An Angel in Morrisons
Churchyard
Shark
Hotel Breakfast
Carmarthen
Angel 2

I saw
an angel
in Morrisons.

She was at
the checkout,
buying her
weekly shop.

Her golden wings
glittered in the light,
and I was
awestruck—
stopped in my tracks—
while people
pushed past.

No one noticed.
But I was transfixed.

I wasn’t even there
to buy.
I needed the toilet
before a meeting,
and didn’t want
to walk in
just asking
for the loo.

So I was here
by accident—
just a passing
moment
that shouldn’t
have happened.

Like when I forgot
my jacket this morning
and had to go back
home.

Rain was imminent.

I thought of that—
how if I hadn’t
gone back,
I would have missed
the angel
and her shopping.

< < <

There’s a
ramekin,
on the bench
in the churchyard—

pink blossom
from the tree above
scattered around it
like confetti.

It catches the light,
casts a shadow
across the bench—
and it is full
of cigarette
butts.

A small devotion
to tidiness
as the petals fall.

The pink 
blossom drifts
to the edges
of the stone path.

The daffodils
are fading now,
their heads bowed
to their imaginary 
reflection 

And the bench—
early morning—
is usually taken
by a solitary man
with a can of beer
and a careful thirst.

He lifts the can
like a quiet hymn

The blossom falls.
The light moves on.
The bowl fills slowly

No sermon,
no hand on the shoulder—
just the day beginning again
for the solitary man.


< < <

The loosened 
cardboard Costa sign
torn from its fastening
beats in the wind,
caught round a roadside bollard
beside the petrol station 

Within the café glass
I sit staring 
and watch its restless motion.

There in the window
my own image returns —
myself regarding
that loosening torn board
labouring in the gusts.

At length the wind prevails.

Freed from the iron post
the sign drifts outward
and glides across the forecourt.

And suddenly it seems —

a cardboard shark
slow-sailing
over the darkened ground,

the spilled rainbow 
of
dissipatied oil
catching the low sun
so that the tarmac glitters
and reflects the fin 


< < <

On holiday
I hide coco pops
beneath my muesli—
like some child
hiding the truth

and girls in pyjamas
in the breakfast restaurant 
(the same girls I saw
outside McDonald’s,
crying at 10pm)
fight over dried-out eggs,
fried and scrambled.

A framed lettering proclaims
HAP 
PIN 
ESS.

It smells of waste.
A slot machine glows.

‘I need to
gather the troops.’

Flip-flops and crocs
are the footwear.
No one has slept.

Coffee drips from the machine,
spilling into the carpet,
its pattern long erased.

An older man,
belly over belt,
trails a young waiter.

And in the corner—
the slot machine
still glowing.
I’ve got a taste in my mouth 
of the hotel 
like something has been living 
in there 
overnight


< < <

The Jehovahs
Opposite,
a man of the streets.
Both are eating
Greggs pasties —
warm,
with coffee,
out of paper bags
that gather crumbs.

Both stare
into the abyss,
and beyond.

One stands
in the doorway
of a closed-down shop,
the others
outside M & S.

It’s pouring down.
The streets 
virtually empty 
reflect the leaden sky,
where faith and hunger
share the same
kind of Light


< < <

The angel
is outside
of Morrisons.

She has
her own cardboard
to sit on,
shading her eyes
from the sun
with her hand,
greeting
each shopper
as they enter
the supermarket.

She also has
her own bag
with worldly
possessions.

Receiving
her wings,
she rises
to catch the bus
in baggy joggers
and a red zip top,
the halo
replaced by a bun
crushed on top
of her head.


< < < 

Italia Novanta - Clare Painter
Backchat - Stuart Pickford
Jack - Stuart Pickford
Goalies - Matthew Paul
      1  Stamford Bridge, Christmas Day 1937
      2 Wimbledon v Scunthorpe United, 11th February 1978
G.O.A.T - John Wolf
When Pele won the cup for Barnsley - John Wolf
Amateurs - Mike O'Brien

Flora the dressmaker was seventy
When I moved in next door.
Fast-talking, bright with just a smidge of riot
She liked to tease, pretend I’d said
Things wrong, then turn and grin,
Sharp as the pins that spilled across her floor.
A widow, and her son should visit more.

Across our city, roads were all remade
But I could only smile and shake my head
So Flora sat me down (just mind the pins),
Directed me to learn the shape of play:
The team, the shot, the pass.
And learn to care because that mattered most.

But when she saw me shrug and smile and sigh,
Flora declared that I was truly lost.
Her hands flew high in mock despair,
Needling us both to laughter as she caught my eye.

...
Clare Painter lives in Oxfordshire but was lucky enough to call Milan home for several years, including when the World Cup came to town in 1990. Returning to poetry has been a joy and she has had poems featured by The Broken Spine, the BBC and for International Women’s Day by Ink, Sweat & Tears
< < <

I help to clear the grass of dogs’ mess, 
glass and the odd syringe. We walk the pitch
in a line like the police at a murder scene.
From a Portakabin with metal shutters, 
the teams emerge. The sky can’t be bothered.
The pitch is heavy with dew which’ll mark
the first skirmishes, dribbles and sliding tackles. 
My lad’s warming his hands down his Skins
or trying for a top bin or crossbar challenge.
One of three supporters, my chest swells 
as he lines up in midfield, the CDM,
and I shout into the damp, Win the headers.
He ignores me. The blues fly into the reds,
legs tangle, the whistle shrills. Their manager
has the measure of it all: Fuckin’ hell, ref—
what fuckin’ game are you watchin’? Soon,
there are stud marks in a thigh, a cut eye
and their keeper subbed for concussion, 
standing behind the net and pointing.
Then my boy clatters Seven from the side.
Arms back, they’re forehead to forehead,
ref prising them apart, their manager observing:
Go on, if you think you’re fuckin’ ’ard enough. 
My son’s sent to the sidelines. Everyone resets.
After five, I wander over, speech half-shaped:
keep calm, let your football do the talking. 
Before I start, Jack shakes his head, Sin-binned.
All I said was, ‘Ref, that’s disappointing.’

...

< < <

Afternoons are best: spare hours
drift away from four, shadows
lean out. At eight years old, you
strain to get to the park. An apple,
drink; pockets full of time.

Down the backs, your studs chatter.
A stroll, nattering about electricity, 
the Romans, moon walking, if
stars are from the same bag of sugar,
the length of Ronaldo’s run up.

A stick and hoodie for a goal.
A wee in a bush. Me staring
at the yellow tree, a haze of sun. 
The footie pinging off my knee,
head and shoulder—you collapsing

when I get it in the widge. Internationals
with bigger boys, first to twenty.
Mid-game, you gawping at two girls 
throwing a frisbee, forehand;
or a wedge of honking geese.

I sing Match of the Day,
do the commentary and get nutmegged. 
Always one last shot into the top 
corner we haven’t got, the grass 
flat and shiny beneath my feet.

< < <

...
Stuart Pickford is the recipient of several prestigious awards for his Poetry. His first collection was published by Redbeck Press in 2001 and was short-listed for the Forward Best First Collection prize. He has twice been commended in the National Poetry Competition, the last time in 2012 for his poem Swimming with Jellyfish. His latest collection Our Lot will be published in September

Look at this photo of Sam Bartram, 
keeping goal for Charlton: 
he’s peering as far as he can’t 
into a yellow, three-dimensional 
peasouper swallowing the pitch, 
till a copper finds him and says 
the ref abandoned the match for 
roast turkey and all the trimmings
a quarter of an hour since. 

Sam tells his teammates visibility 
was poorer, even, than when,
aged fourteen, fresh from school,
he worked in the cavernous bottom 
of Boldon Colliery, Co. Durham. 
They listen, pause, then take turns 
to rip the piss without mercy.

A nil–nil draw in front of 1,603 
spectators. Entertainment 

comes only when other boys 
in the home end play 

a game of gobbing towards 
the Iron’s keeper’s 

spare-gloves bag in the corner 
of his goal, succeeding, 

as the ref blows for half-time,
with a pinpoint flob


< < <

...

Matthew was born and raised in South London and now lives in South Yorkshire. 

His collection include The Evening Entertainment, (Eyewear Publishing, 2017) and The Last Corinthians, Crooked Spire Press 2025) He supports Queens Park Rangers. 

Who's the best player you ever saw?
The Greatest of All Time?

Sean Goater.
Don't Feed The Goat.
You're havin' a laugh.
I am.

Lord Widrington Smythe, Eton and Harrow.
Tommy Tasker, Lancashire Mill.
At the dawn of Association Football,
it was an elitist sport played by gentlemen.

It came full circle when Blackburn won the Premier
League with deadly Alan Shearer.
He was my favourite.
Bought all the best players, did Jack Walker.

Shearer, he's on telly now,  
Newcastle and England,
A legend, got his own bar.
Still hasn't learned English grammar.  

Saw him lakin at Sheffield Wednesday
after coming back from that foot injury.
Pace of a tranquilised slug. Michael Jackson
overtook him moonwalking. Shamone, hee hee.

Of course its Pélé,
played against The Owls in '62.
Exhibition match with Santos,
he'd be seventeen. Just broken into Brazil.

Came to Bramall Lane in 2007,
to celebrate the 150th year of football's oldest club, Sheffield FC.
Signed my shirt, told me England were a dark horse for t'world cup.
He was just being kind. What a gentleman. He were class.

Edson Arantes Do Nascimento, El Ray. The King.
If he weren't born a man, he'd have been born a ball.
Forget your George Best and Ronaldo Messi,
He was the GOAT by a lary mile.

< < <

When Pélé won the cup for Barnsley,	
We were languishing in relegation dog shite.
Got him on a free from Sheffield Steel,
Came on a Ron Hull scrap wagon.

Memory has a way of warping,
As you look back wi' rose tinted spex.
These were times before technicolour,
Pyrotechnics and special effects.

When all the world were black and white,
Minstrel shows, but we didn't see colour,
We had Charlie Williams playing for us,
He'd moved in next door.

Anyroad, he gets the ball just beyond halfway,
Does this new lad we'd never seen, called Pélé,
Turns and wriggles an hip, it were his samba trademark,
Accelerates toward the penalty spot, gives two midfielders t'slip.

Now, their centre half thought he'd put paid to this lad
With a nasty sliding chop, but Edson, that were what his mam's pet name,
Caught wind of that early,  gave his shoulder a dip.
He gave defenders twisted blood, so good were his dribble.

The brute slid by, and our new striker
Set himself against the incoming keeper,
Slid it underneath and wheeled away
As the Ponte end went mental.

We only won 1-0 that day but it were a turning point
When all the lads began to look up. He brought hope to 'tarn like The Redeemer.
The West Stand Bogs was a sea of red, joyous faces it is said, dancing daft-like.
As the whistle went, they carried him shoulder high down the tunnel.

Next day, the headline read, 'Bogpool Gasworks fall to giant killers.'
They even dug up Reverend Preedy for a insider view. Told 'em all he knew, apparently.
You see, old heroes never die, they don't fade to grey like you or I,
sepia is preserved for them, the tone of old rags and tomorrow's chip-wrappings.

What am I saying? It weren't Pélé, it were Bruce Dyer!
Lovely lad, he'd run all day, a real tryer.
It were just that he needed ten chances to score one,
on account of always being offside.

