By Robert Garnham
 
THE FULL ENGLISH TAKES A DNA TEST

Old Bean, Old Sausage, there are question marks. 
I know you’ve had a lot on your plate.
How can I break this to you?
Your bacon is pure Viking.

Baked beans arrived here illegally
Uncle Sam wants them back
Hash browns have no right to remain
Plum tomatoes only speak Italian
Since 2006 HP sauce has called the Netherlands home 
PG Tips must face up to its colonial past

Three mushrooms on your shirt 
your England’s still dreaming

If you know which side your toast’s buttered 
you’ll be a good egg.

Mr Full English, you are thoroughly scrambled.

John Lanyon lives in the Cotswolds. He works as an organic gardener, linguist, musician, and writer. Having failed his English Literature O Level, he came to love literature through reading it in French and German. He writes about art, the body, childhood, society, nature, the spirit of places, the secret lives of words.

The Yarn Spinner, by George Bastow


By Robert Garnham
 
He sits in the corner of your local boozer 
Wearing a smile as broad as a battlecruiser 
He's got the spiel of a champ and the luck of a loser 
But lend him an ear and he's sure to amuse ya 
He's the Yarn-Spinner, you know him 
 
He's got a mouth that moves at the speed of light 
Emitting patter sickly sweet as Angel Delight 
He's as old as the hills and as young as the night 
Halfway between an oracle and a gobshite 
He's the Yarn-Spinner, you know him 
 
He used to work for MI 5, but he keeps that on the low 
He used to be a roadie, went on tour with Status Quo 
He used to be a boxer, trained in the States with Smokin’ Joe 
Plus, he played all the instruments on Enya's Orinoco Flow 
He's the Yarn-Spinner, you know him 
 
He's a world-famous artist with a masterpiece on his easel 
He's an ex-Hollywood tough guy, former stuntman for Vin Diesel 
He’s a lapsed circus performer with his own troupe of dancing weasels 
Oh, and his wife’s a scientist who's discovered a cure for measles 
He's the Yarn-Spinner, you know him 
 
He spent decades as a TV exec, commissioning comedy and drama 
He spent his work experience at the British Museum spit-polishing suits of armour 
He spent seven years in Tibet as an organic yak meat farmer 
And he spent yesterday as a Buddhist monk, making tea for the Dalai Lama 
He's the Yarn-Spinner, you know him 
 
He’s been known to beguile crowds with his eccentric charm 
He often bewilders bar-staff with his far-fetched smarm 
For a pint or three, he'll no doubt twist your arm  
But everyone can agree he don’t mean any harm 
He's the Yarn-Spinner, we all know him

George Bastow is a poet, writer, blogger and hat connoisseur from the picturesque wilderness of North Warwickshire. 

 

He has written for numerous publications and regularly performs at spoken word events. 

 

George also facilitates workshops for Writing West Midlands’ Spark Young Writers Programme. 

 

Blog: https://gdbastow11.wordpress.com

Twitter: @GDBastow

Formication, by Tonnie Richmond


By Robert Garnham
 
Formication
 
If, sometimes, you like to indulge
in a spot of alfresco, illicit sex
be careful where you lie,
be wary of what might happen next.
 
If, following said fornication
while you have a cigarette and a little rest,
you feel a rush of formication
you may well be sitting on an ants’ nest.

Tonnie Richmond has, since retirement, spent a lot of her time doing archeology and writing poems. These days, the poetry is a little less arduous than digging. She has had poems published by Dreich, Yaffle, Dragon and others.

Doctor Zeus, by Tom Barlow


By Robert Garnham
 
Doctor Zeus

A poet in my online crit group
wrote that the unintentionally 
comedic couplets in my new poem 
remind her of Doctor Zeus and I 

am taken with the image of lightning bolts 
thrown for no reason at Yertle the Turtle,
for capriciousness makes a god a god.
I realize the Lord of Thunder would never 

have allowed himself to be incarcerated 
in verse meant to draw giggles
and the good Doctor Seuss would 
never have written about Zeus the Moose

and his incestuous appetites, for there 
was seldom any innocence in those old 
ribald tales of characters fated to suffer 
or deal out suffering or both. What

parent would be foolish enough to put 
their child to bed with the story of a god 
who eats his wife when Doctor Seuss offers 
the epicurious Sam-I-Am 
and his beloved eggs and ham?

Tom Barlow is an Ohio writer of poetry, short stories and novels. His attention deficit disorder has kept his pen whirling like a merry-go-round horse and poems like these are what have flown off as he desperately tries to convince the carny to stop the ride. See more at tombarlowauthor.com.

The mighty, by Ruth Aylett


By Robert Garnham
 
The mighty
--
He arrived in the sixth form
from a poxy private school
that thought itself posh,
and though he was local,
they’d rubbed his voice down
until our local accent came off
and he spoke like an Etonian.

He had that up-your-own-arse
confidence of the rich,
but wasn’t all that clever
when it came to school stuff,
almost like he felt above it.
And his grades weren’t much.

So the summer we left
I bumped into him in the street,
and just could not resist
telling him I was going to Uni.
I’m not bothering with that he said
(Daddy’s business I thought)
Because, he said, I’m in meat.

I didn’t know Daddy had gone bust
until I caught sight of him next:
the boy on the local butcher’s van.
In meat.

Ruth Aylett teaches and researches robotics in Edinburgh and has been known to read poems with a robot. Her pamphlets Pretty in Pink (4Word) and Queen of Infinite Space (Maytree) were published in 2021. For more see http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~ruth/writing.html

On Passion Spent, by Cait O’Neill McCullagh


By Robert Garnham
 
ON PASSION SPENT
̶ Somewhat after William. Shakespeare &
Vita Sackville-West; would be lovers all
 
Now that night has bled back into the black earth
& I no longer covet the cloak of sleep, impossible,
my heart (that desirous old fat-spotted oven) cools,
quits bigging ‘memories’ never truly hers to own.
 
