Patrick Widdess

Patrick Widdess is the host of Headstand, an eclectic music and spoken word show on Cambridge's community radio station Cambridge 105. He hosts a monthly poetry night which is recorded and broadcast on the show.
   

He is a poet himself and performs regularly in Cambridge and sometimes further afield. His work has appeared in publications including Orbis and The Guardian. 

www.patrickwiddess.co.uk

How to catch an octopus

Familiarise yourself with salt water.
Bathe and brush your teeth with it.
Use it as perfume.
Drink a little at meal times.
Keep an ice cold tank
and submerge your hand for one hour daily.
Do not clench your fist.
Let your hand float free beneath the water.
Over time your fingers will become blubbery
flex the joints so they move with any current.
When you can lift a dinner plate using only your flat palm
find a rock or take a boat out
and wait for your five legged octopus to find a companion.
Do not grab too soon or resist the draw of the ocean.
Wait till you forget you are waiting
and your hand swims deeper.

String

I went around the neighbourhood collecting bits of string. I tied them together until I had a long enough piece then attached a tin can to either end. I gave one to my brother, who was going to India for a year. When he arrived the string just reached, and our voices travelled sharp and clear across the continents.
    He said he’d forgotten his reading glasses so I hung them on the string, raised my arm and they slid down the line. He sent us packages of incense, sweets and a teapot in the shape of the Taj Mahal. We would sometimes get interference when birds perched on the line or someone walked into it. Once a knot came undone in the middle and I had to walk half way across Europe to fix it.