John is a Performance poet and story writer whose 2022 poetry collection - Heroes, was published by Glass Head Press. A creative Writing Tutor with Read To Write Doncaster, john has delivered sessions on Beowulf, Homer's Odyssey and various poets including Larkin, McGough, Garrett, Redpath, Frost, Heaney, and Lorca. he was the second of the Sixty Odd Poets

< < <

They'll never earn a living from it.
They do it for the love.

You can wander in
have a pint at the bar 
and watch them perform;

the ones who never made it,
the ones who still dream,
the ones with not much more
than love and enthusiasm 
to spur them on.

Just to be there is reward in itself –
witnessing real human effort,
maybe lacking a little polish
but always the possibility
of flashes of brilliance;

a sweet connection 
delivered with precision
hitting the target,

a battle against the odds
to make a statement
to seize the moment,

delivering waves of emotion
despair, 
frustration,
release,
joy

and spontaneous applause.

The Wanderers 
Open Mic Poetry Night

< < <

…
At the turn of the century, Mike O'Brien was Press officer for North Ferriby United who were at that time competing strongly in the Northern League, after being promoted from the North East Counties League. His reports, in the Hull Daily Mail, Green Sports Mail and the Non League paper bristled with bulging onion bags, slide rule passes, and desperate goal line clearances. He never made much money out of them, but it was a small fortune compared to anything he has ever earned from poetry.

How to Write a Shakesperean Sonnet
Crazy
Blues and Twos
Dead Poets' Society
Daedalus in the High Peak
And Then I Kissed Her

She told me in all seriousness that I could fuck
her if I’d just write her a sonnet. Shakespearean, mind,
she said. I don’t want any of that foreign muck,
quoth she of a ‘dun’ coloured hue. I speak as I find,

she went on. And you, sirrah, may hang your codpiece
by my bed for the night. Now, take up thy pen
and make sure it rhymes itself correctly, please.
I’ll expect you this evening at seven sharp. Until then…

I wrote the fourteen lines, metrically tight,
neat as ninepence, the little ducks all in a row.
And yes, we did the deed. It was…well, alright
I suppose. Maybe I’ll have another go

but perhaps a haiku next time, not a sonnet.
Yes, I’ll suggest that and let the lady think upon it.


< < <

He’ll be an architect one day, said Auntie
Nettie, admiring my Lego brickwork house.
Designed to my own spec – bungalow ranch
style, two-car garage, wide lawn in front -
it was, admittedly, one of my better efforts
and I still had plans for a loft extension.

At school that week, teacher asked me 
what I wanted to be when I grew up. She did 
well not to laugh. That was then – this is now. 
Now I want to build things with words, 
write songs where you can taste the desert 
air and hear the heartbreak echo 
in the arroyo where the coyotes howl.
Now I want to be Willie Nelson. It’s crazy 
when you stop to think about it. But it’s true 
what they say. When I consider then and now, 
well, gee, it’s funny how time slips away.


< < <

So she bought herself a sports car and a vibrator
the day she turned fifty - lipstick red with wire wheels -

the roadster, that is. The Magic Wand was black
and took six triple As. In a month she had two

speeding tickets and a fetish for sex in car parks.
With the top down. Next she started driving naked.

At night at first. Then during the day. The crash
made the front pages. With pictures. Six months

later she wore white in her wheelchair as she
married the paramedic in a church ceremony

that convinced her friends she'd lost her mind
as well. It didn't last. Cripple sex was fun at first,

he said, but now it was like bringing work home.
He walked out the next day - 's alright for some.


< < <

So, we were stood there in the pissing rain
in a foreign graveyard and, this is the good bit,
she goes, Here Lies One Whose Name was Writ
in Water…I says, well, they reckon the rain in Spain
falls mainly on the cemetery…I start to explain
but then I remember we’re in Italy, I’m in the shit
and I can tell by her look she’s having none of it.
Still, two more days and we’re back on the plane…

…in the hotel that night she says she wants to read
me something. Wot, like a bedtime story, I say.
She sighs. A bad sign. For once, just try listening, ok?
Poetry, apparently. It was short. And now he’s dead.
Bloke that wrote it. His grave earlier. It was a sonnet.
Whatever that is. The only good poet’s a dead poet?

< < <

They’re throwing themselves off Mam Tor
again. And the maze that caged the Minotaur

was built by Daedalus. They oh so lazily float, 
delicate as falling cherry blossom, a pretty mote

in the burning eye of the sun. And he told the fly
boy about his altitude. Kids, eh? They think the sky

is theirs for the taking.
                                         It was late. Most had gone
home or were in the tourist bars of Castleton

while their 4x4s cooled their heels in the car park.
A few moths hung on in there. It was almost too dark

to shoot. Early stars were out for a gander, the blue
of the night drawing a curtain down. The thread grew

taught when I saw one about to put the moon in eclipse.
The bull appears, snorts at the gate and the shutter trips.


< < <

what do you get when you fall in love? gravity is implicated somewhere, somehow…
answers on a postcard, please…and have you seen planet earth recently…what does
it look like from the ISS…I saw two buzzards yesterday…those big lazy looping circles,
the mewing cries, raptors in the sky with diamonds…I looked into her eyes…it was 
like being in a movie, like we had a script…I’m ready for my close-up…oh, please…
an out-of-body experience…the ISS rocks around the clock…well, it’s one for the
money…and what did the octopus say to the tiger shark…two for the show…here’s
that sick squid I owe you…three to get ready…it’s all about perspective…as I said to the
doctor…by the time you’ve read this the ISS will have sailed the Atlantic…for all the
good these suppositories are doing…they see shadows envelop whole continents…
I may as well be shoving them up my arse…yo ho ho and a bottle of rum bugger – 
I took her hand in mine… on the way home I saw a badger crossing the road…
insert punchline here…I can’t remember old whasser name?...
the ISS will be visible from midnight tonight – visible to the naked eye…
and…I climbed up onto the roof…from the west until 1 a.m…and then…
and there it was, blinking in disbelief… …me not them… I waved …just to the left 
of Venus …I asked what do you get when you fall in love…and then I
…and all the stars…and then I kissed…and all the stars were shining bright… 
and then I kissed her…

< < < 

Never seen to ride the buckled bike
He pushes it with head bowed down -
A basket jammed with god-knows-what -
And hides amongst the bushes and the trees.

It’s only once he’s sure that he’s alone 
The shouting starts, the railing at the world;
A universe of pain let loose
In half coherent strangled cries.

At everyone and everything he’s ever known
He hurls obscenities and threats
And rails against the waste, the hopelessness
Of each succeeding day.

And if by chance you come by him
He’ll fall to silence, eyes cast to the skies
His body held as rigid as a rod
Until he’s sure you’re out of sight.

Then he’ll strike up again and fill the air
With all the misery, futility of life
He’ll howl until the failing evening light
Sends him back the way he came.

Climbing Towers takes us further away. 
We can see further, but folk are smaller
They are things moving below, in a way
it makes them not people, can’t hear them holler.

Towers are social distancing fear homes
History is far away, behind glass,
unreal. Towers are solid safe zones
Until struck down in planned attacks. 

Be Photogenic
Getting Used to it
The Iron Poet
Seasons Without Fun
I Can Make the World Perfect
Break Me Some More

It’s the edges of life
That focus my eye
I despise all those other photos
Of smiling faces
And plastered on selfies of
Those tortured expressions
Wrung out from the worst horror
The pretence of happiness
Strained over too much grin
A cheap plastic emotion we can trot out
The paperback cover to so much fiction of lives
And let's not ask too much  
That’s never admitted to
That it hides
Sawdust scattered over vomit
Brushed away the next day

A trillion billion photos
A cascade of coloured distraction
Enough to wrap up the horrors
The bloodshed, the rape, the child exploitation
The ritual gender mutilation
The domestic violence
The billionaires fucking the economy
Because, well
They can-can 
And dance on your grave

I don’t want your faked joy
Your projection of what the world should look like
Outside of you
Show me your insides
Tell me who you really are
And not the you that everyone
And everything has crushed you into 
This space you occupy
For less than a blink of an eye
To be you at all costs
You have paid the price
Give my unflinching lens
Your truth
Be photogenic 

< < <

Of course I’d like to see you again
Although it appears
Amongst my friends and family
I am the only one who does

I really see you
Not imagining 
Picturing you
In all the pictures I have
Where you exist
Locked in a time
Where there is no time travel
But there are warlocks
Eating away at the flesh
Soon to be burnt
Ashes to ashes no fun to funky

I can close my eyes and then I can see you
Even if everything else is black
Inside of me
There you are
Not imagined
Really seen
You are here
And everyone else is there in the stalls 
Emotionally stalled
You breathe in my heart
Your life in every beat

Except I was there when you stopped breathing
And your life halted
Terminated.
The nurse 
With practiced condolence
Came over and closed your eyes
I couldn’t move 
But you didn’t see
She closed those lids
And then everything else was perfunctory 

The arrangements
The death certificate and the charge for extras
Because you can’t make copies
£12.50 now by the way 
Each to their own they say
For you people
In attendance
For your future reference
There is no fun in funeral 
Although it is there
In those first three letters
Like fangs
Sharp
Glaring at me
Monstrous in their desire
Knowing
There is nothing I can do now
But to suck it up 
There is nothing left to do 
In your empty space
But to get used to it

< < <

Up in the gallery I look down at my feet
This is not quite the gods
Well, not until we meet
And I think about your footsteps
As through the corridors and on the steps
They would have fallen
Where they must have wandered
I'd like to follow them
You're a giant though
And I'm only very, very small
Maybe an iron filing
Still I walk on
Come by your statue 
And sit with you for a while

It's a one sided conversation 
Frozen as you are in your prime
I can't help wondering about you as a child
As I wonder about myself 
As I go back in time and watch 
As Rod Taylor did
Those shop window mannequins
Undress and redress
But not address all those feelings gathered over time
In barely restrained words
Hammered on paper
Tiny metal fists
You insist 

Nineteen seventy and my eight year old self
Sat in class in rapture in your words
As the teacher, Mr Morris 
Reads your story and you take me to the sun and back
And I realised then
Maybe to save something important 
You have to damage yourself

But then we would do that for you
Well-meaning as it was
Smiling faces brandishing paper cuts
That they should use to open up their own hearts
And the bitterness there in
But no, let's eviscerate you
Because we need to look
As I feel we do
In all suicides 
For someone to blame
I get what it is to be a Yorkshire man
Rough and bluff which of course 
Is only there to hide the pain
What is it they say?
All men live lives of quiet desperation
You can't always stop
The butterfly from breaking itself on the wheel 
Life isn’t always a gas after all

You were gone by the time I read your birthday letters
And I had to put together the man who wrote about the Iron Giant
With those more metallic words
Where you were trapped in a bell jar
And here I am standing in your school
Hoping to be schooled by other poets
Listening to this stumbling confession
I'll not be standing on your shoulders 
I'll just look up to you from the grounds
You, the ferrous wordsmith
Hammering away in my heart
Because you have - damn your silent self -
Galvanized me
Completely

< < <

The plot was all gone
Escaped out the back door
See you next week it said, with a wink and a smirk
And a doff of its burning desire
And for good measure
A question about how’s your father
While I would be exiting out the bedroom door
To the box room
Away from the box in the corner
Where they once or - so it’s said -
Buried that Mr Morecambe and Mr Wise

We wouldn’t be flicking through the channels again
And you don’t look up
Even when I tapped our screen
Turned to you and said:
‘It’s dead, Jim’

