BORING
10 minutes into wandering
through an M&S petrol station
I realised I’d forgotten my headphones
and the podcast I thought was boring
was in fact two middle aged men behind me
chatting about A roads.
Carl Burkitt likes to tell tales. He tells long tales, short tales, silly tales, sad tales and likes to tell them online, behind a mic, in books, in schools or on the sofa with his young family in London. Read more at www.carltellstales.com
How to read at an open mic
When it’s your turn to read
make quite sure you’re still muted.
People like to watch you mouthing.
Spend most of your time
shuffling through your papers, saying,
‘I’m sure I’ve got it somewhere.’
Give a long, rambling introduction
about how your father used to go fishing
only this poem isn’t about that.
Keep your head down over your copy
or hunch up, squinting at your phone.
At all costs avoid facing the camera.
Ideally, print your poems
on the back of private documents
and hold them up in front of your face –
bills and bank statements are ideal.
That way you’ll keep the audience’s interest
and get lots of comments in the chat.
Read in a poetry voice that goes up
wherever you’d expect it to go down.
Draw out the last syllable of each line.
If you read a second poem,
say, ‘I’ve only just written this
and haven’t managed to revise it yet.’
Before you finish, do apologise –
if you haven’t done so already –
for not having written your poems better.
Sit staring vacantly afterwards
so people don’t know if you’re done
then forget to mute your coughs and slurps of tea.
4 By Bloody 4’s
Huge SUV, 4 by bloody 4,
Parked right outside my front door.
In narrow Edwardian city streets,
Those 4 X 4’s like to retreat.
I can admire the metallic paint,
That the late evening sun warmly glints.
But there is no light streaming through,
My tall beckoning windows as it ought to do!
The pollution that these vehicles exhale,
Dust’s lungs and glass in dirty veils.
My city is not 4 X 4’s natural habitat,
Country lanes and tracks is where that’s at.
But what about the snow!
4 by four drivers want to know.
Well in our cities, those 2 days a year,
Mean you should stay at home and drink beer.
Lisa Lopresti (she/her)is a poet from the statue toppling City of Bristol. She has been broadcast on BBC Radio Bristol and published in magazines and anthologies. Lisa performs in spoken word events and has found this both terrifying and exhilarating. She likes to convey poems to portray, this life.
https://lisa-lopresti-poetry.webnode.com/
Cocks
Things were never easy
nor were they hard
The conflict was an unending one
with seven blind men groping the elephant
rightly at all wrong places.
For the onlookers it was a comic show
For the blind men a harsh reality.
The hens kept clucking
Perhaps giggling at the eternal dilemma
Humans faced while deducing
the evolutionary equations
about who came first,
the clucking hens
or their encapsulated embryos.
The poor cocks were left unattended
Till they ran unbridled
like their human homonyms.
They too sometimes became easy
and sometimes hard.
Mohammad Zahid is a poet and translator from Kashmir, India. His maiden poetry collection The Pheromone Trailbagged the Best Book Award from the Academy of Art Culture and Languages, Jammu &Kashmir in 2015.
His poetry has appeared in many Indian and international journals. He is a translation editor for Kashmiri Language at Muse India and Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts.
Double Negative Party
There ain’t no party like a double negative party,
ain’t nothing better you can get.
You think that sounds exciting?
Well, you ain’t heard nothing yet!
There ain’t no party like a double negative party.
Nothing never felt so great!
Don’t never start till midnight
and don’t never end till really late.
You’ve heard that they’re “bad grammar”?
You’ve heard they “don’t make sense”?
You’ve heard they are “confusing”,
sound “uncouth” or “cause offence”?
The French use double negatives!
The Polish use them, too!
There ain’t no foreign language
that supports that snobbish view!
They were used by William Shakespeare
and Chaucer! Goodness sakes!
Ain’t no-one gonna tell me
Will and Geoffrey made mistakes!
There ain’t no party like a double negative party –
the guest list’s full of stars!
Ain’t no-one who is no-one
would give that bash a pass.
There ain’t no party like a double negative party –
Not nowhere in no nation.
No-one don’t want nothing else –
just an invitation.
Melanie Branton is a spoken word artist from North Somerset who is totally obsessed with cats, linguistics, Vikings and vegetables. Her published collections are Can You See Where I’m Coming From? (Burning Eye, 2018) and My Cloth-Eared Heart (Oversteps, 2017) melaniebranton.wordpress.com
Marc Maron
They say never meet your heroes,
but after a gig that
I had just commented
was breathtakingly crafted
and delivered with an ease I long for,
we passed the stage door
as Marc Maron walked out.
Thank goodness I needed to use
the ladies’ after the show
and that the queue
had been the exact length required
to facilitate this moment
is not what I said
as I shook Marc Maron’s hand.
But what I enjoyed most
was the way Marc Maron didn’t wait
for Neil to approach
but stepped towards him,
hand outstretched,
thus ending a seventeen-year loop
of disappointment, caused
by an underwhelming chance
encounter with Philip Glass.
Tina Sederholm is a performance poet and theatre-maker. Described as ‘Completely spellbinding’ ***** (Edfringe Review), she has created and extensively toured four solo shows, including six runs at the Edinburgh Fringe. This poem comes from her latest collection, This Is Not Therapy, published July 2021 by Burning Eye.
