Month: April 2017

Two Poems from Nick Littler


By Robert Garnham

Vinyl #1

It’s my latest middle class obsession:
I’ve got into collecting vinyl records.
Yeah, I know it’s such a clichéd thing
To do, but there it is. And now it’s in
This poem I wrote, for which nobody asked.
Christ, I must be such an insufferable arse.

Vinyl #2

About two years ago I stopped abusing
Torrent sites to download all my music.
I got into the habit of travelling in
To town a couple of times a month to get
The things I wanted – CDs, books – and bringing
Them back, stuffed into plastic bags. And it
Was strangely satisfying. I had a routine.
About six months ago I changed it up.
I bought a record player – a pretty machine –
And started getting 33s. I stopped
At 78s. That seemed a step too far.
But I did come to love the faintly hissing
Needle in the groove. I took the car
To town at first, but much preferred the pissing
Rain to hit me straight. It seemed more pure
Somehow, the faintly hissing sound. I heard
The voice of angels in the noise, endured
The wetness and the din. I felt a certain
Calm. I sold the CDs and the books
And then the car. I didn’t want distractions
Anymore. And though I got some looks
From strangers, who considered it an infraction
When I gave my clothes away, it didn’t
Bother me. To friends, I bid good riddance,
Left my home, and ditched my family.
I ditched the record player. I was free.

 

Consommé Soup by Mike Gallagher


By Robert Garnham

Consommé Soup

The hardest winter since forty-seven,
they said, builders moved
indoors to the factory,
made soup,
pushed trolleys, hauled loads,
chatted up the girls.

Boring though –
till Eddy Lynch
strayed to the roof,
found the sherry,
(industrial grade),
secret ingredient
of Crosse and Blackwell’s
consommé soup.

Ah, sixty-three,
the coldest year,
the warmest year,
since freezing forty-seven.

Mike Gallagher, an Irish poet and editor, has been published and translated worldwide. He won the Michael Hartnett Viva Voce award in 2010 and 2016, the Desmond O’Grady International award in 2012 and was shortlisted for the Hennessy award in 2011.
His collection, Stick on Stone, is published by Revival Press.

 

The Battle Hymn of the Bowling Green Massacre by Marcus Bales


By Robert Garnham

The Battle Hymn of the Bowling Green Massacre

No eyes have seen a massacre occur at Bowling Green
As non-existent soldiers met with students never seen
Where Kellyanne’s imagination lit her silver screen
Her lies go marching on.

Dilatory allegory
Predatory oratory
Don’t believe her lying story
Her lies go marching on.

Her fictional protesters faced her fancied fascist troops
Her tragic death-toll changed into a legendary ‘Oops’
As all they did was wave their well-spelled signs in peaceful groups
Her lies go marching on.

Dilatory allegory
Predatory oratory
Don’t believe her lying story
Her lies go marching on.

She said it went uncovered by reporters of the news
That stations pulled their on-air talent with their camera-crews
But worse, she’s acting pouty that there’s no deaths she can use.
Her lies go marching on.

Dilatory allegory
Predatory oratory
Don’t believe her lying story
Her lies go marching on.

She has offered up her bullshit as if lying were a sport;
Each time she moves her lips she tells a tale that lacks support.
Is there no fact she won’t traduce, no truth she won’t distort?
Her lies go marching on.

Dilatory allegory
Predatory oratory
Don’t believe her lying story
Her lies go marching on.

In the mists of ghostly silence such a massacre occurred,
It’s meaninglessness celebrated by no deed nor word —
And to find that shes not fired for this kind of shit’s absurd.
Her lies go marching on.

Dilatory allegory
Predatory oratory
Don’t believe her lying story
Her lies go marching on.

 

Out of her depth by Beth McDonough


By Robert Garnham

Out of her depth

In a menace of goggles and tight-

fit cap, one woman strides to her first

Deep Water Aerobics Class. Breathed in

big attitude, she puffs chlorine out, squints 

for piled weights and floats. None spotted she 

plops in, tiles knees, clocks herself 

ensconced with a waft-aloft 

blue-rinsed crew. FAME!

Five minutes strapped in the spotty-dog 

dance, FAME! clap, she’s now

the woman she’d bubble mocked 

goggled from lanes. FAME! 

Six steps to the right, three 

claps overhead. She tries to wipe out

that infinite corn-plaster churn.

Beth McDonough writes often of foraging and Tay swimming. Her poetry appears in Agenda, Antiphon and elsewhere; she reviews in DURA. Her pamphlet Handfast (2016, with Ruth Aylett) explores family experiences – Aylett’s of dementia and McDonough’s of autism.
 