But it was all heart beat to you
The endless streams of Netflix
Our lives measured out in episodes
Fast forwarding through commercials
Forever promising another life
That was there but not there when the screen blinked off
Blanked empty love
Closed down another day
We’re are all caught up now
You would cheerfully say
And take to the material bed
Which was a poor second - maybe an ITV3 or a Channel Five
In the ratings war
To the fiction that dominated us
Became us

And so to the fact
You never saw coming or cumming
Wishful thinking because there was none of that
The only boob was the boob-tube
Binge watched
To a blur of memory

And then when our lives went into re-runs
Two pointless and sexless affairs took me nowhere
Apart from your wrath of Khan
When I finally cut the cable
You still hold on to the fantasy
Of us
But our show time
This last season in the sun
Has been
Cancelled
Consigned
You are steadfastly locked into
Your endless re-runs of a relationship that never was
Never should have been
Born out of escapism
Aborted well past its sell by date
Slow fade then
To black

< < <

I don’t want to be discouraging
My aim isn’t to bring you down
Rain on your parade
Bring everything to a screeching a nihilistic halt
Although let’s be honest
Those Pearly Gates are plastic and fake
I bought mine on Temu 
You’ve built so much
Gone so high
Without a shit storm
But gone and hit the mats when you needed to
It’s not me trying to dispel all of that for you
You’re less than two years old
But you’re already on your feet
Teetering forward
Into my open fearful arms
I’ll hold you for as long as I can
And then you’re twenty-eight

So it’s a hug now
As reassuring as I can get
Without all the bets being off

I’ve never wanted to twist your head
Force your hand
Direct your gaze
Hold open your eyelids
Like clockwork in a tic toc world
Of zero concentration
And maximum titillation
Force you to see these events unfold
Blooming ugly flowers from ugly minds
Not my world
Not how I wanted it for you
But of course it’s all T S Elliot in the end
Covid was a practice whimper after all you see

So it’s an airborne bug now
As infectious as it can get but not quite enough
Not yet because it can wait 

Of course the solution is obvious
I know how to make the world perfect for you
It acquires some courage I’ll admit
Or none at all
Because it’s all about foresight because the ends
Will justify the memes
And I can’t make the world perfect without killing people
To line those up that need to be dispatched
At dawn
Seems like a good time as any
Winter it’s dark
And summer the sun’s up
If you are lucky
Kneeling, head down, chin dropped to chest
Far, far from in their Sunday best
Coupled with the aroma of lost boldly functions

So it’s a bullet now
As quick as it can get
And yet this is perfection in cold lead 

I move along all those people
A steady hand
A sure thing
Back of the head
Not some heavy round like a dirty harry .44 magnum 
I’m not that kind of a monster
.22 calibre. long, not powerful enough to take out the front of a face
Open casket funerals can still be all the rage
Just enough to go careering around the inside of the skull
Just enough to turn the brain into goo

So that’s how it is now
Oppenheimer
Hitler
Stalin
Pol Pot
And Trump

I have become a poet
Shatterer of words


< < <

There was a point she said
Turning away from me
On her marital bed
But not mine, not this time
And facing the wall
Where sex becomes tort
And tort becomes sex
But rest assured - her pointed tongue running over
The white on her lips
Smearing it a little more
Where the kissing had not
It all ends up as malfeasance

It’s bouncing outside she said
And stood and moved the curtain for a clearer view
Of a world neither of us occupied in the moment
But in the depths
That hurrying and scurrying in the fluid
That rush towards certain oblivion
But for us we have crept away from 

She returns to the bed
Call me old fashioned but this is where I like my fucking
Or to be fucked
She takes me in her mouth again
And soon she swallows with an eagerness I could explain
Clambers up me sliding the wetness of herself
Over me as if a comfort blanket of desire
And she falls on her back and I slide my tongue down her
Till I find - what U2 didn’t - and stay there drinking
For the next hour or two
If there is a fountain of youth then this is it

The world outside is not coming in
Although we are always cumming out
She cums in my face and over my tongue, into my mouth
I drink
And I am hard to the point of discomfort
And I adjust and place my cock to one side
Then back to the pleasure
We are married
Just not to each other
And there - as Shakespeare said - hangs a tale

She sits up, her sex sliding away
I feel deprived
‘You have broken me again’, she says, 
‘so please cum and break me some more.’

< < < 

Aldershot.
Bid the Soldiers Shoot                                         Shakespeare
Barnsley
In triumph from the north... all red                     McAulay
Blackpool
Men may come and men may go
But I go on for ever                                               Tennyson
Darlington
Round a Quaker's beaver cast a glory               Pope 
Hull City
By the tide of Humber...
Let us roll our strength... into one ball.              Marvell
Millwall
Rise like lions after slumber                                Shelley
Port Vale
O listen! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound                             Wordsworth
Wolverhampton Wanderers
Like the wolf on the fold...
Gleaming in... gold                                                Byron

Sunday’s sacrificed. Today we worship
on the hallowed turf of our local park.

This is how it begins – six and seven
years old. Boys and girls in their football boots,

the trampled clay and Spring’s green shoots.
They’re giving it their all and their best shots.

Dads on the touchline re-living their youth,
they say they could have played for Rovers but…

It’s a game of hard knocks, learning the rules
of life and offside. Wearing golden boots

like slippers on glass bones, future stars shine
on the centre circle. They pass the ball

and their mate crosses, scores the winning goal,
it’s all about the team and taking part.

The seasons pass by – freezing in the low
divisions of Winter snows and Spring rains

we pray for sun and the Premiership.
These are the days of glory we live for.

Now, they are still followers; travellers
of the kingdom doing the ninety-two.

It takes more than skill to cook a Sunday
Roast while cheering and jeering from the side

lines. We’ll never get our Sundays back –
but then, there’s always the action replay.

Is football playing
Along the river shore,
With lads to chase the leather,
Now I stand up no more?

Ay the ball is flying,
The lads play heart and soul;
The goal stands up, the keeper
Stands up to keep the goal.

Is football still playing 
Along the river shore, 
With lads to chase the leather, 
Now I stand up no more? 

Nay, the ball lies rotting
The lads, they stay indoors
And watch by satellite TV
Or just look at the scores

Twenty-Two stalwarts in stripes and shorts
Kicking a ball along,
Set in a square of leather-lunged sports
Twenty-two thousand strong,
Some of them shabby, some of them spruce,
Savagely clamorous all,
Hurling endearments, advice or abuse,
At the muscular boys on the ball.

Rage
Icicle on the Allotment tap
Ghost in Feathers
Smoke on the Argent Water
The Enemy Within my Nest
Hunger

Don’t you dare tell me to breathe.
I’ll inhale your tepid patience,
spit it back, acid-hot.
I’ll eviscerate empathy.
Make it scream.
 
This isn’t your teachable moment.
I am a wasp nest in a ribcage.
A snarl wrapped in skin.
A gagged mouth full of knives.
 
I’ll shred your calm words to ribbons,
wear them like ruined trophies.
I want to lash out.
Fight.
Bite.
Punch until there’s blood.
I want the world to flinch when I blink.
 
I am inelegant, ignoble rage.
Dysfunctional, guttural, ugly, useless.
A feral beast, twitching in the corner,
gnawing itself raw in relentless frustration.
 
I am the scream behind the sneer.
The bite behind the breath.
The hate-fuelled storm seething inside.
Thunder flashing,
pounding rage.


< < <

An icicle clings to the verdigris tap,
thin as a witch’s finger,
growing slow from the stubborn heartbeat
of a drip that refuses to stop.
Each drop a tiny, trembling planet,
freezing mid-fall,
a moment arrested.

Around it, the allotment sleeps
under winter’s hush.
Frost furrows the soil
with silver-white seams;
shed windows bloom with ferns,
delicate as pressed lace.

A forgotten trowel leans against the fence,
white teeth around its rim,
its wooden handle swollen,
balancing pearls of frozen dew.

The icicle lengthens in silence,
a glass dagger
splitting shy sunlight
into dancing rainbows.

Beneath the frozen beds,
seeds wait,
trusting that thaw will come.

But for now,
the world is held in suspension,
and the icicle hangs:
a single note
in a winter song.


< < <

The barn walls drink the last of the light.
Shadows bloom like bruises across the beams.
The swallows sleep in cloistered hush;
the oxblood tractor ticks,
a cooling beast slain at sunset. 

Moths rise, dust-winged,
erratically searching 
for the memory of light.
Spiders unfurl their wire legs,
threading tremors through webs.
Bats spill from broken gables,
their flight a soft percussion 
through the dark. 

The barn's hushed breath is silenced.
But the night's chorus is not complete. 
One nocturnal spectre lingers.
Watching.
Seeing all. 

Talons unfurl, rusted hooks sear 
through feathers pale as bone.
She ends her vigil with a haunted cry,
and the scuttling things below
wonder if they are the who she calls for. 

There is no fanfare, only death on wing.
Silent, surgical, inevitable.
Rending flesh, she claims her prize,
then slips between the rafters,
folding into their oaken skin. 

Though night wanes, she remains:
perched, unmoving, unblinking.
Waiting. 
A ghost in feathers.


< < <

We climbed through the Old Man’s 
misted, Arcadian heights,  
Boots brushing serpentine paths 
Edged with scripted curls of bracken. 
The taste of rust and pine in the air.

Above the tree line,  
The world turns cerulean.
A sky drawn taut with silence,  
Listening to the last breath of summer.  

We found the tarn – a mirror of argent,  
Cradled within precipitous, 
Grass-clad arms, 
And the wind paused 
As we sat within the silver-still basin.

Shoulder to shoulder.
Sharing a cigarette
And our versions of the future, 
While light steeped everything in amber.

Smoke rose in a slow ribbon  
Threading through the chill,  
And I watched it weave itself  
Into the turbulent shape of memory.


< < <

It began with small things.
A word left hanging in the air
longer than it should,
a silence that didn’t fit
the room it lived in. 

Someone was watching us
from the soft places
where trust sleeps.
I felt their presence tucked neatly
between familiar voices,
blending with the rhythm of our days,
learning the shape
of comfort. 

I searched for the intruder
in every face I loved,
yet still the wrongness
tightened its grip,
a quiet hand
at the back of my mind, 
until, in the hush 
of the hallway mirror, 
the truth settled. 

The familiar eyes.
The practised smile.
The bitter reflection
I kept trying to outrun.


< < <

I am the quivering tongue
aching to follow the warm, hidden map
your skin draws in the half-light.

I am the pulsing lips
seeking the soft refuge of your kiss,
greedy to borrow your warmth
as night gathers around us.

I am the glistening teeth
restless with the urge
to graze that place
where your pulse rises
to meet my unyielding bite.

I am the mouth that whispers
of needs and flawed vows,
but cannot bear the bitter salt
of the longing it tastes.

I am the heat of a shared breath, 
suspended between us, 
waiting for the moment when 
wanting becomes touch,
and touch becomes devouring.


< < < 

Barfly Psyche
Queen of the Curve
Kite Lightning I 
Kite Lightning II
Owl and Yew
Tideway Isle Enigma

My
Psyche’s well-worn terrain -
Creased with neurosis;
Wagon-rutted with tag of Ego or 
Superego; 
Sparse-latticed with 
Fresh scat of Id. Now she

Escapes as
Rank smoke blown from 
Pale-mouthed prophets 
Ensconced in
Dive-bar
Netherworlds.

