Tag: gender politics
Shelf Life, by Stephen McNulty
Stephen scribbles things whenever he is not forcing a member of the public into a CT scanner. His poems have appeared in Boyne Berries, Drawn to the Light, ROPES, Spilling Cocoa Over Martin Amis, Strukturriss and Vox Galvia.
Sort, by Sarah J. Bryson
Sort
What sort are you?
Tea or coffee?
Victoria Sponge,
or a rich fruit cake?
Dark chocolate Bounty,
or a Milky Bar kid?
Would you choose
a bag of lemon drops,
or a sherbet dip?
Would you prefer
a large gobstopper,
or an Extra Strong Mint?
Milk Tray or Green & Blacks?
Are you a suck it and see type,
or a gobble and go individual?
Do you think birds of a feather
flock together, or rather that
opposites attract?
Maybe you are
a Foxes Glacier Mint?
Me? I’m a Licorice Allsort
Sarah is interested in words, words for well being, people and nature and the connections between these elements. She has poems in print journals, anthologies and on line.
Dearly Beloved, by John Lawrence
Dearly Beloved
This poem is
gathered here
to celebrate
the matrimony
of Couplet and Tercet.
This poem is not to be entered into lightly.
Thus, we need to confess
that Couplet hath played
fast and loose
with a sestet, thrice,
and Tercet hath also succumbed
to the tenderness of carnal union
with a haiku, in an act of confused
orientation. Nonetheless,
as a measure of forgiveness
and a certain degree of apathy,
if no-one can show just cause
or impediment, I proclaim
Couplet and Tercet
to be a quintain.
John has recently moved to Cambridge (voluntarily) from Worcestershire, and writes poems (involuntarily) because he feels he has to or something bad might happen. He is a popular (reportedly) performer and has published a collection The Boy Who Couldn’t Say His Name.
The Yarn Spinner, by George Bastow
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
The mighty, by Ruth Aylett
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
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
The Cost of Living, by Louise Longson
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
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.
On My Death Bed, by Kevin Higgins
On My Death Bed
I will not be calling out to any gods
though I'll probably drop Satan a text to thank him
and his daughters
for some of my more lively afternoons.
I will not be signing forgiveness treaties with the Frauds
but do tell them to stick their heads in the door
when it's least convenient
so I can stare at them and say nothing
and listen to their sphincters creak.
The rest of you who were just being
your honest arsehole selves
I forgive, absolutely
and hope you forgive me
my arseholeness.
There were days
it was all I had to offer.
KEVIN HIGGINS is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway. He has published six full collections of poems: The Boy With No Face (2005), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008), Frightening NewFurniture (2010), The Ghost In The Lobby (2014), Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital (2019), & Ecstatic (2022). His poems also feature in Identity Parade – New Britishand Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe May 2014). Kevin was satirist-in-residence with the alternative literature website The Bogman’s Cannon 2015-16. 2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins was published by NuaScéalta in 2016. The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed was published by Culture Matters (UK) also in 2016. Song ofSongs 2:0 – New & Selected Poems was published by Salmon in Spring 2017. Kevin is a highly experienced workshop facilitator and several of his students have gone on to achieve publication success. He has facilitated poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre and taught Creative Writing at Galway Technical Institute for the past fifteen years. Kevin is the Creative Writing Director for the NUI Galway International Summer School and also teaches on the NUIG BA Creative Writing Connect programme. His poems have been praised by, among others, Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul, Observer columnist Nick Cohen, writer and activist Eamonn McCann, historian Ruth Dudley Edwards, and Sunday Independent columnist Gene Kerrigan; and have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, TheTimes (London), Hot Press magazine, Phoenix magazine, The Daily Mirror and on The Vincent Browne Show, and read aloud by Ken Loach at a political meeting in London. He has published topical political poems in publications as various as The New European, The Morning Star, Dissent Magazine (USA), Village Magazine (Ireland), & Harry’s Place. The Stinging Fly magazine has described Kevin as “likely the most widely read living poet in Ireland”. Kevin’s poetry has been translated into Greek, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Albanian, French, Russian, & Portuguese. One of Kevin’s poems features in A Galway Epiphany, the final instalment of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series of novels which is just published. His work has been broadcast on RTE Radio, Lyric FM, and BBC Radio 4. His book The Colour Yellow & The Number 19: Negative Thoughts That Helped One Man Mostly Retain His Sanity During 2020 was published in late 2020 by Nuascealta. His extended essay Thrills & Difficulties: Being A Marxist Poet In 21st Century Ireland was published in pamphlet form by Beir Bua Press last year. In December 2021 Kevin was both expelled from the British Labour Party, of which he was an overseas member, for publishing his poem ‘Tribute Acts’ in Socialist Appeal magazine and, on the very same day, awarded ‘Poet of The Year’ at the Labour Heroes Awards event at Conway Hall, London. Kevin now writers a regular book review page for Village Magazine, mostly focussing on poetry. This year Kevin received a dozen nominations for the position of Ireland Chair of Poetry – Ireland’s Professor of Poetry. Ecstatic, Kevin’s sixth full poetry collection was published in June 2022 by Salmon Poetry. For the past month Kevin has been in University Hospital Galway, where he is receiving chemotherapy for Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.