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.
 
 

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.

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

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 

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”

 

Never say no to a muffin

At least that would be my advice.

They’re not always offered you daily

Yet sometimes you’re offered one twice.

Never say no to a muffin

Whether you want one or not

Lie back and enjoy the occasion

and remember they’re best taken hot.

Never say no to a muffin

You could sometimes share with close friends

But I feel they’re best taken solo

Whilst others would say it depends

Never say no to a muffin

Whilst indulging please don’t try to talk

You must focus on total enjoyment

And never attempt a brisk walk

Never say no to a muffin

I’ve devoured every one that I’ve had

Though I try to avoid those with sprinkles

As somehow they make me feel bad
 
Hilary Willmott has been writing since her schooldays many, many decades ago. She sees poetry as a companion who is much braver than she, taking her to places she wouldn’t dare venture on her own. She has been published by Templar Press, Flarestack and Velvet. She has also been shortlisted for national competitions. She lives in the south west of England, by the river, with her partner and a menagerie of rescued animals.

Pants take up a corner, front right

and I obviously remove stored pants

to put freshly washed ones at the bottom

before replacing the others, to ensure rotation.

 

This is for Y-fronts, of course,

hard-line M&S stuff. Calvin Klein

boxers are for those happy to be seen

in pants alone, who have hangers for them.

 

Around the triangle of Y-fronts

are socks, balled-up as my father showed me,

two layers, moved from back to front

as the front ones are taken out and worn.

 

So now you know, and this is where

I tie the action to the stream of English Poetry,

hinting at the drawers of Wordsworth

and how Dorothy most probably arranged them.

 

How Shakespeare, beneath his hose,

went commando, with just a codpiece

to maintain control. It was this free and easy life

which gave him time for all the other stuff.

 

But Homer had it best, Greek weather

and a single robe, all the cloth he needed.

With the time saved from underwear arrangement,

he could spend longer polishing his brogues.

One day, no, it was one night actually,

it snowed in our village –

no, it’s not a proper village,

just a hamlet on Dartmoor –

no, not on Dartmoor,

technically on the edge of the moor,

with a proper little village chapel

and a proper little village pub –

oh, and a phone box

and a war memorial, of course –

you’ve got to have a war memorial.

 

This snow we had was Dartmoor snow –

proper stuff, settling properly,

looking convincingly fantastic.

The light was snow light

and snow light is something to see,

clean and pure as best grade moonlight –

ever so white, ever so bright,

but, sort of, even gentler and lighter.

 

No messing about,

this was snow you could take a shovel too

and move in obligingly proper cubes,

like a giant’s version of cubed sugar.

Sam and Ellie from the barn

at the bottom of our garden,

(it isn’t a barn anymore, it’s a proper house

and our garden’s a proper country garden,

with scruffy cobbled areas,

a perfumery of a rosebush in summer

and comfrey all over the place)

Sam and Ellie had got up very early.

They were young teenagers, at this stage,

replaying Christmas and we heard them,

before the light came in, building a snowman,

excitedly giggling, under the one streetlamp

by the sad little war memorial.

 

 

When it was light we looked out

of our little window

to see the result of their handiwork

and there it was –

a five foot tall penis, complete with balls

and a riot of twigs pushed in

around the scrotum,

which added the perfect touch of knowledge

and intimacy to their masterpiece.

 

I thought of Rome and of Pompei

and our honeymooning, appropriately, there.

Thanks to Sam and Ellie,

it all came flooding back – our wayward nights

among those mosaics of outrageous cocks.

We looked at them (it was allowed back then)

and we saw how a man weighed his equipment

on marketplace scales, to measure his manhood,

to do it justice. And, as if this wasn’t enough,

he commissioned, as door guardian,

a beautiful giant hard-on.

 

They didn’t need red Ferraris back then, or

drunken fisherman’s tell-tale stretched out arms –

these Roman lads, they had their talents.

Wouldn’t it be kind of awesome

to have such a monument, ornament,

sacred prick outside your house –

a good deal more show-stopping

than a garden gnome pissing.

 

Nobody in our village took down

Sam and Ellie’s potent, enormous confection –

they knew it was temporary, after all.

Frank took a picture and put it up on the web

under local news. It was the biggest thing

that had happened in Scoriton for a long time,

and it lasted a satisfyingly long time,

being checked and rechecked

on how well it stood up,

until it was inevitably spent.

 

 

Being mindful, I was put in mind

of the road junction at Dartington,

and the huge phallus once daubed

on the tarmac there,

This one, also, given enough hairs

to make a pair of balls convincing.

 

The good people of Dartington,

unlike the ancient populace of Athens,

for instance, who were well known

for their love of Priapus and his genitalia,

exercised their democratic right

and complained to the local council,

just as moorland ramblers would do here,

I guess, if we swapped our stone pixy

on the mounting block outside our door

for a much larger erection.
Susan Taylor lives on Dartmoor and loves the enigma of rural living. Her latest poetry collection is Temporal Bones from Oversteps Books. A new work, The Weather House, written with poet Simon Williams, appears shortly from Indigo Dreams. Watch out for The Weather House poetry show next year! See .susantaylor.co.uk