The Celestial Press

02/12/2025

Tom Stoppard, dead at 88, was a talent of Shakespearian stature. One felt that he really could turn his hand to anything, writing masterpiece after masterpiece, as he did, for the stage. But the film he co-wrote with Marc Norman, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE is the work that will live for the ages, we think. It reflects with great charm a number of essential truths about Shakespeare's gifts, and the process of writing. Nothing can prepare one for the absurd irregularity of genius or its extension to areas outside of the literary but this comes near! RIP Tom Stoppard.

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26/11/2025

ENNIS WILLSON

moby dick

I have submitted
my doctorate:
the love Melville distorted
through genius in cognizance
of fraternal genius.
Hawthorne sailed from
Boston harbor in 1853.
was Melville waving?
my forbears formed
part of the cannonade
that celebrated his celestial status -
Liverpool awaited its newly-appointed
consul and a great great grandfather
fired one of the guns
that boomed his farewell.
I feel a thrill
to think that weapons
whooped for joy.
I suppose Hawthorne stood
on deck and thought
something.
Where am I to find
my compass now?
No funeral, dad has instructed,
and got out of his chair for the first time
in months. He lives,
and reminds that Hawthorne sailed
on the Niagara,
not the Pequod.

ENNIS WILLSON 2025

16/11/2025

C F HOOD

Dear One

You say you
never knew how to live,
as I berate you
with my own ignorance.
I am the child.
Yet live we have,
for all these years.
The dusk nears,
and the night will find us
whether we are ready or no -
yes, of course.
I'm not brave though,
not like you.
We are knots of love,
you and I,
tied beyond our sight
in celestial ribbons,
indifferent to eternal praise,
and not believing in it, anyway.
So what?
We must get on.
And we must do better,
you and I,
while there's time.
For this truth,
I do know:
dear one, I was
not dear, before you.

Craig Hood 2025
[from WHERE IS MY LABRADOR?]

07/11/2025

ENNIS WILLSON

manhattan

you ask if dad is mobile?
I push him in the chair.
he can pull too
but he doesn't
because he's sad
and thinks he's
dying.
I tell him
we all are
and he says
he will slap me.
dad?
any celebrations of
new mayor are
sinister to some.
dad bought another
ounce of gold
and said, you are a place
where the world
will fall to -
if it falls over.
dark
and insolent.
dark
and insolent
is what dad is.

ENNIS WILLSON 2025

06/11/2025

MARWAN BEOFUS

Torque

I twist in time
to the times
or is it
The Times?
I subscribe
in fact
to no
enabled truths.
Power
publishes
its own
set of rules.
Are not rules
made into truths
and the rest of us
left behind?
Who are the rest of us?
Are you with us
or against?
The planet spins faster;
better days will come
soon and loud.

MARWAN BEOFUS 2025

27/10/2025

POSTCARD

In a textured life, a quilted one if you like, the placement of colour is as important to the work as is the structure. We live in a time of unimaginable structurelessness; the safety of black and white is impossible in an age of brilliant imaging - it becomes an aesthetic release, not a dedication to actuality. Student of war that I am, I nevertheless heaved when I heard that there is an estimated 70,000 unexploded pieces of ordnance in Gaza out of a total of 200,000, delivered. This awfully high percentage (which constitutes lethal hazard for a returned population) is daunting to them who are tasked with managing the preservation of life and limb. The peace of our world, if any can come, is never the turning of a simple page. An unexploded bomb, taking a child's hand or head, blows the page back every time.

CFH 27.10.25

22/10/2025

C F HOOD

Graeme

Our signs were coy once.
On the mailbox.
Made with style
to seem as if
our old and
fuddy duddy selves
had come early -
when we were young and funny.
You and I were always
spare with one another.
Later. Much later
we added a parcels slot;
for the world
that came in books,
to the right of letters!
It was magical in summer.
That evening
you took a photo,
do you remember?
And suddenly I could see
through the slot
to where the trees
swayed in a foreign breeze.
A forest that belonged
to the undiscovered country.
The Celestial Press
is printed there
you said,
in a single run of time
imaginary or divine
that sent a smile
to my voicing heart:
inky you, inky me,
eternally.

Craig Hood 2022
[from THE JOCKEY BOYS]

24/09/2025

MARWAN BEOFUS

Moat

Take notice of the cries -
these are not for happy skies.
Our kindred are buried
beneath the concrete shrouds,
the red of their dead
unseen beneath the rubble.

I am tired
and sore.
My mind is young and unready
for lesions on lesions.
There are sores
that no child can heal.
Why is the animal
the animal in us,
the human animal,
so tall and true when it
comes to hurt?

Call the names out loud.
Nothing happens.
No one comes.
The roll is read
until the matches are lit.
Burn them.
I hear this voice,
Burn them.

No redeemer is near
but the ward releases itself.
The mad break out; the sane break in.
The dead stay dead.
Asylum is the hill
we see across the river.
Beckon us but no carry?
The river is too deep.

MARWAN BEOFUS 2025

02/09/2025

C F HOOD

The Duty

Nights,
yes I work nights:
I sift the reports for germs,
these days,
for the morning.
They sit with me
beside my bed
and take the rest
I need.
These ghouls, you see them?
I have no way of knowing
whether orders of mine
killed them or not.
Do you not find yourself
mimicking their sick grins,
those two or three who kept their faces?
A shadow play, really – curtain-raiser to the
sulphuric something,
crumpling and scratching beneath the duvet.
Something with horns that can't get out.
How these ghosts must fester with pride
as I plan the new intake for tomorrow.
And then, tomorrow:
that hot, scowling holiday
and school's out for ever.
The crashing and the tunes begin,
one band after another,
suddenly in formation;
loiterers and clowns,
caught between the troops;
and hundreds of wide-eyed townspeople
in regiments of rhythm.
Soon they trumpet and tuba past,
and I see their punching beats
as if they were springs of colour:
lilac springs, inviting me
to leap from the balcony,
dear friends in the violet water.

Craig Hood 2020
[from THE STAFF OFFICER'S DIARY]

13/08/2025

BEN AZIZ

Last Night

Last night,
walking home,
we became
evening shadow.
Shadows.
Yours,
alongside mine.
We stretched long
on the pavement,
in love with the shapes
that wouldn't part.

On and on, we walked
our backs to the sinking sun,
until our shapes melded
into a single darkness.
A breath of wind,
a vagrant cloud,
and now the dawn of night
takes the stage.

Yes, I cry.
Silly you, you beam,
and pass me a tissue.
Tomorrow will come,
and the sun,
let us promise,
will make new shadows.

BEN AZIZ 2025

11/08/2025

ENNIS WILLSON

the recruiting officer

get a number -
dad says I should be
ennis clarion willson
the third.
I prefer the fifth.
he says you are
the major seventh.
importantitis.
sondheim said
lenny bernstein
came down
with a bad case.
we talk about
ourselves a lot
at home. it's like
we're waiting
for the boys
to sign up -
blue
or grey.
dad says
join the
army, son,
and live.
join the army
and live.
who could write
the jingle?

ENNIS WILLSON 2025

04/08/2025

C F HOOD

Night-scented Stock

I am to sow the fragrance
for late evening droves;
my many-planted days,
now a harvest
after dark.
The dawn I knew
has grown to redolent dusk now,
and I hurry to reek the sky
with my universe.
It’s late.
I know.

Craig Hood 2020
[from DUETS FOR THE MODERNS]