'SCRIBBLES AND SQUIBS'
(2003)
Appliance Books

'SKETCHES BY DERZ'
(2001)
Appliance Books
Review

'FUGITIVE DAYS'
(1998)
Redbeck Press

K.M.'s FAVOURITE BOOKS OF ALL TIME

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ADDISON AND STEELE'S 'COLLECTED SPECTATOR'

Click image to read biographies and extracts from Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele on the Athens Parthenon website; to read about Rutger's Spectator Project, click here or to view related books on Amazon, click here

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THE STORIES OF O. HENRY

Click image for a biography and selected online works by O. Henry on the Literature Network website; to visit the website of the O. Henry Museum in Austin, click here or to view related books on Amazon, click here

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T.E. LAWRENCE'S LETTERS

Click image to visit the comprehensive Lawrence of Arabia Factfile website; for the official website of the T.E. Lawrence Society, click here or to for 'The Selected Letters of T.E. Lawrence' on Amazon, click here

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JACK KEROUAC'S 'DESOLATION ANGELS'

Click image to visit the official Jack Kerouac website; for sound clips of Kerouac reading and singing his prose on the Kerouac Speaks website, click here or to order the book on Amazon, click here

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K.M.'s WORK HAS/WILL APPEAR IN THE FOLLOWING PRINT MAGAZINES

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MOODSWING

OUTLAW

YELLOW CRANE

SOUTH

PURPLE PATCH

JAW

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...AND HAS APPEARED IN THE FOLLOWING ONLINE ZINES

SELECTED POETRY
by K.M. DERSLEY

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'POST OFFICE CLERKS'
by K.M. Dersley

so many mornings
we sat there like the moneychangers
of the temple.
we were good slaves all right
and never overturned a thing

some of us imagined
that we sat on those stools
like tin gods
there
to be admired.

'let the scum in,' I would cackle
as they opened the doors dead on nine
in the morning
'we sit here waiting for ’em
like rats in a trap.'

‘don’t encourage him,’
Ruth would say
when Dave sniggered
at my remarks.

the others nodded
in agreement with her.

it was not considered
that I would be in the job
long.


© K.M. Dersley
Reproduced with permission

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'EZY RIDE'
by K.M. Dersley

something made him
go out and tighten
one of the adjustment screws
on the Shimano gears of his bike

he also lowered the seat
and tilted the handlebars forward
30 degrees.

when he mounted he felt so hip he glided around
like a pony express hero

it was the Ezy Rider posture

he got to work on a breeze
hardly wanted to dismount

and while working he found his 'spot'
where everything was pleasant, he was
filling the quota
doing what
he was paid to do

he could work with joy
but was of course wise enough
not to tell anyone.

rode home so hep
people stopped to watch
the low-slung cow pony rider

who, passing a plateglass window
abruptly looked down &
found he was riding a bike.


© K.M. Dersley
Reproduced with permission

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THE WHEREFORE OF HIS ‘WHY?’
by K.M. Dersley

out in the garden boughs are
weighed down by what if this were 1965
I'd be more than likely to SCRUMP....

here I am, led along by the nose
and perhaps the end of something else
to where life accelerates.

I have to accept change,
which grabs my leavings
sometimes before I'm reconciled
to the loss.

like a tooth filling—a solid chunk
of amalgam
that had been sitting in my head for years—
suddenly, while I bit a fresh doughnut
in front of a Saturday morning TV film
this piece the size of a bullet
found itself attached to nothing, was
spat out
and rolled around on the china saucer.

life accelerates and
the only thing is to accept the process
and respond with some sort of irony.

does it all come so far
and no further, old John o'Dreams?
your power extending no further than
the prostate permits?

(maybe after all it's NOT just a case of
loosening off the trousers
and letting nature take its course,
not just a bath
in the old cosmic
gildergash.)


© K.M. Dersley
Reproduced with permission