Month: April 2021

Good Morning Mr Magpie, by Teresa O’Connor


By Robert Garnham

Good Morning Mr Magpie

So how is life in your new job?
It couldn’t be simpler
Your brush stroke always black
Not a hint of light
Only your face calico white

Do you still magnify a molehill?
Huff and puff it into a peak
like the Reek and talk is cheap
And have you climbed it yet?
Oh! and don’t forget your umbrella

And whose ear do you burn now?
You’re a gossip blogger, I hear
Always knew you as a luddite
But then you usually found someone
useful just around the corner

By now you must have genius status
It takes a lot of time to be a genius,
you have to sit around so much
doing nothing, really doing nothing

Teresa O’ Connor-Diskin’s poems have been published or forthcoming in The Galway Review, Skylight 47, Dodging the Rain, Vox Galvia, The Irish Farmers Journal and she was shortlisted for Poems for Patiences 2019.
One of her poems has been added to Poetry in Lockdown collection at the James Joyce Library UCD

 

The Emperor and the Daddy, by Michael Allsopp


By Robert Garnham

The Emperor and the Daddy

I am a Great Emperor attracted by the light of the many Moons and you are a Daddy Long Legs, are you ready to dare enter the court of man, where there are so many rooms.

Whilst I flap and flutter you just rest now on the bottom of the door and when the door is opened, just the tiniest ajar, in we’ll go and muster, dancing in afar.

But, dear Great Emperor this is not a game, these men inside these courts I’ve heard they’re not quite so tame and their children act so beastly, grab my wings, pull off a leg, so I no longer can fly, surely to enter is to be murdered and to die.

Don’t be silly, as Emperor I’ll sit majestically in the corner of a wall, these beasts if to kill me would have to be like seven foot tall. I’ll claim this my castle and my Kingdom if you break-in with me, we won’t become of fate, in fact once inside you might find a loving long legged mate.

Now I’m dancing in excitement at the thought of finding love, so glad that you did tell me, thank you Emperor Moth, I’ll float in through any window for I have such little time and desperate to find a mate and of course it’s dark now and getting rather late.

So, these beasts of these courts, to be greeted by a spindly bug and a buzzing ball of fluff turns them into murderers, sounding sort of huff. The light of their many moons, trance us into a trap, oh no what is happening as I hear a cloth being rapped.

The moth takes off again and again as the beast takes aim, circling at eye level now and seems to have lost rudder control, smacking into the walls in this deathly game. He circles lower and lower, spinning around a moon in tighter revolutions, like a soap sud over an open drain. A few times he seems to touch the light but dances off unhurt but the beast succeeded and reduced him to dirt.

Now I dance and flit and plead don’t kill me I am not full of venom and I cannot bite, I was just attracted by the lure of your lights but I can feel a leg detach and a searing sensation of pain, I was just looking for a mate and now death be my fate.

I dream of flower beds and grasslands and wooded coppice, free with all the wildlife and pretty flowers and trees. But here I am dying inside this court of man, slain a slow death as I dream of flying across the Great Gromboolian Plain.

 

Enrichment, by Katherine Noone


By Robert Garnham

Enrichment

When you shake the family tree,
my branch will yield no heirs, no heirlooms.
Mired in brambles, curved
clinging to the garden wall.

Look,
a restless robin lingers there.
A wind chime tinkles heavenly tones,
in the gentle evening breeze .

Hold back the pruning shears.

Katherine Noone’s first  poetry collection ‘Keeping  Watch’ was published by Lapwing  Publications in 2017. Shortlisted Vallum Poetry Award (Montreal).Her poems have appeared in Orbis, Crannog, Boyne Berries, Linnets Wings, Skylight 47, Vallum digital edition, A New Ulster,Ropes.  Poethead. ‘Out Here’ was published in 2019.

 

The World Has Run Out of Curry, by Nigel Lloyd


By Robert Garnham

The World Has Run Out Of Curry

It came to my attention last night that the world has run out of curry
I woke up this morning in a cold sweat with my head all full of worry
The one I had last Friday may have been my last
I never thought that curry would be a thing of the past.

What am I going to do without my Vindaloo?
There’s only so much pepper you can add to Irish stew
I am thinking of all the plain food and how to pep it up a bit
I hope they haven’t run out of chillies or were really in the shit.

There’s no more Biryani, no more Keema Nan
The spice suppliers have closed their warehouse
and sold their fleet of vans
There’s no more Tikka Masala, no more Beef Madras
The government have declared a state of emergency
And the Pope has cancelled mass.

