Beat To A Pulp

By Jason Disley

Firmly set in the period of Pulp and Noir tales of the twentieth century in an unnamed American city -Beat To A Pulp delivers poetry that is full of the jive talk you would expect to read in Hammett, Chandler and Spillane. Its a Beat Poet delivering his version of a Pulp fiction. It's straight from the fridge, and if you've got your boots on you will dig the jive and imagine what happens when the canary sings. There is also a collection of six illustrations created by artist Mark Head -which add to the experience of a poetry collection with a difference.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9780244276249

Book preview

Beat To A Pulp

Beat To A Pulp

By

Jason Disley

This collection ©Jason Disley 2018

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means without permission from

the copyright holder, except a reviewer who wishes

to quote brief passages in connection with a written

review for insertion in a magazine, newspaper

or broadcast.

Cover design by Mr H.

Illustrations by Mr H.

Dedicated to the memories of those recently departed: Nina Disley, Jeff Foster and John Jazzman Clarke. You all inspired me in wonderful ways..

Foreword

‘A character straight out of characterville.’  Lauren Bacall crooned with her sultry voice, as Schatze Page in the film How to Marry A Millionaire.

In this epic collection Disley has conjured up a cast of characters that shimmer, dodge and thrill the page with a story straight out of storyvile. The classic film noir of the forties. The cop, dark brooding Aldous Beech.  Snappy fingered Johnny On-The-spot, moving the pawns and outwitting the king pin Jack Rabbit Blood. Ruby, with stiletto heeled skyscraper legs, bridging each side of the law. She plays the long game, femme fatale, streetwise dame. Pinned to its’ era by the authentic colloquial language of the old time gangster genre. Tommy gun dialogue peppers the page. Sharp and witty exchanges, drip with sexual tension and flirtatious humour, running through each poem, unwinding the tale.

The story goes to show, that to be a good cop you need to think like a hood,  to be a successful criminal you need to have the mind of a cop, and you can’t get a paper dollar between the two. All the characters in characterville are a heart, brothers in blood, albeit divided by the thinnest of blue lines.

I read Jason’s work with the joyous heart of a wordsmith. The rhythm and cadence reminds me of the time l watched Maya Angelou perform in Liverpool. He evokes that same distinctive, almost musical tone in his creations. I have remarked before, that Jason writes like Jazz. That your eye tumbles down cliffs of one word lines, like a string of strange discordant notes. Charlie Parker ‘s bewitching tunes, that catch you further down, cradled in an off beat rhyme which shows, along he was the master of the craft. Then you read a particular phrase, so eloquent and beautiful in it’s construction and prose. You smile at the pleasure it wrought, and a wave of serotonin washes over your brain at the sheer joy of good writing, delivered at it's best.

SJ Knight

Introduction

Johnny- On -The- Spot

At the Trottery

Dancing on a dime

Feeling

Dead on time

With enough bread to burn a wet mule

Giggle water washing it down

Gin Mill Cowboys watching on

As the Honky tonk angel clings like a rash

Johnny- On - The -Spot

Eyeballs

The Jack Rabbit Blood at the end of