NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
BILL HEADDON: PICARDY.COM
Oversteps Books
Froude Road
Salcombe
South Devon
TQ8 8LH
UK
ISBN 0 9541376 5 5
£7.50

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BILL HEADDON: PICARDY.COM

Many of the 42 poems in this collection bear on memories of the wars; e.g. the title poem is about the poet's deceased soldier-father, now image-linked to the computer screen and recalling him, his trials and tribulations caused by World War 1:

	Don't gape at me Daddy-ghost,
	One touch could exorcise you
	From my screen.
	
	Away to the place for you heroes,
	Your file is backed up,
	Saved as a child's fascination   
 
	For that hole the bullet
	You copped in your leg made,
	Your magic cough
 
	That could bring up mustard,
	The bits of trench in you . . .
War poems also include GI's QUEUE FOR CHOW AT CROOKLETS BEACH CAFE, STONE DISCS, PLAYING LISZT TO HIMMLER [the latter two jew holocaust poems], STANDING BY, TROUPER, CHOREOGRAPHED DREAM.

TROUPER contains a theatrical memory of his parents:

	After the lights dimmed,
	you'd still finish up your best,
	then play the fool,
	doubled-up as Harlequin,
	squirty hose down the pants,
	and Mother as Columbine,
	standing-by with mop and pan.
CHOREOGRAPHED DREAM has its internal dream language:
	Mother stoops at the cloam bowl
	to wash, half-dressed for widowhood,
	a candle to show
	the fault line of veins,
	a bow window to reflect
	her Dowager hump in the making.
Father is
	horse-soldier, legless by the fire
and
	his lungs expunge their scars,
	his hand triggers this drill,
	trembles at his oath to her.
It is
	the pas de deux of a broken-off union
Most of the poems are parochial, in the nicest way, and bluntly expressive or dramatic. PICARDY.COM should appeal to 'old soldiers', maybe those who experienced the London Blitz, like myself. This attractive perfect-bound collection is neatly typeset by the poet himself.

reviewer: Eric Ratcliffe.