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Robert Burns on finding his wife standing on a chair, crying by Lesley Quayle


By admin

Whit’s up wi ye wumman, whit’s yer despair
an whit’s causing the tears an the snotters?
Ah come in and ah find ye up oan a chair
bubblin louder than thon Afton Waters.
Whit’s that ye say – a wee moose oan the flair
gie’d ye the fright uv yer life,
fer goodness sake lassie, did ye ever compare
the size of the beastie and the size of the wife?
Yer sayin that ah huv tae search the whole place,
but the beastie cud be onywhere,
och, staup aw yer greetin an straighten yer face
ye canny bide there oan a chair.
How’m ah sposed tae find it? Ah’ll no tell ye again,
staup yer girnin an get doon frae there,
can ye no see this stramash is scarin the wain,
that’s enough noo, get doon frae the chair.

Says she – “Rabbie Burns ye can go bile yer heid
For ah’m no comin doon till the bluddy thing’s deid.”

(first published on Stanza’s poetry map of Scotland)

Lesley Quayle is a widely published poet and a folk/blues singer currently living in deepest, darkest rural Dorset.

 

The Tiger (Bread) by Grant Tarbard


By admin

Tiger bread, Tiger bread burning bright
On a suntan bed of the oven’s red light,
The dough rises in a big round tangerine eye
And next to him, in a tin, is a bagel sweltering

In the yeast of his youth. A baguette
Lords it over them with his physique,
All bread and bones with an appetite
For the romance of the oven’s welding rings.

Grant Tarbard is internationally published. His collection As I Was Pulled Under the Earth, published by Lapwing Publications, is available now.

 

Eleven, plus by Keith Hutson


By admin

for Freddie ‘Parrot-Face’ Davies

In retrospect, to wear a bowler hat
so low his ears bent double, then displace
each S by blowing raspberries, was not
Oscar material but, in the days
when train-impersonators hadn’t yet
been shunted off, nor musclemen in trunks
with organ music, Freddie’s speech defect
could fill a seaside theatre’s summer months.

I loved that man, unaware my laughter
led my best friend’s gifted younger sister,
who read Brontë, to believe I was backward,
until I asked her to go out with me
years afterwards, and she didn’t say no,
just looked appalled before responding You?

(previously published in Prole Magazine)

Keith Hutson has written for Coronation Street and household-name comedians. Since 2014, he has had over 40 poems published, mostly funny ones, in journals including The Rialto, Stand, Magma, The North, Prole, Poetry Salzburg, The Interpreter’s House. He’s also won a Poetry Business Yorkshire Prize.

 

The Homeless Poem by Peter Higgins


By admin

This time last year I was a tramp
My home the doorway of a stamp-
-shop on London’s finest street, the Strand
A grand address that was not grand.
Inside a sleeping bag I slept, above a heating vent I crept
At night (and yes, some nights, I wept).

I treasured most a Starbucks cup
Which as the day wore on, filled up
With coins thrown by a generous few
(The generous few perhaps who knew
Of how there’s but the finest line
Between their cosy lives and mine).

But once, I heard somebody say:
“Think twice before you give away
Your hard-earned cash to one who begs
Who is so clearly of the dregs.
He’ll only spend your cash on drink
And drugs. Please, stop, and think.”

I often wondered what they thought
I should have gone ahead and bought
Instead? Boxed-sets? Some scented candles?
A set of luggage with monogrammed handles?
Perhaps – and this would be a corker –
A year’s subscription to the New Yorker?

And then one night, a revelation
As I peed in King’s Cross Station
And got smartly moved on by
A Tesco store detective, I
Said – wait, unhand me, please
I’m here to purchase one of these.
I’ve had my fill of getting blotto!
Give me a ticket for the lotto.
But that’s another story…

Now, as I walk down London’s Strand
Jangling loose change in my hand
Ready to drop it in a Starbucks cup
That’s slowly, slowly, filling up
I might just pause awhile, and muse:
Should I begrudge this man his booze?

His heroin, his coke, his speed,
Whatever substance meets the need?
For half an hour or so at least
A can of Special Brew’s a feast.
Loose change drops easily enough
But picking up the stuff? That’s tough.

