Polly Hall lives in Somerset, UK. She completed her first novel, ‘The Taxidermist’s Lover’ while studying for an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa Uni. Rep’d by Annette Green Authors’ Agency.
Thoughts on finding an old till receipt by Bill Allen
CUPPA SOUP
EMERY BOARDS
NIVEA
MINI MUFFINS
BISCUITS 400 GRAMS
SUGAR
CHOCOLATE CAKE
You were fat, Sam.
VALUE SHAVING CREAM
RAZORS
I miss the mess.
PAN SCOURERS
LOW CALORIE SOUP
OLIVE OIL
TUNA CHUNKS
BROCCOLI 0.335KG
Oh, Sam,
you should have eaten your greens.
LEEKS LOOSE
RED PEPPER 2 @ £0.78
CONDENSED MILK
You were so naughty,
Sam!
MAYONNAISE
No more little white
mountains on plates.
FULL FAT MILK
McCAIN CHIPS
BURGER ROLLS
BUTTER
FLORA LIGHT
RED WINE
ORANGE JUICE
APPLES
LETTUCE
ON VINE TOMS
YOGHURT
HALF FAT MILK
TESCO SAUCY
STRAWBERRY LUBRICATION 75ML
Oh, Sam! I miss you.
Bill Allen lives in West London and writes in retirement. Worldly wise, a wicked sense of humour, he often observes the darker aspects of life as well as the curiously funny. Likes old films, modern plays, wine mixed with a pinch of conversation. Bill has published a few poems and short stories.
Big Hair by Susan Jordan
I knew at once I loved you for your wig
especially when it slipped over your eye.
I’d never thought that hair could be so big.
I must have seemed like such an awful pig.
It made me laugh and then it made me cry.
I knew I had to love you for your wig.
You looked just like a schooner in full rig;
I hoped your sailing wouldn’t pass me by.
I’d never thought that hair could be so big.
I realised you didn’t care a fig
and if you took it off I’d want to die
but still I knew I loved you for your wig.
It didn’t take you very long to twig:
a passion such as mine could hardly lie.
You’d never thought that hair could be so big.
You look at me bewildered as I dig
for all the very many reasons why
I knew I had to love you for your wig.
Who ever thought that hair could be so big?
Susan Jordan was inspired by 52, Jo Bell’s wonderful online group, to start writing a lot more poems. Her work has appeared in print and online magazines including Prole, Obsessed with Pipework, Snakeskin and Ink, Sweat & Tears. Her first collection will be published by Indigo Dreams in 2017.
Mr and Mrs Feather-My-Nest by Derek Sellen
Mr and Mrs Feather-my-nest,
Mr and Mrs Thumb-in-all-pies,
they skim off the cream,
tax-avoiders supreme,
promoting some scheme,
they scam along with the best,
prying and spying like a pair of houseflies.
Mr and Mrs Put-on-the-style,
Mr and Mrs Models-of-culture;
she, charming and wily,
flirts with money-men shyly,
husband watches slyly,
till she closes the deal with a smile
but her eyes have the gleam of a vulture.
Mr and Mrs Tan-from-Bermuda,
Mr and Mrs Nobody’s-fool,
photos of her in a sari
videos of him on safari,
in Italy drinking Campari,
returning at last to their Tudor
cottage in Wiltshire or their villa in Poole.
Mr and Mrs Whiter-than-white,
Mr and Mrs Kiss-my-hem,
too cautious for crime
but if it helps them to climb,
they’ll live with the loss of a principle;
for theirs is the right
to be rich and invincible
while ours is the right to admire them.
Derek Sellen‘s work has appeared in various anthologies and magazines and won awards. His radio play, The Naming of the Animals, a sitcom set in Eden, won at the Wirral Festival.
Absent Greeks by Sue Kindon
Sisyphus has left the scene
his rock came crashing down our track
there’s the wound
gouged in soft ground
the boulder bounced
then rolled to rest
balanced above the lily pond
he can’t be arsed to push it back
he’s had enough of uphill shove
he’s given up the slaving task
and joined Narcissus down the pub.
Sue Kindon‘s poems have appeared in a variety of magazines, and have achieved some success in competitions. She lives and writes in the French Pyrenees, where she also co-runs Valier Illustrated Books.
The Lust Song of J Alfred Rudeshock by Barry Ergang
Let us go then, you and I,
where nipples poke through shirts, and sigh
at breasts arrayed like melons in a market.
Let us go, through gaudy neon-lighted streets,
to gamy, shameless, unsanitized retreats
like nudie bars where topless women fan
the flames of simple-glanded gudgeon: Man.
In the gloom the women come and go,
yearning for Leonardo diCaprio.
The suntanned curves they offer lusty minds,
the G-stringed thighs and pink-hued peaks they offer lusty minds,
shimmy flesh into corners of numbed brains,
lie prone upon the stage and wiggle bare behinds.