Drunken player-piano flounders,
Oblivious to the metronome’s
Frenzied, breakneck click that

Mingle-melds into Geiger counter’s 
Voluble cackle at 
Nudnick’s 
Approach.

My
Overworked brain,
Wreathed in 
Stifling fug of hubbub and
Body heat, craves the
Crisp snow, newly fallen -  

Psyche’s
Untrodden
Region. 

Barkeeper vainly 
Seeks to detain me with
Whatever might help
Kill the mean
Hours.

I move towards the 
Cool vestibule with its
Casement open to the
Elements. 

There, by
Nameless starlight,
Undertaker
Tots up the
Bill. 

With
Austere
Sinew-sculpt of 
Raw-boned
Béton brut*,

Queen of the Curve
Scoops
Terrace and 
Canyon out of
Viscous liquid -

Flowing charms that
Make stiff, thick
Walls seem to
Slacken.

Queen of the Curve
Nods to
Le Corbusier with her
Galleon hoisted 
Seven leagues above the
Earth, but

Softens his gaze with
Human-scale pep of
Shop-café in
Each massive
Inverted-cone 
Column.

With
Skewed, slanted
Window-scatter of
Working-vessel
Entrail,

Queen of the Curve
Recasts
Narrenschiff* as
Futurist 
Ark of Salvation - then

Bids you 
Cross this 
Space without
Probing its 
Nautical
Heart of
Folly.

Shape-shifting 
Kenning for an 
Unnameable god: now
Honey-buzzard, now
Cuckoo-falcon, bat-hawk; now
Queen and Sister, their heads
Topping the lithe forms of
Black Kites – 
Charnel birds 
Searching for the scattered 
Remains of the murdered King, 

Lamenting, sanctifying the
Slain sibling with their
Plaintive cry. 

Is the King
Drowned? Or become the
River’s source? 
Decomposing, His 
Fragments irrigate the
Spent land, raising up
The Flood – the Realm’s yearly
Resurrection. Now
Wings flap to restore the 
King’s Soul to wholeness. 

Mimicking 
Lightning to mend the broken 
Covenant between
Heaven and Earth, 

Queen and Sister then take 
Burning twigs, 
Drop them on 
Thatched roofs that shelter

Vizier,
Courtier 
Complicit in the
Fratricidal 
Plot – 

Flushing them out, 
Picking them off as they 
Flee the 
Flames.



< < < 

In a distant land,
Gliding, soaring like the Kite,
Prayer banners borne aloft,
Flown to petition a god -
Unnamed, unknowable – with
Strings, whistles attached to
Emulate the keening of
Supplicants. 

Charmed with
Lightning, necromancer makes a
Profane conjecture:

Amber harvested from
Thunderbolts is that same
Life-force coursing through the
Body’s meridians.
Finding a fresh victim for this
Trial on a
Nearby beach – a near certainty:
Thieves, strapped to box kites to
Foretell whether a ship
Should sail, 
Wash up in the cove.

Lifeless but pliant, the
Body is bound to a
Rod attached to a 
Prayer flag. 

Storm brewing, a strange
Presence at hand keeps 
Charging and
Discharging the
Electroscope, with the 
Foils now 
Opening, now
Closing. 
Lightning bolt. 
Convulsions.

Sparks. 
Flames soon quelled.

Eyelids quivering, but the
Victim stays inert.
Patterns – red, fractal – on the
Upper torso now
Merge into 
Raptor 
Talons.



< < < 

The bloodletting stops at sundown.
Effulgent red sap enlivens the eyes of 
Four Owls
Arrayed on the Angelystor branch of
Saint Brynnach’s Yew.

Stock-still contemplatives,
They command the stern hour that
Puts out the guttering sun.

Four Owls - 
Ancient of Days,
Hanged Monk,
Slain Prince,
Flower-Faced One -

With a poise that exhorts the wise:
To shirk the world’s din and duplicity,
To shun the world’s bedlam and strife -
Brothers in calumny and perfidy,
In-laws spiteful in their lechery -
To remember the
Outcast Owl, Blodeuwedd,
In her sorrow. 

Raptor of Cwm Cowlyd,
Elder of All Creatures,
Warns: 
Those
Smitten with passing shades and fancies
Shall suffer the penalty of
Restless exile upon the roads.

Some say a
Tudor prince
Wooed
Courtesans on this
Tideway Island.

Others say
They pooled
Discarded red-blood
Corpuscles here,
Clumping them into 
Soylent black pudding to 
Feed a hungry 
Nation during 
Wartime.

Amid a
Thicket of
Yarn and conjecture,
Bohemia threads
Quietly through 
Boatyard and
Houseboat. With

Trad Jazz,
Poetry slams and
R&B gigs, a
Farsighted scholar and
Outworker crafts 
Bold experiments to
Study a phenomenon then
Still largely unchartered: 
Youth Culture.

Some claim the
British Sixties
Launch from the
Jazz Club he founds as his
Laboratory.

In the 
Beatnik-and-skiffle era,
Before the footbridge is built,
They pay a penny to
Cross on the chain-ferry.

Punt-like - and 
Unwieldy when
Crammed with
Bearded masses - it
Tips one or two
Daddy-Ohs into the
Murky Thames,

Eliciting 
Ghost grins from the
Charon-Crone in her
Lowly
Shelter.


< < < 

John Roedel 
My Brain and Heart Divorced - John Roedel
Judy Theobald
Joe Mills
If Librarians Were Honest - Joe Mills

my brain and
heart divorced

a decade ago

over who was

to blame about
how big of a mess
I have become

eventually,

they couldn’t be
in the same room
with each other

now my head and heart
share custody of me

stay with my brain
during the week

and my heart
gets me on weekends
they never speak to one another

– instead, they give me
the same note to pass
to each other every week

and their notes they
send to one another always
says the same thing:

“This is all your fault’

on Sundays

my heart complains
about how my

head has let me down
in the past

and on Wednesday
my head lists all
of the times my
heart has screwed
things up for me
in the future

they blame each
other for the

state of my life

there’s been a lot
of yelling – and crying

SO,
lately, I’ve been
spending a lot of

time with my gut

who serves as my
unofficial therapist

most nights, sneak out of the
window in my ribcage

and slide down my spine
and collapse on my

gut’s plush leather chair
that’s always open for me

~ and just sit sit sit sit
until the sun comes up

last evening,

my gut asked me

if was having a hard
time being caught
between my heart
and my head

nodded

said didn’t know
if could live with
either of them anymore
“my heart is always sad about

something that happened yesterday

while my head is always worried

about something that may happen tomorrow,
lamented

my gut squeezed my hand

‘just can’t live with

my mistakes of the past

or my anxiety about the future,’
sighed

my gut smiled and said:
‘in that case,

you should

go stay with your

lungs for a while,’

was confused
– the look on my face gave it away

“if you are exhausted about

your heart’s obsession with

the fixed past and your mind’s focus
on the uncertain future

your lungs are the perfect place for you

there is no yesterday in your lungs
there is no tomorrow there either

there is only now

there is only inhale

there is only exhale

there is only this moment

there is only breath
and in that breath

you can rest while your
heart and head work
their relationship out.’

this morning,
while my brain
was busy reading
tea leaves

and while my
heart was staring
at old photographs

packed a little
bag and walked
to the door of
my lungs

before could even knock
she opened the door

with a smile and as

a gust of air embraced me
she said
“what took you so long?"

“…a book indeed sometimes debauched me from my work…”
–Benjamin Franklin
If librarians were honest,
they wouldn’t smile, or act
welcoming. They would say,
You need to be careful. Here
be monsters. They would say,
These rooms house heathens
and heretics, murderers and
maniacs, the deluded, desperate,
and dissolute. They would say,
These books contain knowledge
of death, desire, and decay,
betrayal, blood, and more blood;
each is a Pandora’s box, so why
would you want to open one.
They would post danger
signs warning that contact
might result in mood swings,
severe changes in vision,
and mind-altering effects.

If librarians were honest
they would admit the stacks
can be more seductive and
shocking than porn. After all,
once you’ve seen a few
breasts, vaginas, and penises,
more is simply more,
a comforting banality,
but the shelves of a library
contain sensational novelties,
a scandalous, permissive mingling
of Malcolm X, Marx, Melville,
Merwin, Millay, Milton, Morrison,
and anyone can check them out,
taking them home or to some corner
where they can be debauched
and impregnated with ideas.

If librarians were honest,
they would say, No one
spends time here without being
changed. Maybe you should
go home. While you still can.

Remnants
Ten Yards from God
The Width of Each Day (Lombok, Indonesia)
Sleepers (Cairns, Australia)
Field Report: Shakespeare Bay (Picton, New Zealand)
An Evening With Van Gogh

Light drifts in from the corridor,
through the cabin door,
rests on the next one, brass knob warm under my fingers.

A woman bends over a quilt,
fingers pressing into worn fabric,
threads curling and fraying, tiny waves in her hands.

I know she’s my grandmother.
We never met, but her breath smells of rain and starch,
and I remember it anyway.

She unpicks stitches
meant for a baby she never held.
Our eyes meet, a little knot of recognition.

Time pools in her lap,
soft as the cloth she cannot finish.
Each thread she pulls catches a quiet in the room.

I notice it everywhere,
on the windowsill, the hinge of the door.
I feel fluttering under my ribs.

I try to speak,
words stick to the roof of my mouth.
I almost look away.

She keeps unpicking,
her hands patient, exact, rustling with their own memory.
She folds the quilt, its weight settling warm in my hands.

For a moment,
the whole room breathes with us,
and a faint light lingers in the corners, attentive.



< < < 

A young bull elephant bursts from the thicket,
urine dark on his legs.
He sees us in the jeep,
eyes black as tar.

Frances freezes, knuckles white,
silent scream pinned behind her teeth.
The bull shakes his head, then charges.
The earth shudders.
Time stretches thin as wire.
I taste iron and dust.
We are nothing.

“Ssh,” Mark our guide whispers.
“Quiet, ja? Don’t even breathe.”
The world narrows to a single point;
all I can see is this bull, muscle and intent,
a clenched silence.

Each flick of his ear, each step
ticks closer to impact.
Frances doesn’t move.

Next to me, a woman films on her iPhone,
her face calm, almost bored.
Death, content.
I want to grab her phone,
but I sit there, a good tourist,
waiting to be trampled.

Mark’s hand is locked on the gearstick.
I brace for impact, but the bull halts ten yards away
and looks at us
like we’re the dumbest thing he’s seen all morning.

With a snort,
the bull crashes back into the bush.
A long silence. Then Mark shifts us into reverse.

Frances wipes her hands on her jeans.
The woman reviews her footage.
Someone suggests coffee.
We nod. A drink will do,
as if death hadn’t sniffed us
and turned away.

< < < 

Before leaving the coach
we pull on clear raincoats,
flip-flops skidding.

We stand in a muddy square
men fight with rattan.
Wood cracks on leather shields.

One fighter bleeds
from the knuckles.
It starts raining again.

We duck into a hut.
A girl in a black jilbab
weaves at a loom.

Her fingers move,
patient, exact.
Thread lifts, tightens,

sings once, then again,
the loom setting
the width of each day.

While my granddaughter
chooses A-levels,
this girl’s path

is already set
in the hands
always moving.

< < < 

Beneath the cable car
the rainforest spreads,
green cut by silver water.

One waterfall drops hard,
then another,
sentences breaking mid-thought.

We float above it,
the forest breathing under glass,
before the ground takes us back.

