Joe Hakim Page 1 Which side are you on? Joe's contributions are listed below.. Page 1, Page 2. For the index by Author to all Jo's work Contributions click here. Check Jo on Youtube Wining Poetry Idol Contest in London in May 2007.

Poetry - 6/4/08 By Joe Hakim

There's a canal with a broken tree on the bank beneath me. I feel blank. Just beyond that Manchester stretches out like a lazy cat    Read more...

Poetry - To Let By Joe Hakim

I've never really had a home just a series of rooms I've stayed in, rooms in which thoughts have played in rooms in which dreams have decayed in rooms where the hours have passed rooms where the spells have been cast    Read more...

Poetry - Spinning the Atom By Joe Hakim

The wheel turns one way and the ball spins in the opposite direction, like hopes and intentions and the mess that follows and they watch it bounce    Read more...

Poetry - Paranoid Conspiracy Theory Nursery Rhyme By Joe Hakim

The dolphins leapt over the pyramid, and there's a secret base on the moon, and the giant lizards laughed to see such fun, and the Roswell crash    Read more...

Poetry - Poetry Is... By Joe Hakim

Some people ask: What is poetry? Is it about metre rhyme stanzas    Read more...

Poetry - Those Indie Chicks By Joe Hakim

With your asymmetrical haircuts bleached almost white, gonna have it large tonight, drink and flirt in your pencil thin skirts and funky little tops from the vintage clothes shops,    Read more...

Poetry - The Lesson By Joe Hakim

There's a lesson to be learnt, even if I don't know what it is. I'm at a friend's house and I'm checking my e-mail and there it is: a poetry organisation has nominated me for    Read more...

Poetry - Juggling Chainsaws By Joe Hakim

There's a gig I need to do, a flat I need to view. There's a point to be proved, a sofa to be moved. There's a table to be cleared, a reputation to be smeared. There's a drink I'd like to taste,    Read more...

Fiction - 3 Phones, 300 Words By Joe Hakim
	She smiled as she handed him the bottle. He took it from her and poured himself a glass. 'So what do you think?' she asked.   'I'm not that bothered,' he replied. He was pretty drunk by now and he attempted to think of something to say, but the silence remained stagnant. She took a gulp from her glass, Read more...

Fiction - After The Rain By Joe Hakim
	He noticed there was another crushed snail by the doorstep. It was the third one he'd found this week. It was funny because he could never recall standing on the snails, but there they were. He opened his back door and lit a cigarette. He'd been in this place for a month now, but it still didn't feel like his home, just a place he was staying in for a while. Read more...

People, Interviews - Interview With The Paddingtons By Joe Hakim. Photos By Ray Ribeiro and Darren Rogers
	I've had to bite the bullet and start working again. It has to be done, and there are two reasons for this. Firstly, starting any new job means starting at the bottom again, which is a good method for keeping the ego in check. Secondly, it brings cash back into your life, which after nearly two months of bumming off people is a welcome relief. You can only live on luck alone for so long; take the piss and you burn it all up. Read more...

Poetry - The Cloth Actor and the Cold Walk Home By Joe Hakim

The Cloth Actor is in tatters, too battered to focus or notice the shadows of bare branches like hands clutching at ankles on frosted pavements    Read more...

Poetry - Really, What is it all about? By Joe Hakim

It's on days like this I wonder why - why I continue to fill the glasses of these hollow well-scrubbed professional something or others:    Read more...

Poetry - Spending Time At The Crime Scene By Joe Hakim

Coping with the enormity of committing the crime of the century, my heart is empty and so is my head, no sleep when I go to bed, something outside is dead.    Read more...

Poetry - Sometimes Even The Words Leave By Joe Hakim

The Polish voices from next door, Sunday's paper on the floor, the empty tin of deodorant spray, change left over from last week's pay. The dirty clothes, the unmade bed, knocked over drink, carpet stained red,    Read more...

Poetry - Synaptic Snap By Joe Hakim

I'm in the market and I pass a stall, I see a big silver fish and I stop and look down into its dead eye, and for some reason I think of you.    Read more...

Poetry - Day Off By Joe Hakim

I'm not going to work today it's raining outside but I feel ok, my bed is comfy and I still feel sleepy and I know no one's going to ring me. For the first time in weeks I'm free - so I'm going to be lazy,    Read more...

News, - Hull Writer Joe Hakim Wins Poetry Contest in London
	Poetry Idol is a twice yearly event organised by Shortfuse, one of London's premier comedy/poetry/spoken-word nights, held at The Camden Head in Islington. Hosted by comedian and poet Nathan Penlington, previous winners include Rhian Edwards and Scroobius Pip. Taking part in Poetry Idol 10 Read more...

