48 pages
saddle stitched

exterior concept and design by Pablo Vision

The first entry in the Workers In Blood chapbook series is Frostbitten by Mark Walton. Mark does not merely write with blood, he wields his pen like a scalpel - marbling away fat and dead tissue with economy and precision. Frostbitten is not merely a collection of poetry, it's the literary equivalent of open heart surgery.

Mark Walton's poems fizzle with energy and capture the modern gay experience in all its many guises. - Paul Burston, Time Out London

I found Frostbitten lucid, harrowing and compelling. It's a cogent and passionate first collection shot through with hard-won self-knowledge.- Paul Magrs, novelist




Cerne Abbas


I’m striding up a grassy slope
bracing my body against its steepness.

Above me, over its brow,
a mid-day half-moon rises.
Faded goddess of fertility.

To my left, over the curve of its flank,
a priapic stone-cut giant hides
hemmed in by chicken wire.
Gulliver in Lilliput.

A family scramble up the hill behind me,
‘Daddy, Daddy, what’s behind the fence?’

The father turns, ‘Just a sign, Sweetheart,’
and catching my smile, he returns it.
Embarrassed at his embarrassment.
Seeking collusion in the protection of innocence.

At the top the north wind
robs the spring sunshine of its warmth
and I sit, meditating on the meaning
of the chalk-soft cock.
Rock hard for unknown hundreds,
maybe thousands, of years.

Its dubious provenance seems
a fitting symbol of its
masculine sexuality.
A big stone bastard,
obvious but unacknowledged.

The family,
mother, father, daughter, dog,
straggle up the incline towards me and I breathe deeper.

To my chest.
To my core.
To my groin.

And from somewhere deep inside
sadness rises.
The possibility of fatherhood twice undone
by the infectious conspiracy
of preference and pathology.

Another windblown future tumbles by.

Childhood laughter brings me back
to Dorset downland
struggling to spring to new life
in the persistent chill
of this protracted winter.

A lone butterfly dances back and forth through the fence
and birds, confidently nesting in topmost branches,
promise a fair summer.

I pick up a shard of chalk,
keepsake white fragment,
and rising to my feet
survey the village sheltered below.

Ordered.
Settled.
Domestic.

Breathing deep once more
take comfort in the wind whipped vigour of the hillside,
its hardness jolting through me
as I stride back down
the steep,
stubbled slope.

Chalk-stone slowly eroding to powder in my pocket.


The Allotment

I sit,
watching you stood there,
stretching backwards
into the hill.

Tracing the arc
of your body
with my
eyes.

Downslope,
birdscarers
(plastic bags
on bamboo sticks)
crackle archly
in the wind.
White and
noisy as gulls.

Above you,
a vibrant rainbow
curves against
the battleship clouds
gathering in
a far away,
sea blue sky.

And
in the gulf between,
I sit.

And as you stretch,
I trace the arc
of your body,
of the birdscarers,
of the rainbow,
of the hill itself.
Absently noting
the points of intersection
and anticipating war.

Not You

Lily white.
Rose red.
Cornflower blue.

Your face,
a conventional bouquet.

Artfully arranged.
Carefully dethorned.
Beautifully presented.

But soon
my appreciation wanes
and, in my imagination,
petals drop,
fade, decay.

Your scent,
brief intense intoxication,
turns to flower-water
rank stagnation.

Instead, give me a hedgerow.

Dog-rosed,
fruit-laden and
bramble-tangled.
The layered growth of seasons
and each season a new beginning.

Let me sit
cat-like for hours,
watching for the small movements
that will give away the secrets
that inhabit you.

Give me shelter,
as you dance in the capricious breeze.

Dapple my sunlight.

Come the night
let me learn
your nocturnal pathways,
and if I should dive into you,
let me emerge
bloodied and juice stained.

Give me tendrils not ribbons.
Give me roots not stems.
Give me fields not vases.

Damn your bouquet.
Give me a hedgerow.

• reviewed by Grievous Jones Press here.