Quark
Mum is on a diet, is always on a diet
today’s wonder ingredient, low calorie Quark.
‘Come on,’ she says,
wicker shopper over one arm,
‘we’re going down to Budgen’s.’
I pull on my boots
we reach the chill counter
via the Walnut Whips, Mum searches,
cream cheese with or without chives
cottage cheese, with or without most things,
Lancashire, Wensleydale, Cheddar
Edam and Gouda, no Quark
Toby, who went my school, stands
dreamily replenishing stocks of hazelnut yoghurt,
Mum approaches, ‘Quark?’
Toby, nonplussed, bends his six foot frame, silently,
Mum, thinking him hard of hearing, repeats
at volume, ‘Quark! Quark!’
Her mouth lost for words
she searches for gestures to express her need
I backtrack to Walnut Whips,
Toby’s eyes glossily imply that nothing in his brief training
has equipped him to deal with a woman
who thinks she is a duck.
Trisha has had three pamphlets published by Dempsey and Windle. She is a regular contributor to Surrey Libraries Poetry Blog and has a regular poetry spot on her local radio. Humour escapes from her work regardless of any constraints applied. https://www.facebook.com/Trisha-Broomfield-Poetry-2340859049276291
MOURNING WHAT HE LOST
Steve found it boring caressing his hair each morning
because his hair was arrogant, luxuriant and elegant.
He never thought one day he’d need a transplant
for the 2 foot Mohican attached to his cranium.
Hair dyed pink geranium and not bright cerulean, maroon,
bubble gum, cinnamon, electric crimson or even violet-red (medium).
He poured cereal into a bowl then found he had no milk.
His blessed day had shattered, gone belly up, shattered
and his hair had fallen out. He could no longer caress,
flout, shout or watch sprout from his cranium
hair dyed pink geranium and not bright cerulean, maroon,
bubble gum, cinnamon, electric crimson or even violet-red (medium).
All his hair had vanished but one remained and thrived
and each morning he combed, shampooed and conditioned,
trimmed, pinned and gelled that strand so it lay flat on his head.
Then he lost that single hair as it departed his cranium.
A single hair dyed pink geranium and not bright cerulean, maroon,
bubble gum, cinnamon, electric crimson or even violet-red (medium).
What should Steve do with it? Have it displayed or framed,
dipped in formaldehyde, electroplated or suffer immersion
in alcohol? Steve must let everyone know a 2 foot Mohican
once flourished on his now empty cranium.
That hair dyed pink geranium and not bright cerulean, maroon,
bubble gum, cinnamon, electric crimson or even violet-red (medium).
Rodney Wood lives in Farnborough, co-host the monthly Write Out Loud (Woking) and is widely published.
Lockdown Haircut
(Printed in Write Out Loud charity anthology ‘Beyond The Storm’ – Poems From The Covid 19 Era.)
She says I need my haircut,
I look like a mad professor,
She’s gonna drag me into town
Leave me there with her hairdresser.
I remind her there’s a ‘Lockdown’,
Every hair salon is closed.
And while she ponders what to do
My hair just quietly grows.
Yes, she says I need my haircut,
Every minute, it gets longer,
Well, perhaps i’m like that Samson bloke,
While it grows, I’m getting stronger.
I know it’s not been touched for months,
But I just could not care less,
I can’t go out, so no one can see
That my Barnet is a mess.
Still, she says I need my haircut,
As she ties me to a chair,
Grabs the wallpaper scissors
and starts hacking at my hair.
She ignores my screams when snipping blades
Give my ear a painful prod,
It seems she honed her hair cutting skills
From watching Sweeney Todd.
So, I no longer need my hair cut,
At my feet, in clumps, it’s scattered,
She’s hacked and slashed, I’ve lost an ear
And my poor nerves are bloody shattered.
This Lockdown just brings misery
And it seems there’s no relief,
Because now she’s found some pliers
And is eyeing up my teeth!
Mogs (aka John Morris) has written poetry since the late 1970’s. He retired from an IT career in 2003 because of failing eyesight. He regularly performs at open mic events.
Books published
‘Poems Your Parents Won’t Like’ – for ‘children’ aged upto 100.
‘Griff’ – children’s novel.
The Puissant Penguin of Portsmouth
Partaking of pork, and port, and peas
Roguishly reclining in his sedan chair
Entirely at his ease
Said unto his bearers:
‘What days, what times are these
When an avuncular avine such as myself
Can be so perfectly pleased?
Here am I in my sedan chair
Borne by such stout young men
And hither and yon you take me
Bound by my every whim
The people of Portsmouth they give me,
Cheered by my sleek black form,
Port and pork and prunes and pies
And all other good things under the sky
For such is the birdish beauty
Of my flippers and claws and beak,
That all those who see me realise
Unknowing, it is I they seek
And knowing they bow down before me
Knowing they bend the knee
My beauty; it overwhelms them
They shall have no God but me
And thus here I am reclining
Borne by such bold lads as these
And thus do I partake of pork and port
Entirely at my ease.’