Poetry - Something Like By Joe Hakim

It's like the guy asleep in a doorway with an empty tinnie in his hand. It's like the hours you spend staring at the paint peeling from the wall opposite you because you can't sleep.    Read more...

Poetry - Head Gone By Joe Hakim

My head's gone, packed its case and left. My head's gone, don't know when I'll see it next. My head's gone, it's off to parts unknown.    Read more...

Poetry - Sales Pitch From Personality Suits Inc. - The Quickest and Easiest Way To a Guaranteed New You (Results may vary) By Joe Hakim

Get yourself a new personality suit for each day of the week, an instantaneous freak, just add water and give no quarter in your attempt to    Read more...

Album Reviews - The Sesh 4 Compilation CD By Joe Hakim
	I'm going to start off by mentioning just how good the overall quality of The Sesh 4 CD is. In the past, the production has varied in quality from track to track, but each and every track on this CD sounds as though it has come fresh from a big studio. This, combined with Darren Rogers' simple yet slick cover-design, has resulted in a product Read more...

Articles - Saddam Hussein And Reality's Last Gasp By Joe Hakim

	I managed to contract some sort of stomach bug over Christmas, so I spent the majority of it alternating between puking my guts up and shivering under a blanket. My dreams were populated by images of dead friends being devoured by giant skeletal insects in the ruins of Hull's new bus station, and I became convinced that my neighbour was plotting to drive me Read more...

Poetry - Let's Call Her Crystal Now By Joe Hakim

Bump into a girl I used to go to school with in town, she used to be called JXXXX- let's call her Crystal now. When we see each other    Read more...

Poetry - Today's Climate By Joe Hakim

As the fear pours out of every television speaker, congealing into the bitter ink on the headlines on the front of all the papers, we prepare ourselves for the hordes of paedophiles    Read more...

Fiction - The Prodigal Son By Joe Hakim
	stuck in my room again/ looking up at the blinds/ gaffa-taped shut, keep out the light/ single beam escapes through a gap/ one piece of light concentrating on the wall/ imagine it to be hot like a laser/ imagine the smoke rising up like a spirit/ but it's not there, not there at all/ it's only in my head/ only in my head Read more...

Poetry - Albert Hoffman's Bicycle By Joe Hakim

Falling off, falling out, in my mind there is no doubt that everyone is truly alone when surrounded by the    Read more...

Music Reviews - The Flaming Lips at the Manchester Apollo By Joe Hakim
	The guy behind the desk barely lifted his eye-lids to speak to us. I had to reach over and point to my name in the book. "Oh yeah," he said, as he said as he highlighted my name. "Your room's upstairs." After I got my shit together I went downstairs to the bar. It quickly became apparent that this half man/half tortoise was acting as barman Read more...

Music Reviews - Leeds Festival - Part One By Joe Hakim Photos By Stuart Mountain and Mak
	My mates decided to throw a party the night before we were due to set off for Leeds. I initially thought about taking it easy, but the alcohol began to flow and before I knew it I was as pissed as a fart. Some of my mates went outside to have a game of football in the street, so I necked a half and sat on the windowsill and watched them play. Unfortunately, Read more...

Music Reviews - Wednesday 9th August 06 - Prologue to Leeds: The Unsigned Bands Showcase at The Welly By Joe Hakim Photos By Mo
	So I get up late, overwhelmed by an uncontrollable lust for hummus. Goddamn those funky mashed up chick peas, I can't get enough. I'm still managing to hold onto my common-as-fuck credentials though - I eat it with chips. Putting my nibbles issues aside, I get my shit together and head off to The Welly to see the Carling stage warm-up event, Read more...

Fiction - The Service By Joe Hakim
	I'm a professional. I get the job done. It's already getting dark as I arrive at the station. I make my way past the perimeter fence and park my car in the shelter. So begins the process of shedding everything that makes me who I am, in order to become somebody else. You can never tell what kind of night it's going to be, so even now after all this time the anticipatory adrenalin Read more...

Poetry - Fake Plastic Socialist Poets By Joe Hakim

Bleating like sheep, repeating the same old tired shit over and over again. Like a washed up nightclub singer doing requests, you beat on your chests in a rhythm I've heard    Read more...

Poetry - The Undiluted Genius Of Arnold Schwarzenegger By Joe Hakim

What the hell are you? Billy, get to the chopper. See you at the party, Hauser. Let off some steam, Bennet. I will terminate obesity in all    Read more...