There’s talk of foreign countries
Going to invade in our weakened state
The news channel headlines refer to Tandoori Gate
All the politicians are keen to show they care
There’s even a Curry Crisis Celebrity Special
Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

I am really starting to panic now with all these thoughts I’ve had
I reach over and wake my wife and tell her things are bad
I wait for her reply as the news given might sound odd
She said “go back to sleep there’s plenty of curry
You dreamt it you silly old sod”.

Nigel Lloyd lives in rural Donegal and has had poems published in several magazines
From Crannog to Progressive Rock Magazine, he also had a poem featured on
BBC Radio Ulster Soundscapes programme and was a finalist in the
Bring your Limericks to Limerick competition 2018 and a finalist in
The Piano Academy of Ireland Limerick competition 2021.

www.nigellloydpoet.com

 

Honorificabilitudinitatibus, by Mohammad Zahid


By Robert Garnham

Honorificabilitudinitatibus

This is no gasconade, do I need to depone
or cull an imprimatur to asseverate
that I am pretty good at anamnesis
I am no lamb that you may calumniate
for having muddied your waters flowing down from you
Your puissant depredation shall yield you no more
I’ve grown intransigent tenaciously
My skin has overgrown your claws
My heart, deaf to your war cries
My silence, louder that your vociferation.
Scan your fortress walls there’re cracks
My determination has insinuated in them
Your shields, armours have grown questionable
For, spears of my sight shall pierce them athwart
Count your days, despot,
I’ve etched my ingress to emerge
Honorificabilitudinitatibus

Mohammad Zahid is a poet and translator from Kashmir, India. His maiden poetry collection The Pheromone Trail bagged 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

 

Openings, by Mary Lee


By Robert Garnham

Openings

Henry Moore walks sideways
on the stairway down to the cellar –

keeps his eyes on the lighted doorway,
frightened of the dark as he fetches
apples for his coalminer father. Henry,
needs to find a way out,

remembering the crypt and the sun
struggling to press through the slag
heaps and the cavernous subterranean
world of his youth’s landscape. He sculpts

stone; the light enters through its
many openings.

chiselled poems– pursue precision,
may puzzle – a glimmer’s enough –
the tiniest ray, a wave, crossing
distance like sound – immensely faster.

Mary Lee’s poems have been published nationally and internationally; including Skylight 47; Orbis; The Galway Literary Review; Poems for Patience competition, (highly commended, 2018) Crannog; The Poet’s Quest for God, 2016 (anthology, Eyewear Publications, UK); Dodging website; A New Ulster website; The Wild Word website; Her work has been broadcast on A Living Word, RTE Radio 1. Mary’s second poetry collection Everyday Epiphanies is due in 2021.

 

Dr Queenie May, by Sally McHugh


By Robert Garnham

Dr Queenie May | she/her

Dr Queenie May is an awful state
Hard working academic, a lot on her plate
Colleague of the Dean of Improbable Possibilities
A woman of integrity and acutely high abilities.
Dr Queenie May designs robust measures
Of students opinions, though not heeded, what treasures!
Nominated for excellence in research and teaching
Another honour for LinkedIn and some serious retweeting.
‘Assessing Assessment’ webinar, she needs to sign on
Dr Queenie May tells herself it won’t take long!
Committees on committees, all the day through
Four hour zooms with the camera on, troubling too.
‘Can you oblige? We have no woman for the panel
It’s an issue with which we must graciously grapple’
Committee-ing with the Dean of Desperate Dissertations
He suggests she produce some collegiate presentations.
Dr Queenie May devised a prototype app
For struggling academics, a clear word map
Her jargon generator runs on full poop
As she chairs the Diversity in Inclusive Communities sub-sub-group.
Dr Queenie May longs for time to renew,
When she can catch up on her writing, publications, reviews
When will they give her a free weekend?
Some yoga, mindfulness, time to mend.
With a string of publications, and a professorship in the bag
Dr Queenie May suffices with an odd quick shag
While the Dean of Wild and Wicked Atlantic Ways
Golfs his way around greens on yellow sunny days.
She knows no other life, bound to academia
No family, partner, children, just a house in suburbia
Grant proposals, funding, where is the time?
Dr Queenie May is driven to ‘doing a line’.
She needs an external outlet to let off steam
So she’s on Twitter as the academic dot queen
She vents her anger tweet by tweet
The Dean of Succulent Stoicism suggests they meet.
Dr Queenie May has just had enough
Time to set her generator to engender gruff
She sets the auto-reply on her phone and email
‘Sod off! I’m the new Executive Director of my own ship’s sail.’

Sally McHugh lives in the West of Ireland. She has published poems in ROPES 18 (2018) and The Blue Nib (2019).

