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Shakespeare’s Skull by Oonah V Joslin


By admin

It seems someone stole Shakespeare’s skull
despite the warning on his tomb
that ‘cursed be he who move my bones.’
It seems somebody stole his skull.
G.P.R. shows that it is gone.
They had to break through brick and stone
inside the church to steal his skull
and yet this sacrilege was done.

It seems someone stole Shakespeare’s skull
end of the nineteenth century
and later boasted openly
that they had taken Shakespeare’s skull.
The science of phrenology
paid for such items handsomely.
Someone bought it. Alas poor skull!
Now you are lost to history.

Oonah V Joslin is currently poetry editor at The Linnet’s Wings. She lives in Northumberland and a constant state of panic.

 

My Dog Nearly Ate My Homework by James Woolf


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My dog nearly ate my homework, Miss – I know what you are thinking
This isn’t some old tired excuse, his teeth were really sinking…

But luckily I grabbed my book and tugged it from his jaws
And as I tossed it in my bag he caught it with his paws

We wrestled with that maths book, an hour went by – or two!
Then suddenly he dropped down dead, I promise, Miss, it’s true

I loved that dog with all my heart – there was no one else you see
My mum and dad are missing, it’s a tragic loss for me

So I put my maths book by my bed and began my evening prayer
When a sudden bolt of lightning struck, it hit my CD player

And that of course burst into flames – it did, Miss, I’m no liar
And half my room was all ablaze as I hosed out the fire

I somehow saved my maths book though it got a little moist
Having worked so hard to do it all I really had no choice

I tried to remain collected, Miss, I made my bedtime drink
But after the traumas of that night I hardly slept a wink

I must have napped an hour or two and I’ll tell you how I know
Because at some point I was burgled by some lousy so and so

There was no sign of forced entry, no damage to my place
And that’s why I am positive he came from outer space

He didn’t steal my money or poor mum’s engagement ring
That alien took my maths book and that was everything

I’m not sure why he needed it – I can’t explain his actions
Perhaps he’s got behind in maths and was stuck with cosmic fractions

Don’t raise your eyebrows like that, Miss – I’m simply being candid
An alien stole my homework – that’s why I’m empty handed

(previously published in a Thynks Publications anthology)

James Woolf is a writer of short stories, scripts and adverts and occasional poems. ‘R V Sieger – additional documents disclosed by the Crown Prosecution Service’ was highly commended in the 2015 London Short Story Prize and will be published this month. Ambit magazine will be publishing another story later this year. He was shortlisted in the most recent Fish Flash Fiction competition. Prior to this, his plays have been produced in various off-West End venues including The King’s Head Theatre, the Arcola and the Theatre Royal Margate. Two radio plays have been broadcast including ‘Kerton’s Story’ with Bill Nighy, Lesley Sharp and Stephen Moore. He also write adverts for Black and Decker.

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Postcard from the Cat by Sarah Watkinson


By admin

(after Craig Raine)

Of their many prostheses the saddest of all are forks
to correct clawlessness. So many,
and so many different. Detachable, ranked by size,
the smallest for pinning down food −
detestable, pre-killed pap. I pity

their soft bodies propped at tables, in their paws
unresponsive metal that will never retract,
never clutch and tear with the whole arm’s force,
but instead turns weakly over into a mere scoop
to push mush between their hairless lips and pointless teeth.

And these little ‘dinner forks’ are no use
to prepare a latrine. For that
they use a ‘garden fork’ in a fastidious hand.
They turn and pat the earth, toss plants aside,
but then, forgetting their purpose, fail to perform.

Sarah Watkinson is a lifelong scientist and new poet. Her work has recently been published in magazines including Antiphon, Clear Poetry, Ink Sweat and Tears, Pennine Platform, The Rialto, The Stare’s Nest and Well Versed, and has won several prizes in open competitions.

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The Thirty Second Mariner by Cherry Potts


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(with apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

It was the ancient mariner
Who stoppeth one in three
‘I killed a bird’ He cried
‘The ship becalmed
A flat salt sea
All my shipmates died of thirst
save me’

‘Forget the bird!’
the wedding guest replied
‘Let me sneak you right inside
I’ll get you a drink
(Here, let’s avoid that dope-head Taylor
He’d talk the hind-leg off a sailor)
You’ll not be wanting water I should think…
Come and meet the bride.’

Cherry Potts normally writes short fiction, but has recently published a vast novel. She publishes other people’s stories and poems at Arachne Press. ‘The Thirty Second Mariner’ was written in response to a newspaper column which complained about the length of the ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’

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Traffic Jam Sandwich by Heather Wastie


By admin

In the heat of it
a slice of tomato
has skidded on mayonnaise
and ended up straddling the crust

Layers of lettuce leaves
are held up behind it,
limp slivers of cucumber
losing their cool

At the centre of it all
is a slow-moving wedge
of well-matured cheddar
heavily laden with pickle

In the care home’s crowded corridor
Iris is stationary, thinking of lunch.
I like jam sandwiches, she says.
This poem is for her.

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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Exponential Boojum ∂ecay by David O’Neill


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Once upon a graphic day, an exponential function
Extrapolated on his way, with (x) packed up for luncheon.
While making progress down x-street, in orderly transition,
A constant function, in retreat, transected his position.

“Hello, there,” said the smooth exp(x), “What’s seems to be the trouble?
You look like someone who expects disaster, piled up double.”
The constant gasped “I’ll tell you soon but first, I’d better warn ya—
A differential operator lurks around that corner.”