History waits on iron rails.
We follow the Kuranda Scenic Railway,
the old gold and tin line,

through tunnels cut by hand,
over bridges sagging
under a century of weight.

At the station, a sign:
thirty-two labourers died
“accidentally” building this route.

No names.
No graves.
Just absence packed into soil.

Ghosts lean on every sleeper.
Their silence rides with us,
muffled by brochure cheer,

buried under the engine’s cough.
We slide back into green,
past waterfalls rehearsing wonder.

But the sound is only water.
The rainforest does not sing
the way it did before.

< < < 

A taxi, then a boat ferry us
to the Sanctuary. At the wooden landing,
the ship’s stern looms.

Human order pressed hard
against forest and sea.
The guide takes us uphill,

gravel crackling
like a language of old bones,
warning of something we’ve forgotten.

The path steepens. Frances halts,
her breath snagged.
Her stance tilts, leaning into the stronger side,

a small adjustment,
like the body remembering
how to guard an old wound.

A glance between us
is enough.
We descend, settle into stillness.

Bellbirds slice the hush with silver cries,
almost joyful. Fantails dart
like cursive script, the air taking notes.

At the pier’s edge,
I find an eleven-legged starfish
dragging itself over sand and stone.

Later, the others return
breathless. A woman says,
“It was a route march.

We saw nothing.
Heard nothing.”
Her friend quotes W. H. Davies:

“No time to stand and stare.”
We were lucky.
We’d stopped.




< < < 

Tonight I’m with Van Gogh on a bender,
smearing spilt drinks across the starry deck.
Absinthe green, Bordeaux red, Yellow Bird.

Three drinks in, fluent in a new tongue,
liver painting warnings: Stop!
Olives float, in mourning.

The deck turns into Café Terrace at Night,
yellow lights against cobalt sky,
passengers blushed and blurred, 

sipping Cosmopolitans.

A woman laughs too loud.
Something in it sounds like drowning.
We raise our glasses.

“The yellows vibrate against violets,” I tell the bartender.
He pours us another.
“You’re my brother tonight.”

Fifth drink in, we’re prophets
under disco constellations
sketching drafts of faith.

At the rail, we vomit into the sea,
the water churning like an audience of critics,
finding no canvas, only darkness.



< < < 

Through Salt Heavy Seas - Andrew Williamson
The Kitchen - Andrew Williamson
Blessed in Both Worlds - Chivonne Barrington Head
Hey Listen - Chivonne Barrington Head
irl - Danielle McMahon
Night Blooms - Danelle McMahon

the old formica table
washing hanging on a winter’s day
shelling peas on the back steps
this room did not change
with the passing years

it was a place where we would meet
at dark of dawn and
dimming of the day
to listen and to talk
to feel quietly loved
Radio 4 and the Archers a constant
morning paper scattered

it is a room I have not seen
for many years
and is like you
a part of who I am

You might be dead in five years
or less
so, stop thinking
you’re not good enough for the world
or the word
or worse, 
thinking you’re too good for it all. 
Find your poison:

drink it. 

If you live to see through it
if you wake up in a hospital bed
with guns and knives pointed at you from all angles,
get up quietly when they’re all asleep. 

Walk in a different direction
away from them, 
the killers. 

There’s always another way.

Leave them.
find home.
If it’s alone, 
or you’re lost
there’s always
this
there’s always 

you. 

windows down the air stings of salt and
the sweat of stable horses sleepwalking clods
of sweet moonflower and white jasmine

night blooms and the air opens up
into hushed syllables too sacred
to shatter with sleepy chatter

’cept your wheels on the road pinging back
flecks of toasted meteorite into the wheelwell
and the gentle chorus of our breath

say i want to ask you about our talks and why you
always ping me late at night on the instant messenger

say i want to ask you about this strange connection
and why you can’t bring yourself to mouth the words true

but instead i fly my open hand out the passenger window
and whisper the names of flowers like an incantation:

hyssop, jasmine, foamflower, primrose, moonflower,
devil’s trumpet

At One with Nature in Epping Forest
we’re born suspended between life becoming and life no longer
A Life in Guidebooks
Shape-Shifter
Mole’s Feet Amulet
Taxidermy Fox in a Natural History Display

Pink flash – jay

nearly fell over in a muddy patch – the whippy sapling I grab
taunts my arthritic clumsy flailing for a foothold on 

brown whir – wren

this slippy bank. Busy bobber fussing on a mess of twigs down by the stream
seems disturbed – I push on through more saplings - it quietens.

Clatter clatter – woodpigeons

rise like a neighbourhood watch to retreat into the oak canopy
a dense network that muffles chatter. 

Keening mew – buzzard

wheeling above its name, indifferent to anything but quivering 
flanks, feathers or the hunting wind that it rides.

Yick-yick – nuthatch

chops through air in hard whistles from a hornbeam trunk - 
I muse on hornbeams turned to piano hammers playing a high 
 
C-C-C - long-tailed tit.

Crash into another thicket.  Lost my bearings, bewildered 
by birds until human voices cut in. I follow these familiar sounds 

piebald stick – magpie 

through the trees.  My flesh - not my useless knowledge - can be 
fodder for their seedlings one day. Until then Epping Forest wants me gone.


< < < 

no warning 
whole mouth filled in
like a brick
edges rasping
breaking tongue 
no breath 
breath should be present  
my fastened lungs 
try to bellow on 
a blocked mouth 
cannot pump 
absence of air 
stops up 
all sound 
dampens all speech 

water will always find a way through a wall

brittle as moonshine
fickle as flesh
like an egg
there is no light 
in the vacuum 
of no breath
egg blows apart
yolk pours
a slippery flame 
to hatch 
the shell must shatter 
but before that
glue together 
raw cells

I am not ready to be newly made



< < < 

Chester, Cirencester, Caernarfon, Sheffield Park - garden only -
arranged in a charity shop basket.  I bought three.
Photographs in Kodachrome cut-out colours, smudgeless blue
inscriptions - to Chirk Castle with Neil and Margaret 30th August 1982.
Black and gold address labels that fixed at right angles
suburbia to each guidebook. 

I knew, not well, that neat gold-labelled street of semis 
rolled out to store Metropolitan Railway fare-payers
where clipped privet hedges framed the family car. 
On weekdays, the City train. Weekends for motoring over everywhere.

These books hadn’t been stuffed into a backpack as the train pulled in -
no ragged pages, no reader’s curious finger marks or leaky coffee stains.
Whoever broke up this pristine archive of car excursions 
hadn’t journeyed through an attic full of out-of-date railway timetables.

I looked out across the high street to the former shoe shop
where I got my first pair of Start-Rites, past the new 
traffic island where the girl in the year below got run over.
Took my purchases to the grownups pub, not much else left.
Dripped beer, cracked open the covers. 
Neil and Margaret. Labels. Curated lives for sale.


< < < 

I perch here on a high ridge where I can hear myself think.
Journeying thrushes stop off in my feathery leaves, share their visions
of valleys below. I have roots that hold a hillside, seek mycelial 
messages long-distance. I’m unshadowed but never alone.

I settle here in a suburban garden where I keep myself to myself. 
Local thrushes feed on my scarlet berries, smooth bark hides 
dreams of flight. When landscaped neighbourhood trees 
grow too noisy I go to ground – their roots will take up my stories.

A liminal being, even my name shape-shifts. As wild Rowan I quicken
with unquiet spirits, as domestic Mountain Ash I tell their tales.


< < < 

Held in a skin bag, 
hung on bent neck,
marked by two thumbs 
as Queen Mab’s crone kin 
in drab guise.

Worn to quick hard lives, 
ward off fiend’s bane,
heal cramped hands,
starved teeth -
for a price.

Long claws crossed 
like chipped fangs, 
wrists curled in
to dig, scoop, and cast
rich dark earth.

Sleek pelt to smooth,
press, shore up 
the walls of its mine - 
a mole’s craft 
cuts through time. 

Trapped, dug out, 
seized, sliced. 
Live chaff
cast down to
drain hot blood.

Its life-force must be 
fused with pain 
for the charm to work. 
With no feet in the harsh sun 
its art dies.



< < < 

wildness posed
in flawless glass
snarl frozen
	
no livid gore	
nor busy flies 
its pelt a fur   

mirror eyes 
don’t tell lies


< < < 

Introduction
Life Histories - Barry Griffiths
Cynthia Payne - Brothel Keeper of Renown - Barry Griffiths
Dragged Up a Northern Childhood - Ali Rowland
Putting the Hymn Numbers Up - Ali Rowland
Working Class Zero - John Beal
In Freedom - John Beal
Notes from Various Settees - Roger Waldron
Bruised Fruits and Other Matters - Roger Waldron

Our Cynth
Put her on a plinth
Last Sunday the Grim Reaper took her to a better place 
Where she'll be able to indulge in lewdity and lust at
her own pace

An eccentric noted fop house keeper
Her brush with the law got deeper
Fame embraced her
Convicted of running a disorderly house in 1980
Became a household name and her fans were plenty

Provided personal services for elderly clients who were rich
Thought the world of her, she was kind, courteous and no bitch
A precocious child, our Cynth, expelled from convent school at ten
Led a wild and rebellious life on the South Coast As a young woman had lots of admiring men

Cynth placed in the dock 
Her emotions ran amok
Requesting a non-custodial sentence
Her barrister, in mitigation 
To the court gave a good oration 
Stating No beardless youngsters were
Initiated into the flesh pots 
But was sent to prison
Six months in Holloway, but on release her spirits had risen

The madam was punished, but punters got away free 
Held no malice and made after dinner speeches for a fat fee
At her brothel, clients included barristers, politicians, peers of the realm and men of the cloth
And a cross dresser from the city who was regarded as a bit of a toff
Punters charged just twenty-five quid for a luncheon voucher which was exchanged
For an entitlement to sex with a woman in the house, that agreed, would be arranged
Pensioners received a discount of three quid
A concession she insisted on and would not get rid From being a bawdy entertainer

Argued for the legalization of prostitution and became a campaigner
Stood for election as an MP for the Rainbow Alliance Candidate
Only got 145 votes, that was her political fate

A musical of her life by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice
She tried to persuade them but they did not take her advice
So today we all remember our Cynth 
And keep her in perpetuity on that Plinth


< < <

One day only, he let me choose a hymn,
it may have been my birthday, or even his.
Allowed in from the playground early,
the task suited my tall, gangly body;
standing on a box to slide the digits home,
each backwards so as to be forwards,
I had to lay them out, anxious not to look a fool. 

There was a favourite tune I chose that day,
after hesitation and stuttering, the number 
threatening to fall away from memory 
when needed most: I wasn’t ready, 
the sudden question was a surprise. I sang the words, 
in a voice never heard above the crowd,
and kept my eyes averted in case he smiled.

Up the steep, precarious stairs to his office,
knocking, waiting, steeling myself to listen 
carefully for any morning’s comment, 
to have something sensible to say.
At least it was over early, and then 
he was hidden away there for the day,
access only for miscreants and the school
secretary. I didn’t like the job 
much anyway.


< < <
 

The marching men arrived Saturday
their dull shoes making noise unshelled – 
an armour of air like bells peeling
at a twilight almost forgotten mass.

The blood streamed shortly afterward
a rivulet becoming a torrent of pain
unbecoming in its virile desperation
for the end of others in moonlight

I remember you my friend of seldom
years ago, forged in quiet days
when we wandered from drink
to soporific drink, you would aid 
my return home and I gave nothing
in return, but solitude and silent
night-time grave-side vigil.

