F.W.Woolworth’s Leaving Do by Peter Raynard


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Late as usual a pasty-faced Greggs sausage rolls
to the bar, orders a pint and radars the room.
In the snug, old friends M&S & BHS reminisce
about the Man at C&A, watch Topshop’s figures,
it’s unique and boutique. Many others crowd
the dance floor Whistles stands alone, unaware
of Zara’s foreign presence. Heals may be higher
in price and class, But Primark may yet have the last laugh.

Others keep out of the spotlight hoping
it won’t spin their way. Waterstone’s wets itself,
Foyles cuts fingernails real quick, Anne Summers
vibrates scantily with fear. Bums are squeaking
all along the High Street. In a darkened VIP area,
the far-from-sadministrators disembowel Past Times,
autopsy Whittard’s fine teas, fix bulbous eyes
on His Master’s Voice and Blockbuster’s,
as they snort lines of coffins filled with the rewards
of Jessop’s losses, ready to hollow them out.
Clinton’s couldn’t be there, so they sent it a sympathy card.
‘Your time will come, don’t you worry,’ it read.

But there is still some fight, as Poundland
takes a swing for 99p stores but misses
and Pop Up shops poke out tongues,
Charity shops hold out hands, whilst
Amazon and eBay are virtually there.

Greggs shuffles round, asks the barman
‘What did the F.W. stand for in Woolworths?’
‘Fuck Wit,’ he replies.

Peter Raynard is a writer and editor. His poems have appeared in a number of publications and his debut collection “The Common Five-Eighters” will be published by Smokestack Books in early 2018. He is also the editor of Proletarian Poetry: poetry of working class lives.

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Performing a poem in a non-poetry space by Mark Blayney


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Hello, my name is Cough. I’d like to share my what the hell’s this? with you
and also to welcome bar till ping.
It’s lovely to see excuse me love here and also
so many of you who are mower starts outside window.

SO I’LL SPEAK a little louder to cover the Is this not Cuban salsa?
and hopefully we can move to the first well they told me it was in here
and then we’ll enjoy a reading from a new book by
oh you’re right it’s Thursday.

It’s good to see so many new faces FART
and I hope not all of our first-time performers will be nervous.

So don’t listen to him it’s all indoctrination,
put your bible away you wan- kingdom of the polar bear,
a set of poems about Greenland and the
ice sheet – me, let’s put something on the jukebox!

And please welcome to the stage, reading from her new book
‘Poems spoken in a whisper’
the very wonderful Police siren! Bar till! Where are the toilets?

Good evening. My first poem is called, ‘The long silence’.

….

….

….

Let’s go, Doris. We’re missing Casualty.

Mark Blayney won the Somerset Maugham Prize for ‘Two Kinds of Silence’. His third book ‘Doppelgangers’ is available from Parthian and his first poetry collection ‘Loud music makes you drive faster’ will be published in October.

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Heartbreak Bot by Mohammed Zahid


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The other day you were online,
I said, “hi,” you said, “hi u there!”
The feeling of being in a secret corner
in the vast open world sprouted
and made me smile, after all,
you were spontaneous to my call.
“How have you been?” I said,
“fine,” and you, with a smiley
that made me grin
“I missed you,” responded,
with an “I missed you too”

Unbelievable, though it seemed,
there was nothing to doubt,
soon the sentences flew
interspersed with emotions,
emoticons, facial expressions,
cartoonified, fake hearts beating
with digital cupids hovering
like butterflies on a sunny spring meadow.
The taps on the keyboard grew fast, blind,
typing tied to the rising adrenaline…

The heart beat fast, faster,
to the hits on the keyboard
and broke.
I had just typed,
“I am in pain without you,”
you smiled and winked
I wrote “qwertypoiuy,”
you said, “that’s a nice name.”

Mohammad Zahid is a poet/translator from Kashmir, India. “The Pheromone Trail” is his first collection of poetry. His upcoming work is translation of Kashmiri Language and Poetry, a critical work on Kashmiri poetry.