Peter Higgins was born in Yorkshire and now lives in London.  His short stories have appeared in various anthologies and magazines, and he appears regularly at LondonVille Lit (South London’s finest spoken-word event).

 

Poo Stick Parade by Heather Wastie


By admin

Striders, stragglers
Dog poo wardens
Pointer-outers
Puddle patrols
Sloshers, stampers
Tottering slitherers
Towpath tramplers
with Nordic poles

Herded hubbub
That’ll do! Come by!
Chatter pack therapy
Out with shouts
Three wide, ten deep
Clogging up the airwaves
Peace churned up
by regimented nature-loving louts!

Poet, singer, songwriter and actor Heather Wastie is The Worcestershire Poet Laureate 2015/16. In 2013 she was Writer in Residence at the Museum of Carpet, Kidderminster. She has published four illustrated poetry collections and has a busy schedule of commissions and performances.

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Hornythology by Neil Laurenson


By admin

The lesson would have gone well
If they had at least learned how to spell
Ornithology
Or so he thought.
He’d brought thirty dictionaries
And asked them to look up the word
Which they did
Online
And as well as words about birds
They found images
Of robins, sparrows
And great tits.

Neil Laurenson has read at the Wenlock Poetry Festival and Ledbury Poetry Festival and will be reading at The Quiet Compere at Worcestershire Lit Fest event in Worcester in June. His debut pamphlet, Exclamation Marx!, was published by Silhouette Press in May.

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Uncle Phil by Tom McColl


By admin

I was throwing darts
at the dartboard
pinned to a wardrobe
at my Uncle Phil’s.

Uncle Phil came in.
He wasn’t really my uncle,
but then he wasn’t really a dartboard either,
and when he said
I’m just getting something from the wardrobe,
and had his back to me
as he opened the wardrobe door,
I threw the dart.

How he yowled
as I hit the bullseye
right between the shoulder blades.

I was five,
and I’ve never felt so alive
before or since
as when I heard that dull thud
and saw my mum’s friend –
my fake uncle –
wince.

Thomas McColl has had poems published in magazines such as Envoi, Rising, Iota and Ink, Sweat and Tears, and his first full collection of poetry, Being With Me Will Help You Learn, is out now from Listen Softly London Press.

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Mea Culpa by Mark Mayes


By admin

As his forehead met my nose,
causing it to explode
into a cascade of blood and snot,
I wondered what his childhood had been like,
and the precise nature of his family’s dysfunction.

As his size-ten DM’s crunched into my bollocks
at an equally disconcerting speed,
I bemoaned his lack of life chances,
and the undiagnosed dyslexia,
which had so sorely troubled him.

When, having whipped out his Stanley,
he proceeded to inscribe a map
of the Scilly Isles – on my neck,
I blamed the NHS for not proactively
offering him counselling
at a more formative age.

Finally, as he stamped rhythmically on my spine,
chanting ‘Bastard’ all the while,
it dawned on me
that he was the real victim here,
and I had no right to complain,
if anything, I was to blame,
for in me he saw the cause,
the cause of all his pain.

My Home Counties’ vowel sounds
had put him out of joint;
plus the unpardonable act
of spilling his pint.

(originally published in The Interpreter’s House)

Mark Mayes has published poems in various magazines, including: The Interpreter’s House, Ink Sweat & Tears, Staple, The Reader, The Shop, and Fire, and has had work broadcast on BBC Radio. He has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize.

 

The Bra by Mab Jones


By admin

The bra was invented
In two places
Simultaneously.
By Herminie Cadolle in France
And Mary Jacob in America.
Both sprang up in
The two countries
Almost instantaneously.
Twin buds of an idea,
Fleshed out and
Eventually ripening.
But no-one really knows
Who is the true
Discoverer.
Though one of them,
Like the things they cup,
Is bigger
Than the otherer.

(Originally published in Poor Queen, Burning Eye Books, 2014)

Mab Jones has read her work all over the UK, in the US, Japan, France, and Ireland, and on BBC Radio 4. She runs International Dylan Thomas Day, writes for the New York Times, and recently won the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize.

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