Teetin the truth of it, in quick quartz dazzled dawn,
I find love’s swim in us was as ill-fit as a finless fish.
Between our thighs trickles only the dampest regret.
Dear, it’s daft to conjure dreams from wreathy bones.
 
Awkward as a gang of hangers thrust sidewards into
a frantic-packed case, I half-exhume ‘forget-me-nows’
of screen-preened hair (exhausted with flicking), eyes
dripped-dry with feigning drookit-dewy & a fret of lips,
                                                                                        ̶ un-kissed.
                                                                           
For if we had ever our ‘selves’ met, IRL with skin on,
offscreen, I doubt we would have set about to fraying
our zips. Perhaps, my Zoomy pal, my ‘could have been’,
my not ‘THE one’, we’ll let passion spend one last squib?
 
Then, I will weigh my eyelids down & steep my senses in
                                                                                          ̶ forgetfulness.
 

 
Cáit started writing poetry, at home in Scotland’s Highlands in December 2020. Over forty of her poems have been published since. With co-author Sinead McClure she was a winner of Dreich’s ‘Classic Chapbook Competition’ 2022’, awarded for their chapbook ‘The songs I sing are sisters’. For more information visit https://linktr.ee/caitjomac

Incognito, by Ros Woolner


By Robert Garnham
 
Incognito 
 
The winter I was Valerie,
my borrowed name badge neatly pinned
to claret waistcoat, I was free
to try on attitudes. I grinned
when men sang songs about my name,
ignored their mocking words and eyes.
That badge became a talisman –
the perfect introvert’s disguise. 
 
But, through the wide swing doors, I knew
there lay a realm of heat and fear,
of harsh white light and crashing pans.
My Valerie would disappear.
I’d be left nameless and exposed,
just waiting, trembling, for my cue
to break the news to Chef about
the vegan man on table two. 
 
(‘Incognito’ previously appeared in Gifts of Love, the 2016 anthology of Bilston Writers).

Ros Woolner lives in Wolverhampton. Her poems have appeared in several anthologies and journals. She won the Guernsey International Poetry Competition in 2021 and was shortlisted for the Women Poets’ Prize in 2022. Her pamphlet On the Wing is available from Offa’s Press.

The Cost of Living, by Louise Longson


By Robert Garnham
 
The Cost of Living
(after William Carlos Williams)
 
This is just to say
 
I bought
the plums
that you crossed off
the shopping list
 
and which
you said at £3.50 a punnet is
taking the piss
for just six of them
 
I’ll explain
they were Irresistible
so I’ve turned off the heating
and am now so cold

Louise Longson lives in West Oxfordshire and works for a loneliness charity. She started writing poetry during isolation in lockdown 2020. She is widely published in print and online, and author of the chapbooks Hanging Fire (Dreich Publications, 2021) and Songs from the Witch Bottle: cytoplasmic variations (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). 

Twitter @LouisePoetical

A Dish Made by Myself, by Kate Ennals


By Robert Garnham
 
A Dish Made by Myself 
(after Neruda) 
 
I’m sick of tray bakes, pies in the sky 
banquets, vol au vents, pastrami on rye 
I want delectable. I want something else 
So, here’s a dish I created myself 
 
I am at the table surrounded by cooks 
in tall white hats, holding meat hooks  
They are going to make merry with my insides 
and prepare an andouillette stuffed with spice 
 
They cut a deep incision above my bottom 
Turn my intestine into one big sausage 
The sous chefs add garlic, salt, wine and onion 
They truss me up to give me a final pummel 
 
I choose my head to be served as a main  
So out of my orifices, they squeeze my brain 
it spills from my ears, a grey mucous sauce 
crammed with crunchy bits, thick and coarse  
 
They whisk it with vigour and drizzle on my tongue 
itself yanked out of my jaw, and secured open 
by tiny cheese cocktail sticks staked into the gum 
My eyeballs are glazed and marinated in urine 
 
Thus, I am dished, an andouillette and a head 
wordless, stylish with a French vinaigrette 
they say I am served best with a little green gem 
and to toast my health, raise a glass of phlegm. 
 
Afters will be sweetbreads scored from my heart 
a selection of my stomach, chest and throat 
This is my offering, basic fare, honest food 
I’m happy to be sacrificed for the greater good. 
 
 
Andouillette is a French coarse-grained sausage made from the intestine of pork, pepper, wine, onions, and seasonings. Andouillettes are generally made from the large intestine and are 7–10 cm in diameter. True andouillettes are rarely seen outside France and have a strong, distinctive odour coming from the colon.

Goldfish Don’t Yawn, by Gram Davies


By Robert Garnham
 
Goldfish Don’t Yawn

 

Surprised to find you listening still to this.
Though expectation is the toy of Fate,
by now, I thought, you would have caught my drift.
 
What you anticipate: I gave you it.
I am, considering I’ve spent the bait,
surprised to find you listening still to this.
 
I hate to think my readership are fish,
it’s rude. I would have given up the wait
by now. I thought you would have caught my drift.
 
Self-referencing the author, how ironic;
Writing is a conversation. Great.
Surprised to find you listening still to this.
 
Devices like economy and thrift
are wasted, aren’t we bored of rhyme
by now? I thought you would have caught my drift.
 
Don’t call me villain in my eagerness
to cut it short, as I’m, at any rate,
surprised to find you listening still to this—
by now I thought      ok ok we get it