Going Cold Turkey (in Cyberspace), by Jan Herman

The computer screen has become a substitute for reality, dominating us not just by way of social media but — old news — by making artifacts like books on paper seem obsolete. I plead seriously guilty, witness this blogpost with its images and descriptions. A package that came in the mail with several new items from Cold Turkey Press got me to thinking more than usually about this. Issued in minuscule editions, Cold Turkey chapbooks, folios, and cards compose a rare yet necessary archive that subverts the ordinary in literary content and artistic quality. Their scarcity notwithstanding, they are essential cultural documents — scholarly without being academic, exotic but not obscure, their intelligence distinctive. To be truly appreciated, however, these hand-made manifestations of the publisher’s mind must be experienced in the material world and not as digital simulacrums in cyberspace...More here 

The worm in my thumb, by Sinclair Beiles

I was born
with a fat green worm in my thumb
whenever I ate he appeared
drooping down into my plate
to share my meal.
He was also good at singing
and many a maid did he entertain.
He was killed in my twentieth year
by getting caught in the door of
an elevator.

(Published in The Idiot's Voice, Cold Turkey Press, France, 2012) 

The only time, by Sinclair Beiles

They might have been twins.
they looked exactly like each other
and they sat facing each other
in the underground.
Each of them was hesitant to speak
to the other.
But when one got off, the other
followed him and saw him disappear
into the side entrance of a bank.
He obviously worked in a bank
like the man who had taken the trouble
to follow him. That was the only time
they saw each other.

(Published in The Idiot's Voice, Cold Turkey Press, France, 2012)

As he had no oil, by Sinclair Beiles

As he had no oil to stop
the door from squeaking
he stuffed its hinge with wild honey.
Soon the living room was filled
with wild bees which settled
along the inner edge of the door.
When he tried to chase them away,
they set on him and stung him.
So severe were the stings that in a day
he was dead
And then the bees began to build
a hive in his open mouth.

(From The Idiot's Voice, Cold Turkey Press, 2012)

The Idiot's Voice on Longhouse Poetry and Publishers

Let me utter my last words

in a taxi cruising slowly through
the beautiful posies of neon signs.
Let someone else die in my room
on the turned mattress
so it doesn't show stains.
Let him savor the smell of it.
The smell of old lemons and let his last
moments be guillotined by badly
played guitars in other rooms.
In readiness I have a shirt with the black
ring scrubbed off the collar and a suit
which was shiny before I sandpapered it.
And now I must find my last words....Read more here

The Idiot's Voice - a collection of previously unpublished poems by Sinclair Beiles

The Idiot's Voice is a collection of 25 previously unpublished poems by Sinclair Beiles.

Published by Cold Turkey Press, France, the first edition is limited to 36 copies.

Cost is 15 euros, excluding postage.

For order information, contact coldturkeypress@gerardbellaart.com