Month: August 2016

What’s the John Dory? by Susan Evans


By admin

Message in a bottle; excuse my Squid ink scroll.
To my darling John Dory, my fellow tortured Sole.

You’re in another Plaice, but I just want you to know,
I don’t think you a Pollock; I love our ebb & flow.

Monsieur Mussel, you put the Rainbow in my Trout;
I’m like Wild Salmon when we dive & splash about.

& when I’m feeling Crabby you don’t try to suck me in;
you’re gentle & protective fending off those Crayfish twins.

The world’s our Lobster in my aqua fantasy;
you & I go deep, making under water alchemy.

Playing all of your top Tuna, on your favourite Sea Bass,
I swim, you sing: ‘I see you baby (shakin’ that ass)’.

Alas, I cannot be your Mermaid ‘plenty more fish’ says head;
you’ve a Dover Sole mate; shan’t put my Roe in one seabed.

I can be a Tiger Prawn but you can see that I’m no Snapper.
Okay, I find you dishy & your swim suit’s very dapper.

But be more Monk fish; your Sole mate’s down at Eel.
I’m just a red Herring & I’ve no wish to steal.

Without you, I’ll feel gutted; be like losing a fin.
But you’re caught; could be worse, could be Sardines in a tin.

Susan Evans is widely published; online & in print; appearing in: The High Window, Ink, Sweat & Tears, The Journal, Message in a Bottle, Nutshells and Nuggets, Obsessed With Pipework, and Snakeskin, among numerous others. A Brighton-based Performance poet, Susan was nominated Best Spoken Word Performer in the Saboteur Awards, 2016.

website

 

Funeral by Meg Barton


By admin

I go to people’s funerals
So they will come to mine.
Just think of the embarrassment
If nobody had a good time.

And what if the sausage rolls were off?
I’d be the joke of the town.
Or everyone laughed at the music I chose?
I’d never live it down.

I’d better prepare a detailed plan
I’d better be nice to my friends
Or nobody’s going to shed a tear
Or come to my funeral again.

Meg Barton lives in Oxford, and has been published in a few magazines including The Interpreter’s House and Lighten Up Online.

 

The Internet Dating Profile Song by Josa Young


By admin

Bibble bobble
Stomachs wobble
Ciggies burn
Turkey necks gobble
Men with blondes
And men with bikes
Pints of beer…
Is that a pike?
Downturned mouths
And grey complexions
Urgent words
To make connections
Sofa snuggles
Grammar struggles
Nostrils gape
And stream and bubble
Desperation leaks from screens
‘I just want love!’
They seem to scream.
And yet among that sickly crew
There is the odd exception…

You

Josa Young is a novelist and copywriter. Her two novels One Apple Tasted and Sail Upon the Land are out there somewhere being read. She was a decent poet up until puberty, and has taken to verse again as all the creative frenzy of childbearing has faded.

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A New Beginning by Norman Hadley


By admin

When the Wilsons judged that they were halfway through the marriage,
they hired a jobbing surgeon-friend
to sever their heads
to sew back on
but swapped around.

They spent their second twenty years
apologising for a million insensitivities
but the sex was fantastic.

Norman Hadley is an engineer and mathematician who writes poetry, short fiction, children’s fiction and cycling-related nonfiction to keep all the hemispheres occupied. He’s produced five poetry collections so far and frenetic participation in Jo Bell’s “52” project has generated sufficient material for five more.

website

 

Bulb by Gillian Mellor


By admin

You screwed me, your hands all over me.
Used me to illuminate your fantasies.
What now? Discarded on grounds
of efficiency. Replacements, handsome
as cows’ udders dangle from fittings
instead of me. My filament remains cool.
Incandescence fading from memory.

Gillian Mellor lives near Moffat in Scotland. She has had poems published on and offline and can be traced to The Moffat Bookshop on the days they let her out.

 

Toilet Roll by Lesley Quayle


By admin

My life is crap.
You tear me up,
rip me apart, piece by piece.
You want me to be strong
but expect me still to be soft,
you use me, then discard me,
flush me from your life
even though I do all your dirty work.
The others ignore me now that I’m spent,
empty and hollow, squandered, depleted.
Only you seem able to rip me off,
throw me out, replace me so easily
with another.

Toilet Roll 2 – the sequel

I’m always with you.
Wherever you travel,
I’m there, sometimes unseen,
never out of reach.
Comfort and safety
are in the bag.
I’ll dry your tears
and blow your nose,
contain the worst of you.
If you fall, I’m there
to mop you up
and dust you down,
when you bleed,
I’m strong.
When life is shit,
I’m there for you.

Lesley Quayle is a widely published poet and a folk/blues singer currently living in deepest, darkest rural Dorset.

 

Love Poetry by Susan Jordan


By admin

Having found you were a poet, I knew then
I had to try to get us both to rhyme.
I dedicated hours of my time
to imagery of you, kept planning when

we’d meet again to workshop our shared verse,
crafting together each well-chosen line,
our assonance and alliteration fine-
ly tuned, our diction spare but never terse.

It didn’t happen. All my metaphors
foundered on your ellipsis, hit a rock
that broke their cadence. The poetic shock
severed our couplets, left me without yours.

If you hadn’t been a poet I’d have known
I was making verbal music on my own.

Susan Jordan has always written prose but until recently wrote poetry only from time to time. Inspired by 52, Jo Bell’s wonderful online group, she started writing a lot more poems. Her poems have appeared in print and online magazines including Prole, Obsessed with Pipework, Snakeskin and Ink, Sweat & Tears.

 

How to be an Extra Virgin by Pru Kitching


By admin

grow me slow and pick me quick
keep me hot but press me cold
taste me, sniff me, savour me slickly
handle me gentle and treat me like gold

bottle me green then screw me well in
package and label me, keep me apart
transport me safely from Italy, Spain
then shelve me and leave for some foody old fart

oh, forget it

Pru Kitching has worked at home and abroad in theatre and opera, was married to a painter, lives in beautiful Upper Weardale and is generally artsy fartsy. Her publications include two pamphlets: ‘All Aboard the Moving Staircase’ with Vane Women Press in 2004 and ‘The Kraków Egg’ with Arrowhead Press in 2009.

 

Richard by Peter Yates


By admin

They found his crown
under a thorn bush.
He could not get a horse
for love nor kingdom.
He completely failed
as an undercover parking attendant.

But he made damn sure
Damn sure
that he was disinterred
in timely fashion
to witness Leicester City
win the league.

Peter Yates is a playwright who has his own Theatre Company Random Cactus. He works with various charities and is a Theatre Critic at London Theatre 1.