“Mark Walton writes in his poem Plural Possessive, "We eat slivers of exquisite rarities," and that's exactly what these poems are themselves. Mark's attention to detail is extraordinary. It's obvious he's a true poet who "sat cat-like for hours" jabbing the keys, the blood in the ten wands of his hands throbbing, longing and far, far from frostbitten. And although a majority of the subject matter is "the hard truth of a winter’s night," Mark's passion for human connection and for the written word widens and widens: "Give me tendrils not ribbons/Give me roots not stems/Give me fields not vases/Damn your bouquet/Give me a hedgerow." Mr. Walton's outstanding craftsmanship is obvious, but it's his emotional release that will floor you. These poems save us, heal us "as the world turns on its own spit." And although the voice speaks of "scars" that will be "taken to the grave," there couldn't be a more flawless collection of poems in our hands.” - Rob Plath, author of A Bellyful Of Anarchy


"Frostbitten is the first in the Epic Rites series of chapbooks that is one of the more promising ventures in contemporary poetry. Mark Walton presents a tight collection of poetry that takes the reader into the gay scene in the contemporary UK and works organically as a mixture of classical articulate rhyming poetry with more modern thematic and lexical attributes. [T]he form is breathtaking, the words wound richly round each other like bodies, gay or otherwise, an articulate and well-written chapbook of which Mark Walton can be justifiably proud. Frostbitten is written in blood in the sense of passion and passionate engagement for the relational self and the other that makes it, but it is also remarkable for a vigorous and intricately articulate language, sensitive to each emotional and cognitive nuance of the well-chosen words.” - David McLean, author of Cadaver's Dance


"With its first foray into publishing, Epic Rites Press enters the small press arena with FROSTBITTEN by Mark Walton...a title that belies the power of this fiery collection of poems. To say that this book is powerful in its content is almost demeaning. This collection is more like a burning bag of dogshit, left on your doorstep! You want to stamp it out and get on with your day, but it gets into your soul and it lingers with you, even after you're done with it. Eventually, you must deal with it, must work at it before you can move on. Walton's poems are lean and honest, though they deal with hard realities. I look forward to future books by Mark Walton. And if this book is any indication of what Epic Rites can do, I say, "look out world! The small press may never be the same". - RD Armstrong, Lummox Press


"There's an electricity and fire to Mark Walton's Frostbitten. Sad, heroic, astonishing in its clear voiced honesty, Walton's work alternates between post-Punk and neo-Modernism. A razor sharp edge to each line, Walton will astonish you and, ultimately, surprise you as his work draws you deep into a world most people are either unaware, or uncomfortable to visit. Mark Walton is sharp, clever and honest and his new work, Frostbitten, will be an important and interesting addition to anyone's collection of poetry." - Jack Henry, author of With The Patience Of Monuments


"Epic Rites' first steps into the publishing world are most welcome. With Mark Walton, we are treated to a great start. Walton writes with a keen eye. These words pulse. The poems in Frostbitten radiate with an urgency that forces the reader's eye into devouring page after page, skipping from the flushes of love through to heartache and fear. Such urgency shows in the long poem ‘New Routine’ "I have new freedoms, and new deadlines./I have both the shortest/and the longest of times" This poetry deserves your attention." - Andrew Taylor, erbacce press

"the tension of frostbitten is established in the very first poem, The Results. This tension ripples through every line of text like a dangerous, unseen monster lurking beneath the alphabet - threatening at any given moment to rise up from the deep, dark nothingness and swallow the reader whole. Even, at times, lulled into a false sense of security in poems like Kandinsky's Tuba, the danger is never far away. Lines like "who knows where the bodies are buried/where the self-destruct button lies/and just how close the finger hovers over it" (For A Friend) remind us that the creature hasn't been defeated, but only temporarily subdued. frostbitten is not merely a collection of poetry, it's a balls deep, bone deep assault on the alphabet. As poet Suzy Devere put it, "frostbitten is like a poetry crime scene." Mark's book will hit you hard, knock you down and when you finally catch your breath and get back to your feet, you'll find yourself chilled to the bone and the embraces of the living will seem that much more warmer." - Wolf Carstens, epic rites press 

Mark Walton inhabits the back waters and the in-between places. He writes in order to share the realities of the life he lives, feels, dreams and observes. In doing so he seeks to shine a light into the darker recesses, to celebrate the magic of the ordinary and to bring the marginal and the oblique into plain view.

He lives and performs in London, England.