This Candlemas is a forgotten entry
in a young girls fancy handwritten diary
where pages are blotted with tears
and fancies – she would weep in
remembrance of her imagined future – 
no happily ever after, but the kick
start explosions inaugurating the circus
of war, where clowns drop like flies
from their collapsing tanks and guns.

She will never walk in freedom.


< < <

having a conversation with my Japanese love 
child   about my treatment of his mother  gets 
quite heated  I explain the circumstances 
he doesn’t buy my explanation  later he phones 
to apologise for grabbing my lapels in Home Bargains 
but never mentions  kneeing me  in what his mother 
called my perfectly formed bittersweet Kumquats 

Just Before Sleep
Waking Up to Snow
Stepping Out
The Meaning of Birdsong
Farewell to Stromness
She Sleeps

I close my eyes and, most times, feel
the watching dark lean over us, breathe
deeply in, blow long, slow rings of
sleep across each grateful brow, then
wrap our limbs around with silken sheets,
two cocooned souls prepared for night.

So soft the silks, so firm the threads,
I cannot say I stay abed or float
among the tops of trees; there is but
black, I cannot halt the unravelling of any
web spun overnight - those about in early light,
of dewy gossamer, while they do delight,
are of the magic of the day, like you, but
when we sleep, do we touch or turn away?

Some nights before we shut day down
we talk a little - just a little - I hear the words
but see no trace of tenderness as you will not
acquiesce in eyes unveiling - though, to be clear,
while I do not doubt your gentle voice
your eyes are as the soaring of the swallow to
the singing of the speckled lark; let neither leave,
you house them both inside your heart.

You tell me I'm too quick, too hot,
not considerate enough of differences.
And you are not convinced when I say
I am man and cannot refine or re-define
all of me; I may learn to love the
pruning of a tree but do not raise the axe or
push the saw to loose the trunk from root,
the sap from bough (that's not all of love, anyhow).

Is there time to find a few more
moments of the day or night to share
a simple, single act of deep devotion?
For each to say, despite the way
today has gone, I've shared with you
the best, the worst, the in-betweens of
all my sorrows, joys it seems I've spared you from -
till now, our time to reconcile.

I close my heavy eyes and lie, flat-backed,
upon the bed. Instead of calling sleep to do
its work, I shirk its numbing ministrations and
whisper in your ear it's time for us to learn to
love and state and celebrate this love - and, one day,
maybe dream together to the end.


< < < 

Woke up to snow today and was
glad I had to be up and out,
to be about before the silence broke.
I like the idea of white all round,
emerging as the night draws back,
revealing random perambulations, say,
of a fox that senses scents are dulled
beneath the snowy overlay.

My turn to tread and feel the ease
of printing paths across the land -
more clearly than a walk on sand,
earth, grass or stone; now I could
send a snow-code note to all those
watching from above. Who might they be?
I guess with snow signs you must believe
and so say something others just see.

First light snow alone, a brand new
canvas for the ice-smith, starting fresh;
man's home for a moment washed, pure
and cleansed. Lay those words end to end
and you'll get some idea of the simple
goodness in any layer of nature's white -
come my night, turn me inside out and
cover me, bathed in bright moonlight.

A score more cures, I'm bound to say,
array themselves in my tidied mind,
alongside new opportunities - though
subdued in winter's grey; a shaft of light required to
set on fire the snowflake chandelier,
to give a clearer view of works of art
that wait patiently, yet are anxious to be
freed from the shadows in our hearts.

My choice today of such treasures:
joy unmeasured, all those photographs
I've long meant my fasting soul to feast on,
of five, bright, young lights - now grown and
flown, in the sense that hugs all round
give way to softer caresses of thankful thoughts;
a touch of sorts and we are more than grateful for it -
and for the snow's good work, of course.


< < < 

I stand on the edge and lean right out
towards the light, the face of one, of
so much more than someone just met;
won't forget the tingling of my skin, the
smell of hers, won't let this slip, this chance to
be unequivocal, say what must be said,
do what must be done - as the
Earth is bound to round the sun.

Still on the edge, my head tips forward;
I wait to re-consider my resolve, knowing
that, if I do step out into air, my
daring may amount to nought, as
crisis is on one side of the coin that
must be flipped. Will I shake on such a trade?
Will I play roulette or take the view that
the odds are worse than red or black?

But deep inside I know no choice;
a voice calls me on and I would not be
gone from this place in any other way.
I may depart empty-handed but
none can say I walked away, left the field.
I am ready and will end the day forever changed.
So I re-arrange my feet, prepare to give all
to gravity, one small step but a life's leap...

then I fall, more slowly than l'd thought, though
how may I know, both eyes closed? There's a
collage in my head, I see somehow, of
reds and greens, great masters' scenes, celebrations of
decisions made. A flight of fancy? Yes, but
more than that: I soar above my store of
nothings, my full baggage of inconsequentials
left behind, liberated from my non-essentials,
stripped of all that bubble wrap, I float and,
like a leaf whose time has come to
break away and gently drop, I brush the ground
right on the spot, bump just once and then....

stop...my upper lip has landed safely,
softly on her lower one, which quivers just a
little, sending shivers down my back but no
disconnection. I sense that mine may rest on
hers for a while but can't be sure, for l
feel (and she does too) that our lips have
minds of their own: my will has nothing to say;
hers has laid down to rest and said "Go
play with your friends, wake me up in the morning."

Oh, joy! Our mouths explore a corner of this
dazzling world, the sweetest kind of human touch -
and really not so hard to find, after all, if
you learn to step off lovers' cliffs. 


< < < 

Warm May morning, pink azaleas alight,
never been so bright before, so
fiery so soon after winter's wake
(quite late this year). I toast my feet beneath
a dodging sun, soaking up essential D, and
settle on a garden seat to listen to what I
cannot see: a tree-top high cacophony
of birdsong, every note unique.

I speculate as to the true translation
but know their secrets pass with species.
One thing that strikes me, though, is that
every melody is sung in a major key.
Does that mean anything? I think on this
while birds continue to give no clue.
Does a minor key mean sad, unhappy?
There's a question that takes us deep.

A sudden rush of revelation gets me
heaping piles of poignancy: a lover's laughter for
a lover lost; Viola "smiling at grief' for a
hopeless love - where we mix on canvas
colours that are forever bright with others
condemned to eternal night: she is dead but
so loved me; l love him but he can't
love the person he has made me.

Sweet melancholy haunts the space between
light and dark: a love that was, now is no longer;
a love given that can't be taken. A minor key
may begin a piece but, wait, move just one finger,
the clouds shift and linger long enough to cue in
light and love waiting patiently in the wings.
I know them now to be the same thing; and
wait for that, quietly, to sink in.

Meanwhile, the birds still sing away -
I wonder if they've seen the play or ever wear
attractive lockets (l've heard that magpies
pick our pockets). I'll never know for certain.
But just before we drop the curtain, listen
closely, try to guess what they are saying.
guarantee you'll find a major key - beyond that,
your guess will be as good as mine.



< < < 

Opens with the pulse of his beloved Orkneys,
in major key, steady, strong, steadfast, lasting,
each leaving a moment when the islands must
nod farewell yet confirm their own longevity,
the simple, slow flow of a living land and a
breathing sea, their separation from
you and me, yet leaving all doors open
to those looking for a return tide.

If the piece is measured against a day,
each day the major key announces
thankfulness for the light that, anxious to please,
reveals bright green early summer pasture,
deep blue lagoons or, arriving late in winter,
a reminder of life's continuum, the comfort that
familiar things remain in place, notwithstanding
hasty weather - the calm will come.

Then the careful composition in the minor key
of the inner lament, the sharp torment, of the leaving,
the loss of links between man and mountain,
between humanity and hearth, the tread of
feet upon fertile earth, the thread of kinship
between all men and all they use and touch,
little ever said of such yet revered inside; they go,
each brow furrowed, each eye tear-lined.

The minor key drifts swiftly over the islands:
a few brief bars of brooding sky and leaping waves.
Unlike the heaviness of heart of those departing,
the bout with nature soon passes, the ending allowing
the next beginning, the triumph of exaltation,
for none can sway the bridges to the heavens,
the stronger bond; and no god will cease to
nurture them and ensure their beauty.

This assured confirmation of the islands'
daily renewal, of the supremacy of the quiet,
the strong, captured in the piano's slow rise in pitch,
taking bold, confident steps from isle to isle,
across the seas between, their watery playgrounds.
The music plays hopscotch, staunch watchful friend,
eyes sweeping over farms, each teeming sea, blowing
come-back melodies to those all set to go.

........
The title is from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies for his piece written originally for Piano 

< < < 

I wake up early most morning times
to fret about this and that inside my head,
accumulating tiredness while she lies
serene, a dream playing with her eyelids
and now and then a corner of her mouth.
In moments of doubt, I shake her wrist
or touch her lips and she wakes,
in a riot of eyelashes, flashing
the loss of connection to the
night story, her hair a honey glory
of curls swirling across the pillow,
perfectly placed so her face rises
right in the middle, where she left it last night.

There is a moment, just a moment,
moving from one world to the other,
when she seems unsure of whether
she should push through to the new day,
play a ray of light to help the sun along;
or slip back into the soft folds of the
old night's incantations which have
enchanted and cleansed her. She
usually decides, nearly arrived, to stay,
ready to be provider, adviser, a shoulder,
a foot soldier in each day's denial
of the negative, the grey, the single file.
She is a shepherdess of human hearts.

And when she's weary after each allotted
task is done, and the sand of a day has
long plunged down the narrow gap through which
acts that come from love alone
should be allowed to pass, l
ask myself whether it is right to
burden her when sleep calls. Sometimes
I stare at two dark walls or across
the room to a lowered blind, find
peace of mind in knowing she has
prayed for me, in her own way, and so
join her in her journeys through riddles we've set
in waking hours, by leaving much unsaid.

Which leads to thoughts of bed, the night-time
chessboard, each game played in pairs, where
combinations of pieces, awake and sleeping,
guess and out-guess the others, then themselves.
They dig and delve into a shifting void of
untold, un-dared desires and requirements that
litter the emptiness, unsure as to where to go,
what to try, whether to fall or fly, whom to seek out.

Such are my thoughts, somewhere between the
night's black and white. I think I am there alone.
most of the time; and as the sun begins to buy the day
I see the peace in the new lines in the new face
and know who won at chess in just one move.

< < < 

Introduction
iProse by John Hobson
Top Deck Dreaming
Ooohhh Aaahhh
Odd: the Journal of the Fellowship of the Sixty Odd Poets
Strange Party by Amanda Samm

On the top deck of the bus I dreamt of us, of me and you. Then I dreamt of the book I wrote. It was on Richard and Judy, an overnight success. You were very proud of me but when I woke up I realised I had been listening to Kate Moss on Desert Island Discs. So I rang the bell and got off.

Quite often when getting up out of a chair I find myself going “Ooohhh”, completely involuntarily, maybe? But this is invariably followed by “Aaaahhh Cantona”. Now I’m not
a United fan in fact I dislike them with a passion despite being born in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy which is only four minutes from Old Trafford but not a place I know. However, Eric was something else, his magnificent posturing, collar up, arms in the air. Then there was that kung fu kick and his poetic nonsense in a post-match interview. Even his footballing was admirable, striding down the pitch like a marauding Norman. So as much as I dislike Manchester United, I don’t mind my knees paying tribute to Eric.