 

 

I Want to Live at Ikea by Keith Allan Welch


By Robert Garnham

when I’m tired of my house
all the dust and every mouse
I start to get ideas
about living at Ikea

I would sit upon a KIVIK
while ignoring every critic
or relax on an EKTORP
eating meatballs with a spork

while with the aid of ANTIFONI
read the work of Angioni*
with my feet up on a LACK
no, I’m never going back

to house or pied-à-terre
too much bother living there
although privacy I’d lack
people walking with their sacks

shopping willy-nilly
I would hide behind my BILLY
it would be my little Eden
in the shopping mart from Sweden.

* Giulio Angioni (leading Italian anthropologist, professor at the University of Cagliari, fellow of St Antony’s College of the University of Oxford), is the author of about twenty books of fiction and a dozen volumes of essays in anthropology.

 

Three Poems from Ben Banyard 


By Robert Garnham

Cubs, Do Your Best 

I learned knots

got tongue-tied.

 

Akela took us orienteering

but I was soon lost.

 

Cooking on the campfire

my sausages burnt on re-entry.

 

Promoted to seconder

I was at sixes and sevens.

 

When I met the chief scout

I had dog shit on my shoe.

 

Quid Pro Quo

 

I cashed £100

all in pound coins.

 

Went and freed

the chain gang:

 

emancipated

trolleys at Asda.

 

 

3.14159

 

I started to think

about how you’re

just like Pi.

 

Irrational, you

constantly

go on and on,

 

and I don’t really

understand you.
Ben Banyard likes a laugh as much as the next man. His pamphlet, Communing, was published by Indigo Dreams in 2016, and his first full collection, We Are All Lucky is due out in 2018. Ben edits Clear Poetry: https://clearpoetry.wordpress.com

 

Love Poem Number 943 by Joe Williams


By Robert Garnham

Roses are red

Violets are blue

I’ve written a poem

To say I love you

It’s full of cliché

And there’s no substance in it

That’s ‘cos I wrote it

In less than a minute

 
Joe Williams is a writer and performing poet from Leeds. He appears regularly at events in Yorkshire and beyond, telling silly stories about things that probably didn’t happen, with the occasional moment of heartbreak just to keep you on your toes. 
http://www.joewilliams.co.uk 

 

A quick message, and a poem from Robert Garnham


By Robert Garnham

Hello,

Just to let you know that I’m working through the submissions. I’ve been inundated! It’s great reading all the poems, quite inspirational in fact. If you haven’t heard from me yet, then don’t worry, you will.
Anyway, here’s one from me, just to demonstrate the sort of things I do. 

They’re all called ‘Poem’, by the way. I come up with the titles first, and then the poems just see, to write themselves.

Poem
You’ll like the countryside, she said,

There’s lots of scenery,

There’s lots of greenery.

There’s fields and trees and they’re all green,

Especially the evergreens,

The greenest evergreens you’ll ever see,

And there’s moss and dappled sun and rhododendrons,

And there’s villages and villages greens

And the village greens are green

And everyone eats their greens

And also some of the tractors are green.

But I like the city and there’s green here too.

The Starbucks logo is mostly green

And so is the fungus in the bus station.

And my friend Pete’s car is green

And so is the tie i was wearing yesterday,

And the traffic lights are occasionally green

And salt and vinegar crisp packets,

Again, green,

And the District Line is green

And it passes through Turnham Green

And even though the neon signs are multicoloured

You could probably turn em green

And in any case

People here are too busy eating donuts and hummus.

We frowned across the plastic

Bus station cafe table.

Her coat was green

And so was her luggage.

Tenderly, I asked,

Would you like some broccoli,

Just for the journey?

No thanks, she replied,

I’ve got an orange.

Robert Garnham is a spoken word artist originally from Surrey. He has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe for the last three years, and at various festivals and performance poetry nights including Bang Said the Gun, Hammer and Tongue, Evidently and Jawdance. His first collection ‘Nice’ was published by Burning Eye Books and he was longlisted as Saboteur Awards Spoken Word Artist of the Year in 2016 and 2017. He recently headlined at The Duplex in New York.

 

My Cat Suspects, by Tara Lynn Hawk


By Robert Garnham

I believe my cat suspects,

for as of late he has been rather “distant”

He thinks other cats in the neighborhood,

I have paid more than one visit

 

He is secretly checking my online accounts

for catnip and furry mice purchases

Gift wrapped and sent Federal Express

To other cat addresses

 

He senses other kitty smells

sniffing through my purse and bedding

Diligently looking over my clothing

for other feline shedding

 

My cat truly suspects

he is no longer the only one

and all I can say right now

is thank goodness

his little paws cannot handle a gun!
Tara Lynn Hawk is a San Francisco based \poet and writer whose work has appeared on “Spilling Cocoa”, “Spelk” and “The Poet Community”. “www.taralynnhawk.com”