddled behind piss-stinky Perspex their futures written. Giggling and mewling, pushing onto the sweat-fugged bus. Some old lecher drooling as they tamp out fags on cheap fake red-soled stillies; clutching clubbing bags. Result! Limbs morphed to rubber iPhone dropped down toilet in Sugarmills sit kerbside and blubber in gutter-bare feet. Mates chain-link arms for safety past the police presence up Trinity Street. ©June Palmer 02/06/2015 |