 

After the . ., by Siobhan Potter


By Robert Garnham

After the

…Suffering divine Jesus Christ almighty
Grant me the serenity to be an utter fucker
Grant me paucity of desire
Render that further into scarcity
Grant me the courage to change all I
Hold in contempt and still hold them
Grant me a dictatorship of vegans and
Wisdom whilst wielding a
Hand held tongue remover
Let me crow lyrical
Give me sleight of hand. No more
Sitting at home writing poetry
Let me fly- fleet of foot in
Boots of zoom leagues from
Open mic to open mic, garnering
Lines and concepts from the
Unpublished work of newcomers to
Plaster online and call my own. Take
Your only begotten son from his cross
Nail me on. Re-crucify him, because
I am worth it. Take everything so
I can write. Leave nothing but
Poetry. No lover nor kin, nor dog, be
Damned. Take my bitterness, leave me
Nothing to warm me but
Occasional spite. Then take that
Leave me reasonably content. Then
Come down, from on high on the
Backs of all four horsemen, so fast
That you trample the reaper
Leave me here in the woods, training for
Life. When I am proficient, have me
Eat fruit from the lonely tree and
Be driven back to the village I
Burned to the ground, with an
Olive branch, its adjoining tree and a spade
Make me fit in. Do—or
Let me never forget why I don’t
Take away access to the cupboard under
The stairs. Leave the stairs, so I
Neither remember nor forget
Make me love again
Fiercely
Wholly and holy
Have me swoon and gush and
Let it end there, on a corner
Let that light shine on me
Have me die in no doubt, my
Work here remains undone, that
My next job is lined up, and
That Mother is there

Waiting…

Siobhan Potter Bio
Siobhan Potter is a verbal artist.Her practice centred in relationship explores the capacity of oral epic poetic form to midwife experience. She has poetry published in oral and print form, curates ‘not the time to be silent’ and is a recipient of an Arts Council of Ireland Literature Project Award 2021

Twitter @soma_psyche

 

You Gave me a Geranium, by Robert Garnham


By Robert Garnham

You liked me enough to give me a geranium

You gave me a geranium.
I said,
‘You know I’m not into salad.’
You said, ‘It’s a houseplant.
Not even you could kill this’.

But it was your way of saying
I love you.
The geranium sat there in passive,
Filtering C02 and judging me,
Reporting back my foibles and transgressions,
Taking photographs
When it should have been taking
Photosynthesis.

But you looked at me,
Your eyes as dopey as a spaniel,
And I forgave you your hardy annual.
‘When will it flower and bloom?’, I asked.
‘When will it light up my room?
When will its scent take to the breeze,
Provide pollen for the bees,
Put me at my ease,
Probably make me sneeze,
Each one of which is
One eighth of an orgasm,
That eight of these
And I should think of you?’

That night I trailed my fingers through a box of
J. Arthur Bowyer’s Syncho-Boost Houseplant Compost,
And it reminded me of you, Pete.
The geranium made me complete, Pete.
My life so recently deplete, Pete,
Of love,
Now suddenly filled like the pot,
This upturned cranium
With the roots of the geranium,
Need I explainium?
Sorry for being a painium.

Because you liked me enough
To give me a plant
And I liked you enough
To keep it
Pot it, plant it, deadhead it,
Water it, feed it, treat it for greenfly,
I even gave it a name, ‘Dirty Liza’,
Because she liked her fertiliser.
Every time I looked she was there
And still alive because I still care
And even though you eventually
Disappeared
Like the pests I treated,
Like the greenfly,
I never did
Glean why
You gave it to me to begin with,
Suffice to believe
You liked me enough
To give me a geranium.

Robert Garnham has been performing comedy poetry around the UK for ten years at various fringes and festivals, and has had two collections published by Burning Eye. He has made a few short TV adverts for a certain bank, and a joke from one of his shows was listed as one of the funniest of the Edinburgh Fringe. He was recently an answer on the TV quiz show Pointless. Lately he has been writing short stories for magazines and a humorous column in the Herald Express newspaper. In 2020 he was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Robert is the editor of Spilling Cocoa. His website can be found at https://professorofwhimsy.com

 

Particles, by Marcus Bales


By Robert Garnham

Particles

With Einstein, we have gone too far to call
Him real. That’s antithetical
To physicists like him, who, after all,
Are purely theoretical.

The cop asked Werner how fast he was going.
When writing up a speed citation.
Heisenberg said stopped there is no knowing,
But he did know his location.

Schroedinger’s box — it doesn’t matter that
It’s opened or remains still closed.
There doesn’t even have to be a cat —
It’s only meant to be supposed.

There’s rumor that there is a tape-recorder,
Paul Dirac is heard to talk
And place his normal evening take-out order
For himself: a Pizza Dirac.

“Minnesota Twins?,” asked Wolfgang Pauli
“Don’t give me any crooked spin
And if they are identical, by golly,
There’s no state they can both be in.”