Never Mind the Beasts

Website of surreal-absurd writer Marcus Silcock

about

Born in Portadown, Northern Ireland, Marcus Silcock has made his home in such places as Turkey, Poland, Italy, South Korea, the United States, Spain, and the United Kingdom – experiences that inform his surreal-absurd stories.

Category: Smashing Time

Excerpts from the nomadic surrealist book of poetry Smashing Time by Marcus Slease.

  • Anthropocene Poetry

    Delighted to have two new prose poems over at Anthropocene poetry magazine. After the Mormon mission, searching for new spiritualities. Fleshy and soulful. One of the poems a part elegy for my uncle Billy in Portadown. A painter.

  • Fly in the Ointment

    Working on new prose poems for Smashing Time manuscript. From Northern Ireland to Mormonism and Utah and beyond. Maybe it will become a novel in prose poems. Or hybrid whatever. Here is one called “Fly in the Ointment.”

  • Straw Time

    Another working class story. Somewhere America. Another immigrant story. But really, also, a father story. More than one father story. Identity tags, please. Northern Ireland. Belfast. Shankill. Somewhere Utah. Homeless. There are so many fathers. Too many fathers. Not enough fathers. These pyramids of fathers.

  • Saint Sweat

    “The soul delights in the body. When we arrived, we discovered we had never left. When we departed, we discovered we had already arrived. The soul needs a sweaty handjob. Pretty souls in sweaty flavours. Perky souls in sweaty colours.”

  • SMILE TIME

    A little portfolio of new prose poems at Tupelo Quarterly. Thank you Eva Heisler. It makes me happy to be among such fab company of international writing. Here is a reading of one of my prose poems. It is called “Smile Time.”

  • Tupelo Quarterly

    A portfolio of my poetry, from my manuscript Smashing Time, has just landed at Tupelo Quarterly. Mormon missions, pioneer days with armies of bonnets, candid camera as newly arrived immigrants in America. Fallen fathers, sick fathers, war fathers. Learning from the smiles of dead men, sure of their mission, munching on grass. Lotsa journeys in…

  • folio : twenty-eight short takes on the prose poem:

    Happy to have my work in this folio of prose poems. It is an interesting one- the prose poem. Sometimes I think I will go back to line breaks, but then the prose poem pulls me back in there. The cadence of the new sentence. The space between them. But lately, more and more surreal-absurd…

  • Legeia

    “Are you back in your childhood, says Mandy. Back, says Charlie. There too, says Mandy. I’ve always loved my smurfs, says Mandy. The little blue people. It was hard not to chew them.”

  • LYRIKLINE

    Some of my surreal-absurd poems (from 2010-2014) have been translated into Polish and Danish  at Lyrikline, from various collections, most especially Rides (Blart Books) and Smashing Time (miPoesias).

  • Small Press Publishing

    A selection of some of my books from small presses in last couple of years. Sometimes it is good to stop and take a glance back. Thanks Blazevox, Poor Claudia, Deadwood Press, Blart Books, miPOeasias, and Deathless Press.

  • from Smashing Time

      Influenced by NY School poetry. Bernadette Mayer and Kenneth Koch ALSO Philip Whalen (one of my favs) Part of my Nomadic Surrealist project. free pdf here: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/299099 cover painting: Grzegorz Wroblewski

  • smashing time!!!

    thanks Steven Fowler  . . . and thanks Poetry International . . and 3AM Magazine . . . smashing time

  • Open Ealing Poetry – Marcus Slease

    last night  15th Feb 2012

  • poems from smashing time in issue 2 of La Granada

    some of my poems from manuscript Smashing Time in new issue of the Norwegian magazine  La Granada

  • Minimum Security Prison Poetry – Marcus Slease

    reading the other night for Steven Fowler’s book release of Minimum Security Prison Dentisry at the Horse Hospital in North London. Great evening. Many fine readings !!!

  • from Smashing Time! (MIPOesias Chapbook Series)

    My chapbook Smashing Time is now available for free (digital version). Thank you MIPOesias. This book was written shortly after returning to live in London. From 2010 to 2011. Influenced by NY School poets (Kenneth Koch, Bernadette Mayer, and Ted Berrigan mostly). Also the buddhism and writing of Philip Whalen. Also my poet friends Tim…

  • my new book now available from MIPOesias Chapbook Series 2012

    download for free  . . . or buy print version if you so desire . . . art by Grzegorz Wroblewski poems by Marcus Slease from Smashing Time: poems from Smashing Time!

  • first draft (for Smashing Time Manuscript)

    Brief Bio in sloppy joes in ear-muffs dropping coins for Dr. Pepper in the city of trailer parks in the jerks of god in a gumball machine in the Hamburger Helper in the nerf inside the unobstructed science of free donuts in Vallejo California  a rock hurled from a car window the lack of snow oh on the way to Rancho camel trucking partially submerged birds a shooting…