In bras or none they quiver and bob
and make those manly organs throb.
Ah, yes! There will be time
to wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare
to tweak a hooter, run away from there?”
For I have seen them all already, seen them all:
have seen them pastied, pierced, augmented, all unclad;
have sculpted them with hands as teenaged lad.
I have seen the bosoms drooping with a stretch-marked fall
beneath the music from a Maidenform ad.
So shall I lift, and separate?
I should have been a pair of groping paws
copping feelies on the floors of seedy dives.
They grow cold...they grow cold...
They punctuate the blouse with outlines bold.
Shall I seek a private room? Do I dare to pay some cash?
Have her dance upon my lap, and risk a rash?
My testosterone is thrumming, substance brash!
I worry that it will not rise for me.
We have lingered in the chambers of this joint
with strippers, trollops, babes in postures lewd
till wifely voices bellow--then we’re screwed!
Former Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine and former First Senior Editor of Mysterical-e, Barry Ergang’s poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic. A Derringer Award winner from the Short Mystery Fiction Society, some of his work is available at Smashwords and Amazon.
Travellers Welcome by Maria C McCarthy
Thighs stretch nylon, skin tops stockings,
as Betty bends for the Britvic orange.
Kenneth straightens his tie,
pulls out a tenner,
fingers his fly.
When you’re ready,
Betty love, pint of bitter,
and whatever you fancy,
Later, in a single room
above the Saloon,
he cops a handful
in a crumpled hankie.
Behind Kenneth’s eyelids,
Betty’s bottom rises.
Maria C. McCarthy doesn’t write poems and stories as often as she should. She was the winner of the Society of Authors’ Tom-Gallon Trust Award 2015, and has scarcely published a thing since then.
The Cheesemonger by Leanne Moden
From Timbuktu to Amsterdam
Everyone loves Parmasan
And you know, there’s nothing sweller
Than creamy piles of Mozzarella.
See, every honest devotee
Swears there’s always time for Brie.
And you could boost your low morale
With just a sniff of Emmental.
For cubic cheese, there’s nothing better
Than squares of crumbly Grecian Feta.
Trust me now, you’ve really gotta
Taste the taste of smooth Ricotta.
The expert and the amateur
Can share a runny Camembert
While others exercise their molars
With tonnes and tonnes of Gorgonzola.
But, though this list is less than roomy,
There’s still some space for fresh Halloumi.
And, if you want my testimony,
Nothing beats a Mascarpone.
Just don’t forget (I beg you please!)
The lumpy joy of Cottage Cheese.
And, when you can, seek to pursue
Squeaky blobs of warm Fondue.
Many cheeses are critque-less,
Even so, there’s one cheese weakness:
So, in your choices, be robust –
And never eat the processed stuff!
Leanne Moden is a poet from Nottingham. She has performed all around the UK, including sets at Trinity College Cambridge, the Nottingham Poetry Festival, Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, the Cambridge Festival of Ideas, the Royal Albert Hall and Bestival on the Isle of Wight.
Magpie by Mark Totterdell
borrow a fagpie
sneak a quick dragpie
off down the pub so there’s no need to nagpie
just an old lagpie
grabbing a bagpie
black and white stripy-topped off with the swagpie
not one to bragpie
second-hand jagpie
see what a beauty he’s managed to blagpie
don’t lose your ragpie
he’s such a wagpie
waving a black and white piraty flagpie
fancy a shagpie
any old slagpie
all on his own with a well dodgy magpie
Mark Totterdell‘s poems have appeared widely in magazines. His collection ‘This Patter of Traces’ was published by Oversteps Books in 2014.
A Tay swimmer selects a navigator by Beth McDonough
You might very well veer towards
lean, handsome lads, all matching
shorts and deck shoes. Their long
limbs have pulled
a tiller or two, and tilted
in plenty of yachts. Or those friendly-
faced girls who have paddled canoes
right the way round
St Kilda. Any one would be swell, but
I put my trust in grizzled old salts,
diesel stink bright on their oilskins,
faces the leather of torn, battered shoes. Their hands
gnarl those fenders like branches. I’ll take
old men who exhale the Tay’s brine,
and maybe a whisky or two. I need
a sailor, pipe clamped between snaggle-dark
teeth, one who peers out from cowries,
rough sunk into wrinkles,
with barnacles chewing his beard.
He’ll know which side I’ll breathe on.
Beth McDonough finds poems whilst swimming in lochs and rivers, foraging and riddling with Anglo Saxons. Often writing of a maternal experience of disability, she was Writer in Residence at Dundee Contemporary Arts 2014-16. ‘Handfast,’ her poetry duet pamphlet (with Ruth Aylett) was published in May 2016.