Fiction - Dig Your Own Hole By Joe Hakim
	Things were going well. We were on schedule and under budget, Chris Chambers, so my boss was chuffed to bits. "It's going to be a good year," he said slapping me on the back, a huge shit-eating grin plastered across his face. As he looked around the building site, he tipped back his hard-hat and his chest expanded like a proud father watching at his children running around. Read more...

Poetry - Thoughts Broken Like Glass On A Pavement Outside The Pub By Joe Hakim

I don't check what they are before I take them just throw them into the back of my mouth like a giant radioactive lizard from a comic book eating the general public    Read more...

Fiction - The Morning After By Joe Hakim
	They'll be here soon. There's nothing much to do other than wait, so I make another strong cup of coffee and light up another cigarette. Even these seemingly arbitrary actions are cast into a new focus now. This patch of time I'm occupying is a bridge - a bridge that spans the space between the way my life used to be and the way it's going to be. I look around my living room Read more...

Fiction - In A Room By Joe Hakim
	I wish there were bars so I could hold them, wrap my fingers around the cold steel and press my face in between them, but it's just a room, I'm in a dark room with no windows and no features, so I just sit and think and think and think. I am a captive, a hostage in a foreign country. I'm apart from my family and friends and I don't know if I'll ever see them again. Every so Read more...

Poetry - Available On Demand By Joe Hakim

Watching a girl called Erica Yates masturbate on my mate's mobile phone. 'She's from Bransholme, and on this bit you can actually hear her moan,'    Read more...

Fiction - Buried In The Past By Joe Hakim
	Arriving back in Hull, the first thing that hits me is just how much hasn't changed. As I walk down Princes Ave, I look at all the café bars that have sprang up to replace the odd little shops and businesses that used to line it, but it still feels the same somehow. There's a kind of progress, I suppose - even if progress means it's starting to resemble everywhere else in Britain - Read more...

Poetry - Just The Way It Is By Joe Hakim

Scraping by on the minimum wage, my life in a cage, counting down the days until I next get paid, watch the money come in, watch it fly out again    Read more...

Album Reviews - The Bonnitts - Soldier (Demo) By Joe Hakim Photos by Darren Rogers - The Bonnitts at The Sesh 13th December 2005
	Well, thank fuck for The Bonnitts. Just when I was starting to think that the Hull music scene was in danger of disappearing up its own arse, along comes this blinder of an EP to totally change my mind. I'm going to rattle on about Soldier for a while, because it is, quite simply, the best thing I've heard in a long time. It kicks off with a sublime guitar-line, coupled with singer Mike Wright Read more...

Music Reviews - Monday 27th March 06 - Raw-UK Launch at The Welly By Joe Hakim Photos by Darren Rogers
	So the night starts with me getting my wires crossed and spending twenty minutes standing outside the wrong venue. It's freezing cold and it takes two cigarettes to make the correct synapses in my brain fire up, and then I realise my mistake. Somewhat sheepishly I make my way to The Welly, my face half paralysed by the wind. Once I get there I have the task of actually Read more...

Fiction - Two Sides : A Friday Night Out In Hull By Joe Hakim
	I'm just finishing off at work, watching the clock and loading the pot-wash with plates and cups, waiting for Sarah to start her shift so I can go home. It's been a really busy day, so I'll be glad to see the back of the fuckin' place. I've been working at Sparks cafè bar on Newland Ave for over a year, but it's only been in the past couple of months it's got really busy. Fridays are Read more...

Poetry - Response To Those Who Doubt (You know who you are) By Joe Hakim

Dead from the neck up motherfuckers, taking me to task for the thing they lack: a passion that burns and erupts    Read more...

Fiction - Gloomy Sunday By Joe Hakim
	As we got closer I could see it framed against the horizon. From this distance it just looked like a huge black shape, like a giant lump of coal or something. "Jeezus, it's huge," I said. "Yeah, I'm guessing it's a male," Mike said. "Could be about fifty tonnes of whale washed up down there." Mike was a marine biologist. He'd been given the task of studying Read more...

Poetry - We Are All Cartoons Now By Joe Hakim

Setting up a trap the immaculate disappointment capped off with regret, things we could have changed or done    Read more...

Fiction - The Guy Who Had All The Time In The World By Joe Hakim
	Sometimes it gets to be a bit too fuckin' much, I decide, after another day spent wandering the streets aimlessly. The sky is still bright purple - the colour of a fresh bruise - and the streets are still completely silent; not even the sound of birds chirping or distant traffic in the distance. Aside from that, everything seems to be much the same, at least on the surface. There's no visible Read more...