On The Buddhist Punk’s A TEMPTING MAGIC (T. Holmes/Lulu.com, 2021)
Tim Holmes, the Buddhist Punk meditates and draws
Sweet noise from raw silence, as here in these poems,
Both practise and poise have their say. In adventurous
Verse, whirlpooling away through these pages, heeding
Max Charles’ globe swirl cover, which focus eye, heart
And mind into play. Holmes’ introduction sets the scene
As his plays on words stage fresh theories; and as he re-directs
Form and language his own discordian path interweaves
With the worlds we recognise and don’t know, constructed
Within and roused by him, honouring his life’s work and spirit
As co-instigator of Festival 23. Patterns rule him, throughout,
As the Apophenic pen pursues progress through elision, collision,
And the visions he seeks from all things. As his magician father
Conjured, so Tim tests word weather, would you rather be;
Or wasp, pick, or shovel, every choice we make frees and sings
For what has been pressed onto the page, from the ink
Of crushed stems to these poems, as his ‘works of heart’ bleed
Through blankness to colour both the overturning hand
And charmed mind. From Newton’s 1st Law of equals
And opposites, to Me’s underlived view of existance,
From the mixture of malapropism and metaphor,
To a basket full of time and mixed bliss, each piece primes
The deck, and raises the stakes as it does so; each subtle
Twist tastes delightul, and with each playful thought
There’s a kiss – happening under your face or behind
The smile sent from reading these Buddhist Punk mantras,
These shouts from the soul, these word gobs, propelled
By pure words in ways or means that seem pistoled,
As the sex becomes something that seems to occur
Beyond flesh as thought throbs. As in I’ve Got Words’:
‘I’ve got words that make some sense of things – help me cure the rift
Which change my perception of the words I use
From a contradiction
To a paradigm shift,’
Or, Todays’ Special’s recipe that shows us how to cope:
‘50 grams of tenacity
2×400 grams of compassion
A fistful of brazen
2 heaped tbsp of hope’
.
In The Future is..
‘The future is not a blank canvas…
But a palimpsest’
And it is just these observations that place rhyme
Within our reading and on a sea of understanding
Make these pieces crest. For poetry once more
Has become its own uniquely tempting magic,
Through which the spells Tim grew up with find
Fresh and movin form upon the page, as craft casts
Each verse, and every stirring stance on becoming,
From Word Up! To The Bigger Picture, and Finding The Muse,
Punk’s new age is not at Islington’s Vortex bar or The Free Trade
Hall in Manchester, but heard in the room where you’re reading
And letting each taste, and tease tempt you along more than
23 roads towards prize and place of temptation fulfilled
As in Ubuntu’s;
‘I am a loose collection of elements and I am tightly bound
I am the sky – I am the sea
I am air, fire, water and ground
I am nothing that I search for, but everything I find
I am at the heart of my soul where my body meets my mind’
And so we align with these sincere takes on both what’s real
And illusion, as poet and print prise delusion from the misaligned
And hurt’s hue. It is clear that this slim volume resounds
To become man and ‘Womanifesto’, for change, reformation,
And the way to stoke surprise and sound true. Which is how
Holmes likes it best, performing as he always has across country,
From riot to reading, to the thoroughly inpromptu. The poems
Astound with their sincerity and their caring. From Dave The Tree’s
Nature portrait to Regeneration Song for Sheffield’s stag works.
Concern carves each phrase as the white page, as cloud cries
Words as rain wisdom, flowing along lines and verses
To make connecting streams’sweet banks burst. These, then
Are poems for all and they speak to us all so directly. Holmes
Instills his pure teachings with all that the Buddhist approach
Can convey. He achieves this with the startling power of punk,
Albeit one who has had time to reflect on glass broken.
As when he says in Love Resides in the Seeker;
‘I have no proof, there is no truth
But I strongly suspect, we’re at our best when loving ourselves,’
Its the Beatles, whose last loving couplet sets a future up
That breaks falls. And so we must rise, as we will, with these poems.
As the claiming chord chiming through us. Each poem speaks
Clearly. Each idea ignites. Heed their call. As this one book burns
Through what we know and really need from each other.
It is a sacred act sent to serve us. A communion and a chorus,
That if we listen fills the silent chamber with sparkles
Of Magic’s return. Stay enthralled.
David Erdos July 2nd 2021
Photo: Andrew Musgrave Photography
https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/tim-holmes
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