David Bircumshaw

Trimerous Days

'It is invisible' the Emperor
exclaimed, and slunk
to his bed. The Grand

Vizier bustled and the Court
Ladies trinked their
decolletage. 'Deturpation

upon those who dispute'
the Vizier proclaimed,
'what cannot be seen

is what is' and I fled
to my grace and favour
room in the roof

tinkering my thoughts
as what wasn't
became what was.

David Bircumshaw was born in 1955 in England and raised in one of the poorest areas of the Midlands industrial city of Birmingham, so poor that the Communist Party candidates received sizeable votes in General Election polls. After successfully having his secondary education aborted by expulsions from schools he spent years in mind-numbing jobs until at last becoming unemployed and unemployable last year. In between recurrent bouts of alcoholism he has written poetry (and some prose) over the years and has work in magazines such as Angel Exhaust, fragmente, Terrible Work, First Offense (UK), Fulcrum (USA), Masthead, Salt-lick Quarterly (Australia) and Nobody's Children (Rwanda) among others. A selection of his work is available as 'Painting Without Numbers' from The Phantom Rooster Press and also on the Web at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm

He also edits the occasional magazine 'A Chide's Alphabet' which is on the aforementioned site.

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