I went to a fabulous party last night
I don’t know where, but it felt all right
All of my extended family were there
They sat on the floor ‘cos there weren't any chairs
The dead and the living, the young and the old
Were drinking and laughing at stories they told.

My sister was cross that the sides were all cluttered
My mother complained that the bread wasn’t buttered
An old man with dreadlocks sat under the sink
And spoke a strange language when offered a drink
A toddler was dressed in a bread bag for pants
And tried to catch disco lights as he danced

Someone cut through a ribbon, and everyone cheered
And then I woke up and they all disappeared!

A Noiseful of Silence - from Convenience Store
Eyes Open-Shut
I Beg to Disagree
Through the Depths
Doing Away with Monster
The Wait
The Idiot
Amnesia

Hey Silence!
Don’t you feign naïveté 
You are not kind or brave
You are merely playing safe

C’mon Silence!
Don’t go fooling yourself
Take off the nirvana cape
You’ve got a six-noise-pack

Hush Silence!!
If you’ve muffled your hoots
Is it wise to go about
Wearing it in your boots

Easy… Silence…
Are you scared of my voice
Can you clothe in even yours
Would you rather be a voyeur
Who wears no words

crush… flush… shush…


< < < 

Sometimes I fear if I open my eyes 
   this fluid face contained within
will vanish and
   the sightless gaze held steadfast
   in this unconfined space
will blink and
   the coarse touch of a travelling ache
   at a distance-less pace
will lose its solace.

Sometimes I think as I close my eyes
   the minutes I send gift-wrapped
   the minutes falling snatched
in this bottomless 
boundless hourglass
   from a timeless universe—
if I’d use them other than 
   giving to Sense and Sensibility to whom
   I have given infinitely more… 
   often in vain?


< < < 

Your life is not one grand stage—
Don’t trip traipsing on and off it;
Don’t be judged by the audience.

You’re not performing in a play—
Don’t enact staid characters
in plaids, laid out by someone else.

You’re not an audience either—
Don’t merely regale in others’ acts!
Participate in life trapezing. Inside.
Breathe in through your lens. The outside.


< < < 

Every day, or perhaps every other day
Irrespective of whether it’s a Tuesday or 
               a Saturday
Regardless of a dark-draped night or 
               a silk-skein day
Notwithstanding a lazing, a musing or 
               a bustling day
At some point of time, I stand pointless    
               at the tip of some bay
                              sinking sans gravity
                              Just the one weight — the head;

and void sinks in and swells like 
                                                   a torrid tempest 
in a mouthful of water of some known  
               alien taste
Images refuse to surface inside eyes of iron-
               clad casks 
The chest — a dead sea — and in it 
               the only thing alive
               that kicks — tentacled despair. Still,

every time, 
                              not Just every other time
the limbs in nick of time 
                make their presence felt
Eyes light up with infinite 
                rainbowed bubbles —
Amazement abounds all around in the depths 
and I stretch my arms and kick my feet back
               all the way up 
               thrust by buoyancy
               of the indefatigable — the lithe life!



< < < 

Who even tries to kill a monster?
What an atrocious waste of time!
So much sweat and all that gooey grime!

Ever wondered a better way,
sure enough to chase it away?
Who knows? It’s just an impostor!

For all that labour, all that slime,
and all that time that’s worth some dime,
you’d think it’d vanish, still it grows! 

Is it even possible to know,
how many lives it has, it must live?
It’s up and about before you grieve!

Is it black or green, purple or grey?
Will it listen if you kneel and pray?
Could it be an iridescent white?

Can its darkness shimmer in light?
If you clip its claws, trim its mane
will it look less dreary, somewhat sane?

Will it give you a little respite
if you stop your chase, halt its bread,
if you cut loose the trailing thread?

Can’t you seek another path to tread?
Can’t you choose to chase squirrels instead?
Can you do that in spite of your spite?


< < < 

       The waiting 
from the time the child is conceived
afloat a mother’s celestial womb
to the time to the sun its beauty bursts
amidst pain serenading joy, with aplomb
        is the wait —

…only the earth can know
carrying treasures within, to grow;

…lovers will never get to know
as impatience chained to oscillating tick-tock
paces, clap-tap-clap-tap to and fro;

…love will grow to know
when chains unshackle, lead unbuckles,
nimbly as on Nature’s rug, it tiptoes.


< < < 

The idiot, on a fine day was born;
before it could open its eyes—
it opened up its arms.
But it could still manage to see
through the filtered light pouring free.
Only, the light was so blinding 
that to the idiot it seemed befit
to keep shut its translucent lids.

From that day on, all around—
in the house, in neighbours’ mouths,
seventeen miles north and south,
whispers and sniggers abound—
of how the idiot was blind born,
of how its lids were pale and shorn,
of the funny arms that always stretched—
when meeting humans always twitched.

But hang on, let’s not sing a sob story—
be patient, we may find some glory.
Sit tight, choose whatever hat to don—
pity, sympathy, empathy or scorn!
I am yet to tell of the magic lamp
that came hidden with a fairy stamp
to the idiot, on someday unknown—
of its powers, to it unbeknownst!

When faced with the human grid
the lamp revealed the faces hid—
each one to their finest details—
of illustrious days or of travails;
of lecherous eyes, of flowing hearts;
the narcissists or the hypocrites;
of dreams beyond, of flights cut short;
the cunning fox, the intellectual sloth.

Yet, when sieved through its gelatine lid
its arms met just the pure liquid,
and every time stretched out as bid.
And stories, anecdotes still abound,
how the idiot could be spun around.
Yet it could find its peace in pain.
Yet it could savour the glory of rain.


< < < 

Dreamy dawn

Forgets 
the night’s tears—shed and held—
blurred to light’s gold

All too soon


< < < 

On the Origin of Doubt - Jenni Thorne
I Try to See the Clothes Jenni Thorne
A Fleeting Presence - C. Oulens
Is this her way of testing us? - Lin Hart
The Challenge - Lin Hart
Querkopf - Jan Peters
Corvus in Red China - Jan Peters

He walked the margins of creation  
with a collector’s calm,  
turning over feathers, fossils,  
the small, persistent proofs  
that life revises itself  
without permission.

In his journals, the old stories  
began to thin.  
He saw no divine fingerprints,  
only the restless machinery  
of life adjusting its gears.  
Finch beaks rewriting scripture  
one season at a time.

The church felt the tremor first.  
Its certainties, once granite,  
softened at the edges.  
What sermon could compete  
with the quiet sweep of time?

But he offered no rebellion,  
no thunderclap of denial.  
Just observation,  
stacked quietly  
until it outweighed  
every certainty.

And when the faithful  
searched for blasphemy,  
they found only a man  
who had looked long enough  
to see that creation  
was vaster than its myths.

And in that unveiling  
was a strange, bright freedom:  
the understanding that life  
needs no divine endorsement  
and truth does not kneel.


< < <

They say it’s stunning.
How the fabric moves, 
refracting the afternoon light.
 
I nod, because the silence asks for it. 
I squint, I tilt my head, I try again.
Perhaps it’s subtle, woven in with care, 
beauty meant only for trained eyes.
 
They speak in metaphors, 
voices hushed, 
as if the cloth might vanish if they shout. 
I try to translate their praise to shape.
To give it texture, colour, weight.
I cannot make it hold. 
 
The emperor walks past, and I see skin.
Not shameful, not profound. 
Just skin, and air.
 
I want to see the suit. 
Want to feel the thrill of being moved.
Of knowing I belong among those who understand. 
I want to be convinced. 
I want to feel the certainty 
that others seem to wear like velvet.
 
But all I feel is distance. 
Not disdain, just distance. 
A pane of clarity between my gaze and theirs. 
I press against it hard, but nothing gives.
I shift perspective. 
The view doesn't alter.
 
I wonder if it’s always been that way, 
if I was born without the proper lens.
I want to cry out like the boy, 
but I don’t speak.
I don’t disrupt. 
I don’t expose the lie. 
I only sit and try to see the clothes. 
I only sit and wonder what it means,
to miss what everyone insists is there, 
and whether its absence 
makes me less than whole.


...
Jenni Thorne is a working mother of two with a boring job in I.T. who can magically transform into a poet, writer, artist, and crafter in the twinkling of an eye. Find more of her work on Bluesky
< < <

I’ve committed the heresy 
of believing a presence—
against my prior institution of belief. 

In my defence
if someone’s to be blamed
it’s those two squirrels
who performed 
a merry dance up and down 
that tree in the parking lot—

in that parking lot enveloped 
in a settling winter evening smog,
a chill that could but failed to freeze,
where two blurry eyes, fixed, 
flowing behind puffs of smoke, 
stared at an unknown oblivion—

in that portal—somewhere—where
they squirrelled
an empty wafer packet as a prop, 
for the mist of my eyes alone, 
vanishing before
the after 
dawned upon me.


...
C. Oulens modestly describes herself as an upcoming poet from India. Next week she will feature in her own Sixty Odd Poets page.  she can also be found on Substack  where she has a collection on the Starbeck Orion and Bluesky
< < <

The mountain shakes the frost
wondering if her children will
starve before they freeze.

They show up barefoot at hotels
asking for just one room
for the night, gone by morning.

They hunger bitter in lines
till doors snap shut, donations
gone, no assistance here.

What charity can hearts have
in a world of white noise,
stark chaos like blizzard snow.

I look to the mountain mother
wearing her first winter shawl
draped over her hair.

I finally see her face for what it is,
I know her name as Mary, and she
has covered her son's eyes from our plight.


< < <

I think solemnly of faces, hungry families
mouths open in prayers, stopped short
as the food bank runs low on food.
The sight of tents behind grocery stores,
snow turning the plastic dome houses
into body bags with stakes.
Thousands without electricity
sans light or warmth, ever present reminder
of the powerlessness of people in the face
of extreme weathered avarice.

And yet in the darkness there is hope.
Community meal days. Word of mouth
digitized relay of information birthing solutions
a new age of couch surfing co-ops
and a little world brightens just a little,
in a little place in the belly of Appalachia.
One car in the ditch and a half dozen emerge
as if sprouting from the trees to pull it out.
“We take care of our own,
” they say without words.
Divide crossing, disregarding race, or party lines
because some part of them remembers
that every person hurt is in fact, a person.
Almost recognizing in a moment, the same
boot rests on everyone’s neck equally
and we’re equally able to remove it, if
we begin with faith in each other.

The hunger reminds me too
of something I thought as a child
reading the Bible for the first time.
When he said “the poor will always
be among you” I didn’t want to accept it.
I couldn’t accept it. How could I
accept that a just and loving God
would allow people to live
devoid of warmth, food, or hope
generation after generation
a living state of indefinite detention?
I reread it again and decided then
to take his words as a challenge.


...
Lin describes herself as a poet, satirist, and zinester from West Virginia. A married, mother of two who eats numbers for work and is definitely a neurospicy cryptid in disguise. find out more on Bluesky
< < <

I
Faecal-slop chamber pot tipped by
Mistake over her miscreant 
Father’s head, Haman’s daughter,
Mortified, defenestrates herself.
Eleventh cut on the gallows crossbeam;
Eleventh cut coupling 
Heh ה and Vav ו in the
Divine Name.