The Lost Property Locker by Robert Nisbet


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Dai the roadman takes stock after the town carnival

Two fivers, par, also the eight pound coins.
Small change, considerable. The credit cards
we can return, likewise two of the three
pensioner’s bus passes, but it’s tough luck
on Archie McPhee of Ross and Cromarty.
Five T-shirts this year: Hard Rock Café,
Gorseinon Rugby Club, U of Glam, Jesus Saves
and Little Red Riding Hood Kicks Ass.
With the smoking ban in pubs, we’re down
to just the one ashtray, a Watney’s Pale.
We have a cuckoo clock, a Nuneaton Borough
library card, a flour bag marked Bowker’s Mill
and a toilet roll. The knickers we could have
predicted, just one pair this year, pale blue,
medium to large. Two scraps from letters,
one from “Billy”, who sends condolences
upon his auntie’s flatulence, and one
from “Jazza”, who loves her Kev to bits.
Three photographs (two boring, Auntie-Gertie-
on-the-prom-at-Margate stuff), one though,
a very candid one, Katie, the Mayor’s wife,
taken surely thirty years ago. And wasn’t her
skin so soft and silky then? Wasn’t it just?
My oath.

(Previously published in the Prolebooks pamphlet Merlin’s Lane, 2011)

Robert Nisbet is a Welsh poet with over 200 publications in Britain, as well as a number of appearances in the USA, in magazines like San Pedro River Review, Constellations, Illya’s Honey and Clementine Unbound.

Medea’s Wedding Gift to Jason’s New Wife by Marie-Therese Taylor


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It was always me took care of things
– he should have remembered –
the bulls, the dragon and the tyrant kings,
and as we escaped a brother dismembered

She wanted him. She wanted this gown
a gift from the gods. A little bemused,
sweet Glauce accepted the dress and the crown,
they knew were my best. He was confused.

but for only an instant, as each tiny spore
soaked through her skin through each tiny pore
my curse distilled in the warp and the weft
each organ aflame till nothing was left.
He then thought of me to whom first he had vowed
as she lay extinguished in a black bridal shroud.

Marie-Therese Taylor draws on everyone and everything… no one is safe. Her short stories and poems have appeared in The Glasgow Review of Books, Soundwaves, Mixing the Colours, Nutshells and Nuggets, and The Stare’s Nest. She lives in Glasgow where she has also been known to perform.

Wishing You Were There by Sarah L Dixon


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We know where all the bins are
and the window keys
and how to operate the washing machine.

We know the quirks of the toilet,
the floorboard that creaks,
the pipes and tubes that are liable to leak.

We know where the dust gathers,
the knack to broken gates,
that the clock in the kitchen runs five minutes late.

We know our local A+E,
the nearest doctor,
that strange night-noise is the Police helicopter.

We know hours of pubs and shops,
takeouts we can trust
and which cupboard holds spray to treat the rust.

We know what the TIVO holds for us,
our spots on the settee,
my bed is memory-foamed the shape of me.

We know grubby cook-books well,
our stash of herbs and spices,
and where we store treats to feed our sugar vices.

Sarah L Dixon tours as The Quiet Compere.  She has been published in Ink, Sweat and Tears and The Interpreter’s House among others. Sarah’s inspiration comes from being by water and adventures with her five-year old, Frank.  She is still attempting to write better poetry than Frank did aged 4!

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Measure by Paul Vaughan


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Dear Dating Profile; I’ve read about you.
Do you fancy a coffee? Or a trip to the zoo?
“So, you’re a poet? Well, how big are they?
What size do you come in? How tall did you say?”

Sighing, I wish I’d been born not at home,
but somewhere exotic, like Paris, or Rome,
and could explain that poets’ hearts beat,
and are measured in metres, and iambic feet.

