I never wear knickers to breakfast
I never wear underwear
Until boiled eggs have been served
Everyone else is unaware
I never wear underwear
But they’ll never see any pubic hair
That would be undeserved.
I never wear underwear
Until boiled eggs have been served
Broccoli
If you have to eat broccoli,
gobble it cockily.
Flaunt it with pride,
don’t gulp it with guilt!
You’ve done nothing wrong –
it will make you grow strong,
for broccoli-eaters
are stockily built.
If you have to eat broccoli,
stick to it doggedly:
pick up your fork
and submit to your fate.
Don’t let it go cold
and disintegrate soggily.
Eat all that broccoli
up off your plate!
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
I Want to Be…
like Pam Ayres
and Victoria Wood.
Not care what others think,
and are highly talented.
I want to be a cross between Julie Walters and Buddy Holly.
Get your head around that!
I do not have the sideburns
or matching quiff
of dark suits and shades and sixties glitz.
I would have loved to have been Debbie Harry.
Blondie was just the biz.
Eighties punk rock glamour puss.
Name a celebrity you admire?
Chances are they are either still here,
or harps and lyres.
Shaken not stirred.
Bond had his last dance.
Sean Connery really was a class act.
The problem I am left with, is who I could choose to be?
Well, everyone else is taken, all that’s left is me.
Geraldine Ward is an author and poet from Kent. She has had work in ‘The Sunday Tribune,’ and ‘International Times’ among other publications. She enjoys playing the piano, cello and ukulele. Her twitter handle is @GWardAuthor
Evolution of a Complaint
Neanderthal man enters the cave
throws another carcass of deer
at Neanderthal woman’s feet.
Grunts and gesticulates towards fire.
Woman sighs loudly
throws arms up in exasperation
sets about preparation.
Always the same old meat.
He never cleans up the bones.
Not once has he covered the piss corner with dirt.
Same old charcoal for decorating the wall.
A bit of help with the babies would be nice.
He’s always out hunting with the guys.
I’d kill for a bit of mammoth
or red ochre
or a sleep on
Why can’t he just evolve and become a man?
Róisín Bugler is working on her TBW (to be written) pile. She was the winner of Strokestown Percy French prize for Witty Verse and runner up in the Padraig Colum International Gathering competition both 2019.
Gannet
Alice had a mallet
and she swung it at a gannet
as it swooped
to steal her sandwich at the beach
Then the gannet landed on the
sandwich,
and with malice
pecked her hand that held the mallet
till she screeched.
She was really bleeding
but the tide was not receding
so she swung again
and nearly cracked his head
In the great commotion
they were swallowed by the ocean
as they fought for ham and bread
and now they’re dead.
Catherine Doherty Nicholls
Winner of no Poetry Ireland Competition, or any other competition, no published debut collection, nothing printed anywhere yet.
Her poems have been nominated for nothing so she’s nominating this poem to go on this page – a great place to start.
She is the curator of nothing. Her anthology doesn’t exist, yet she keeps going.
A student of Kevin Higgins.
Mind Games
We played
imaginary Kerplunk.
He won.
Very quickly
it seemed
all of my marbles
dropped!
Never one
to give up
I suggested
invisible Buckaroo.
But he said
it was getting late
and
couldn’t be bothered
with setting it all up.
Emma’s first novel Dogged is now available to buy from Ignite Books. https://ignitebooks.co.uk/products-page/emma-purshouses-books/
Haircuts and House Parties
Newscasters and politicians
looking dapper on the telly.
The neighbours in Flat 54
giving it welly.
Me on my tod
writing shit poetry.
Vaccinated
The poet couldn’t find anything
to rhyme with Astra Zeneca,
so he watched the North London
Derby instead.
Should Gareth Bale Cut His Hair?
I don’t care.
Daniel Ryan has come out of poetic retirement, but when his poetry gets rejected, he’ll probably go back in.
Anaconda
I once had a pet anaconda,
Of which I could not have been fonder,
Though it caused some alarm
And significant harm
By its strong inclination to wander.
Stegosaurus
We take care with our pet stegosaurus,
Lest the spikes at its rear end should gore us,
As with one mighty flail
Of its big spiky tail
It could render us horribly porous.
Mark Totterdell’s poems have appeared widely in magazines and have occasionally won prizes. His collections are This Patter of Traces (Oversteps Books, 2014) and Mapping (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2018).
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