Ten cuts on trunks either side:
Ten sons hanged with Haman from the
Tree meant for Mordechai.
Unseen angel trips him while he begs the
King’s forgiveness. He falls upon Esther.
Seems to molest her. 
Appalled and apoplectic, The King turns 
Grief – theirs, ours - 
Upside down into
Joy.

II
He grows old. With
Hands outstretched,
Fastened with belt, he is led to his
Fate on Vatican Hill.
Faith’s frail vessel, thrice-denier, 
Unlikely pillar of stability, he is
Nailed to the cross head down, with
Feet raised on high, deeming himself
Unworthy to die upright like his
Lord and Saviour.

III
They laugh at the Hanged Man
Blissed in his upturned stance.
They laugh at the Fool 
Advanced with blithe step upon the
Precipice ledge.

Surrender
Pause
Stillness
Sacrifice 

IV
Born into a
Destroyed order, among 
Destroyed people in a
Destroyed landscape, the
Artist suspends representation,
Becomes naïve again.

Dances at the foot of the Cross,
Gifts upside-down crucifix to placid 
Parish. Aghast half of congregation
Departs. Poison-pen letters litter the
Rectory with death threats.

They know not what they do.
They think only upon the 
Belle-Epoque schlock of Black Masses 
Down There. 

All the while, 
Outlaw God goads them,  
Again and again, with
Offence and shock of
Obloquy.


... 
Querkopf (German) – oddball, awkward customer, queer fellow etc. Also refers to the nickname for the controversial sculpture by Georg Baselitz that is alluded to here in the poem.

< < <

Poised to
Claim us when we
Falter – and falter 
We will – the
Corvids come
Crowing with their
Noisome report of
Ennui,
Sorrow and
Despair.

They are
Normal,
Inevitable,
Teaching us to
Live without 
Estrangement from
What is - to

Spurn the
Fable-fetish of
Unalloyed bliss - 
Infantile and 
Brittle – that 
Succours the
Demonic:

Callow,
Little-Red-Book
Lust-itch that
Smirches the intellect,
Defiles the sage - 

Sends poet and
Scholar to 
Perish amid frigid
Inner-Mongolian 
Wastes where they
Dig out, 
Scrub out
Latrines for the
PLA.*

There on the 
Ice-parch plain, a
Soot-thronged shimmer 
Warps the heaven-steppe
Breach, alerting us to 

Impromptu 
Sky burials that 
Gouge shame into the
Erased faces of
Rusticated
Red Guards.



...
*People's Liberation Army

Jan Peters is a British author, coach and lecturer currently resident in Germany.  You can find more of his work on Bluesky
< < <

Wood Sheep, Fire Dog
Weather Report
Offering
The Holy Purpose of Ravens
Grief is a Seascape
The Catch

Incompatible, you say, in a faraway
voice. The Chinese don’t advise it. And
I wilt in a phone box at the British Library.  

Coins slipping through, you tell me how
Sheep was innocently meandering the cliffs
one day, when she met Dog, chasing his tail. 

Sheep wanted to follow, to nurture.
Dog wanted to lead and serve. 

He bowed his head, she stroked him.
Couldn’t refuse. His fur like raw silk,
A scent of rosemary, blood. And she
had never seen such kindred eyes, 
bright as stars and yet so battle-weary.    

After, Dog retreated to his lair while Sheep,
but a clean-picked skeleton, pondered the galaxy.

A lonesome howl. 

< < < 

Regrets. What-ifs. The sky grey.
Clouds whimsically shift sand
on the sea floor. Here is the quiet rage
of molluscs. The starfish homely as a child’s
paper art. Maybe too a mermaid twitching her
forked tail. I should feel grateful,
I suppose. But all the wizards
are dead. Name them
as they fall, pink blossoms of
love’s gravity.
As they fall, or rise.

< < < 

the angels like sullen teenagers lurk,
their harp strings broken.
they say, but hark, but oh, but never mind,
our only agenda was ever 
to whisper the obvious,
and we have failed.

and so sullenly they depart
a snail’s trail of languor
falling off the edge of the world.
it is kismet that we find them
shuffling on, a sort of grace.
it is natural to be alarmed by love.

< < < 

In the corrugated sand 
a disheveled raven
black-hatted, shamanic 
hops on his driftwood ladder.
He takes a stick, a corvine tool
to pry, to poke, and drag.
And fails, as I hoped he wouldn’t.
Tumble of tiny endeavors. Come,
come, he squawks, my 
Gene Kelly in tatters.
An invitation
to stroll through sea veils.

< < < 

Grief is a seascape
barbed wire
nectar
portal to nowhere
a color—pink, turquoise,
so bright it numbs.
Hunt the firmament
little compass of my heart.
You will not find him.
The dead become 
something more: fierce
and forever open-hearted, 
a too beautiful swoop
of murmurating angels.

< < < 

You climb a ladder to clouds,
and wait, wait for the call,
and in the waiting feel that there is 
nothing so difficult, so dangerous.
A rarefied curse, this pull of flesh,
this drift of fear. And the wind unspools 
your courage. Yet you are here, chalk on palms, 
man as pendulum. To touch the wind’s 
soft fingers, glint of sun, your breath scooped
out and given. The sound of backward applause
as you fly.

< < < 

Blink
An Act Of Kindness
The Don
Pretentious - Toi?
The Promise
In Search of the City of Steel

It is a short but bitter list

the things most dear to me
that have slipped
surreptitiously
away

a soft litany of treachery

gone in a blink

I keep my eyes wide open now

now it is too late


< < < 

She hid behind the pillow in her hands,
The bed, a golden wedding from the door,
The muffled clock, a tick for every year ,
A shuffled, slippered march across the floor.

The future lay in front and broke her heart,
The mouth as gaping as the eyes were dead,
Aghast at how they’d come to such a place,
A last betrayal of the life they’d led.

The lowered pillow held her cradled hands,
No pressure needed for a life to cease.
Its deadly softness stained from either side,
On either side they found some desperate peace.


< < < 

Full of innocence and guile, it starts its journey.
Its gentle rippling and dappled light,
A seduction of the senses,
As it moves through rocks and trees.

Flowing, it meanders and grows,
Its banks swollen by a thousand streams,
Its power growing
With each added swirl.

Ageless, its depths hide secrets,
Its waters once darkened
By the sludge of broken lives
And grinders’ lungs.

Now, the scream and thump of engines
Break the rhythm of the surface
That swirls and eddies
On its timeless march.

Down to the sea.

< < < 

I like to hear good poems read,
By poets who look straight ahead,
Not those who search horizons far,
Adopt expressions quite bizarre,
And acting like some silly arse,
Imbue each word with gravitas.

You’ve heard those dotty sods that tend,
Extreme significance to lend
To every word that they expound,
As if there’s hidden depths they’ve found,
That are denied to mortals mere,
For whom those depths are quite unclear.

No, give to me please, any day,
Poets who walk and don’t sashay.
Who talk with mouths that have no plums,
Who don’t say derrieres but bums, 
And hold their listeners’ attention,
Without relying on pretension!


< < < 

A girl in a cafe, stirring her coffee,
Head is bowed down, with too many cares,
Lifting her head, she looks out of the window,
But there is no hope to find there.

Her plate pushed away, the food lies uneaten,
Tears flow from her eyes, that are filled with despair,
The phone on the table is dark, and is silent,
There is no hope to find there.

She gets to her feet, her body is weary,
Her belly is swollen, too much to bear,
She heads for the street, that is too full of strangers,
There is no hope to find there.

The dreams in her head had painted a rainbow,
Across a clear blue sky,
The love that they had would go on forever,
Never grow old, and die.

But the child in her body has already broken
The promise their future did hold,
And the light in his eyes had faded away,
And the smile on his lips had grown cold.

Her mind is made up, there’ll be no tomorrow,
Life for them both she has to forswear,
At least when it’s done, there’d be no more suffering,
At least there’s some hope to find there.

At least there’s some hope to find there.


< < < 

Now I am not from around these parts, yer can tell from ‘ow I speak,
’N’ that air o’ sophistication, n me clothes that are so chic,
But though I’m of a better class than folks from here abaat,
I’ve settled here, I’ll tell you how, if you’ll just hear me aat.

I come from t’other side of hill, that’s Lancashire tha knows,
A place of class and elegance, as thou might well suppose,
So what is there could tempt me, to cross the great divide,
Well I’ll tell yer, I’ll be honest, ‘cos I’ve got nowt to hide.

Thing is, in God’s own county, we heard tales from Yorkshire folk,
(Though some are just so barmy, we take ‘em for a joke)
That if you think in Lanky, of everything tha likes,
They’ve got much better over there, according to the Tykes.

I’ll give yer an example: they brag of Yorkshire grit,
But that’s because, we reckon, that the air is full of it,
And if, through pain it causes, you look up at the skies,
You’ll see ducks flyin back’ards to keep it out their eyes!

Not just that, I’d heard some talk, about a place o’er yon,
A sort of El Dorado, by’t side of River Don,
But it weren’t made of gold they said, such things are just not real,
This were a livin’ breathin’ city, that were made of nobbut steel.

Well this I really had to see, so I packed me sen a bag,
And I made some drippin butties, which I wrapped up in a rag,
Then I gave me clogs a polish, ’n’ I filled me purse with brass,
Said goodbye to me mam ’n’ dad, ’n’ set off up t’Snake Pass.

Now I knew where I was ‘eadin were about 30 mile away,
That’d take a likely lad like me best part of half a day,
And there were rain that threatened, n then started by and by,
But I moved so quick, I dodged the drops, ’n’ got there nice n dry.

Well . . .

I searched for that Steel City, everywhere I could,
Of concrete I found plenty, ’n’ likewise brick ’n’ wood,
But could I find real buildings, built from steel as such?
Nah, not a single one were there, not even a rabbit ‘utch!

So then I knew, without a doubt, I’d been a fool to roam,
And the only thing for me to do was to get mesen back home,
So I packed me bag, without delay, ready to seize the hour,
And off I went, feet flying, on the road to Ladybower.

Me mind was full of dreams of home, I knew it’d be good,
To have hotpot in my belly, not that awful Yorkshire pud,
But imagine my blind terror, the horror haunts me yet,
When I found despite me trying, that I couldn’t take one step!

First thing I did, in panic, was to telephone me dad,
To ask him what was ‘appenin’, he said to me, “Poor lad!
I said no good would come of it, and now you’re trapped o’re there,
You’ll ‘ave to live in Yorkshire now - it is too much to bear!

The trouble is tha’s tainted lad, from being there too long,
Can’t have thee back in Lanky, nah, tha must just stay strong,
And make yer ‘ome in Yorkshire, and there I know yer would,
Civilise those savages, and be a force for good.

Thank yer blessin's,” he carried on, “ if you were really cursed,
You could be stuck in London, that’d be ten times worst,
Imprisoned in that hell ‘ole, with simply no way out,
You’d cut yer wrists or ‘ang yersen, of that I have no doubt!”

So, now yer know the story, of ‘ow I landed ‘ere,
Me ‘eart it felt full broken, and me eyes shed many a tear,
But time has passed, it’s better now, and as the years slip by,
I do a lot more laughin’, and ‘ave no need to cry.

I met a lass from Sheffield, ’n’ now we’ve gotten wed,
An we look forward ‘appily, to the years that lie ahead,
Now I’m not sayin’ she’s stubborn, I really wouldn’t dare,
‘Cos with what I say about her, I take the greatest care,
But in a way the circle’s closed, as you can plainly see,
‘Cos when she makes her mind up, she’s got steel enough for me!


< < <