The exponential function thought, “Though curt annihilation
Remains the blight of constants caught in differentiation,
It can’t stop me; I’ll face that lout and be a superhero
For, even if he works me out, he can’t work me to zero.”

He turned the corner in the graph, traversing off down y-street.
He heard the operator laugh; they squared up in a heartbeat.
“The name’s exp(x); don’t even try,” he mocked the perpetrator.
“I’m partial ∂ upon ∂y,” rejoined the operator.

expxy

David O’Neill is a frustrated mathematician who has journeyed through a predominantly life-science-based medical landscape for most of his mortgage-paying professional life, eventually finding salvation in the Open University, too close to the end for practical application but sufficiently early for peace of mind and poetic inspiration.

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Interview With a Blemmya by Simon Williams


By admin

The Blemmyae were a race of headless people, whose faces grew in their upper torsos. They were described first by the Greeks.

It works well for us; nobody is headstrong.
We never knock ourselves on architraves.
We recognise no godhead.
Our traders have no overheads.

Our schools have no head teachers.
Headbutts and headlocks are unknown.
Nobody is pigheaded; some of us
are knobs, but never dickheads.

There are advantages in clothing, too:
nobody has to train to make hats,
ties and belts are much the same,
bras and spectacles can double up,

but ears in armpits have always
been a bugbear. We hear well only
when climbing trees, under arrest
or dancing the flamenco.

We have worked well into your culture;
you talk of us while barely knowing it.
‘My heart was in my mouth’ was one of ours.
‘Put hair on your chest’ refers to beards

and when you panic at your deadlines,
work so fast it all becomes a tangle,
you turn to us to illustrate your plight,
or more correctly, to our flocks of chickens.

Simon Williams has six published collections. He latest pamphlet, Spotting Capybaras in the Work of Mac Chagall, launched in April and his next full collection, Inti, will be out later this year. Simon was elected The Bard of Exeter in 2013 and founded the large-format magazine, The Broadsheet. He makes a living as a journalist.

 

MARIE (who stole husbands and ended up alone) by Sherri Turner


By admin

The favourite sport of loose Marie who lived at number twenty three,
was practising seduction when she flirted with her neighbours’ men.
Her reddened lips would pout and tempt and no poor soul would be exempt
until they could resist no more and turned up at the harlot’s door.
When she had had her evil way they asked Marie if they could stay
but she just shooed them off before she moved on to her next amour.
The wives despised this piece of fluff and pretty soon had had enough
and so they all devised a plan to frighten off the bravest man.
The message first reached Toby Grey who, playing golf one Saturday,
found all his club mates in a snigger because his ‘niblick’ wasn’t bigger.
The next to hear was Jack McGrew who learned that everybody knew
how premature the consequence of his excess exuberance.
The worst was grocer Michael Stout, who nearly died when he found out
his customers were all aware his veg were not a matching pair.
The men soon found that all who’d strayed had had their failings well displayed.
They hung their sorry heads in shame and knew Marie must be to blame.
Despite the shortness of her skirt and fine ability to flirt
her efforts now were quite ignored. No longer was Marie adored.
She soon became a dreadful sight: her lipstick smeared, her hair a fright.
No company of either sex would anymore her threshold vex.

It’s rumoured that, on warmer nights, she walks the streets in fishnet tights
beseeching anyone to visit.
It’s no surprise they don’t, though, is it?

Sherri Turner lives in Surrey. She has had numerous short stories published in women’s magazines and has won prizes for both poetry and short stories. She likes to write silly poems when she feels in danger of forgetting that this is supposed to be fun.

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Sappho Considers Her Brothers by Mandy Pannett


By admin

Meanwhile, I’ll tell you more about my brothers since you complain
my fragments are tantalising and you want the real stuff –
concrete lions not pot-pourri, the booze of stag nights not
confetti in the rain.

I am the one born in the middle. (Umpteen volumes
thrive on this theme which I’m sure you’re sick of, as I am.)
Still, they’ve got a point, those clever words, labels that peg
and wind me round a wigwam of canes like a runner bean.

Yes, I felt neglected, underrated, always
the Indian who got scalped, never the cowboy with a gun.

Yes, I was jealous and did mean things.

Baby was the worst. Whoever gave him that nickname?
Fat and forty plus, getting bald before his time –
Even his email is chubbycheeks@babyface.com

It was easy to make him cry: snaffle the biscuit from his plate, add
vinegar to his angel delight, forget to put the brake on his buggy
at the top of the garden steps.

He had a girl friend once. (Mother didn’t welcome
intruders to the house, vetted them first as if filleting fish.)
This one stuck like superglue until a text, sent from his phone, called her
an ugly cow, suggested she fuck off.

Stags. You want a stag? That’s my elder brother – testosterone
on the rampage, a beer-gut he doesn’t even try to hide
(he thinks he looks so good in shorts). I could go on
but I’m sure you get the scene.

Incidentally, those fragments, do you ever wonder
why there aren’t more of them? Why the edges are charred?
Names on paper shrivel like worms tossed on a fire …

If a name can disappear, well,
the owner of it might, just possibly,
vanish too.

Mandy Pannett works freelance as a creative writing tutor. She has won prizes and been placed in international competitions and has judged others. She is the author of a novella and five poetry collections: She has edited a number of publications and is the poetry editor of Sentinel Literary Quarterly.

 

Gloves by Neil Laurenson


By admin

We were in love.
We were like a pair of gloves
But, as often happens to gloves,
We drifted apart.

I found you
And you were smitten
With a much younger, richer and more attractive
Mitten.

(Originally published in Exclamation Marx!, Silhouette Press, 2016)

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 earlier this month.

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