Paul Vaughan lives in Yorkshire with his cat Rosie, and refuses to eat custard unless it is in a vanilla slice. He has poems forthcoming in Sarasvati, Seventh Quarry and online atThe Curly Mind. When not writing, he moonlights as the editor of https://algebraofowls.com

Thought by Joanne Key


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So I had a kick-around with the thought
in the garden for a bit. Not content
with that bit of sport, things turned nasty.

Of course, we’d all had a drink. Having flogged
the thought half to death with a cat-o-nine-
other-thoughts, I nigh on drowned it in rum.

The thought lay steeping, staring at me,
marinading and seething like a slab of living,
breathing meat. I added a spoonful of sugar

and a squirt of lime only to find I’d created
something so bittersweet I couldn’t stand
the thought of it. By this time, I’d had enough

so I flung it at the wall and it stuck. I left it there
and went to bed. After a sleepless night
worrying about the thought downstairs,

I woke to find it had grown to monstrous
proportions – a Thoughtzilla, of sorts.
It had squeezed itself into every room,

filling all the empty space like a giant
marshmallow. Its huge eyes followed me
everywhere. I was tempted to think of it

as the Mona Lisa, without the smile,
but I already had enough on my mind
and decided to leave that thought to one side.

Later that morning, I moved my chair
out onto the lawn, drank tea and watched it
sleeping. I studied it carefully.

It really was one big, ugly, mother-
thought. Slimy tentacles stuck out
of all the windows. It wore my house

like a hermit crab wears a shell. I must admit –
it wore it well, better than I ever could,
but as a last resort at flattening the thought,

I decided to run it over with a monster truck.
Just as I was revving the engines up,
the thought grabbed hold of me again.

It threw me off course and slipped away,
lumbering in all directions along the avenue,
jumping the fences of every dead end.

It shot off at tangents, trying to find the horizon.
I followed in hot pursuit. What else could I do?
I couldn’t leave the damn thing running loose.

Eventually, it ran out of steam and settled down
for a rest by the stream. I stumbled upon it
there, sleeping again. I sat under the apple tree

and hatched my plan. I was so angry, I rolled it
down to the foot of the hill and strapped it
to the railway line. When it woke, I almost

felt sorry for it as I watched it shrink to human form: a damsel in distress in an old film, struggling
against the knots, tied to a black and white backdrop.

It screamed silently for help. But it was too late, a new train of thought was already on the way and sadly I was driving so it was full throttle, no brake.

Joanne Key lives in Cheshire where she writes poetry and short fiction. Her poems have appeared in various places online and in print. She has been shortlisted in a number of international competitions and won 2nd prize in the 2014 National Poetry Competition.

Ode to a Hairdresser by Iseult Healy


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He lifted her straggling hair
with the love of a musician
strummed her strands
cried over their condition.

He leaned her head back
so gently on basin’s rim
then massaged and mused
that her hopes weren’t dim.

She bit her soft moans
his fingers stroked her head
and thought of other pleasure
alone in her bed.

Move over here madam, please.
She fought the tears at the loss
of his touch, the exquisite nearness
of his tight-panted crotch.

Then he cut and fussed
admired and caressed
every strand of her hair
till she felt undressed.

She floated home and
tossed her hair
to show his beauty to those
who would stare.

Her husband asked, why so often
to cut one head of hair
at the price of adopting a child
or a new French au pair

Oh, she says,
he shows respect
my tips are dry
from years of neglect.
To stop the rot
he has to treat me
often
and
long.

Bloody poof, I’m sure
you’re on the wrong tack
shampoo and wax
won’t turn the clock back.

Oh, she said.

Your hair’s nice, he said
stumbling into bed
after the match and the beer
his eyes close in his head

Snoring in seconds
before she can reply:

I’m worth it, she says
my tips aren’t dry.

Iseult Healy is published in several journals including USA, Mexico, and Ireland. Also Shortlisted Galway Hospital Trust Poetry Competition 2015.

She is a member of Ox Mountain Poets and A New Ulster groups, and loves Kevin Higgins’ Over the Edge international online poetry workshops.

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