Author: admin

No Shit Sherlock by Dru Marland


By admin

There are so many different kinds of poo
but study of them comes with some restraint;
it’s not a thing nice people do.

The neatly excavated badger’s loo,
the strangely fragrant, fish-scaled otter’s spraint;
there are so many different sorts of poo.

Boned pellets hiccuped by the owl -tuwhoo!
may look like droppings, but they ain’t
-they’re still not things nice people do;

poked with a stick, these things tell true
a tale of what the beasts last ate-
and there’s so many different kinds of poo

Pellinore’s horn of fewmets, too,
would tell where Questing Beast had went
-he’d show them to nice folk like you.

It is a habit I’d commend, and do,
For time spent studying nature’s time well spent;
there are so many different kinds of poo
even (shhh!) the kind nice people do.

Dru Marland lives among voles on a canal, and draws pictures of them and other creatures, and fixes engines now and then.

 

That Time Travel Paradox Thing by Simon Williams


By admin

It’s the rich who travel forward in time
and note the Euro-Millions results,
before returning to place their bets.

It’s only through a big win like this
they can afford a time machine.

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.

 

Smug by Fianna


By admin

Smug as a slug in a slick London club
somebody else’s grease on his chin
what’s his is his own, and what’s yours is his grub
he’s trawling in corridors under your skin.

Coddled with glee as he taps your last fat
he knows that you’re too cold to scream
he trickles it up to the city slick
where his dripping is always full-cream.

These lard-hearted self-basting bully-boys
are up-themselves ignoring pleas
their dewlaps drip tallow to mini-mes
investing in rendering ghee.

They’re self-slicking swans about geese around hens
around foie gras from force-feeding ducks
and inside them there’s twenty-four million black birds

stuffed.

(previously published in “I am not a silent poet”)

Fianna (Fiona Russell Dodwell) is from Fife and lives in the Fens. She has had about 30 poems published in online poetry magazines.

 

No rose would smell as sweet as Bjork! by Ron Runeborg


By admin

Oh he wanted marijuana, and he said he pay me well
if I’d brought him one full baggie by this evenin’s supper bell
So I checked with all my sources, but the avenue was dry
I had to find a substitute for cannabis’ high

In the kitchen of me mother I was mixin up a storm
I tried taro root and basil leaves and ivy, for its form
but it tasted like a bag-o-shite, and smelled like da’s da Sean
I had to find a better mix, me time was nearly gone

So I chopped me up some ashbowl trash, some stubbed out fags would do
and then I searched Ma’s garden for the flavor for my stew
t’was there I found some wild mint, it smelled as sweet as Bjork
so I snipped it with the kitchen shears and shred it with a fork

At a minute to the dinner bell, I showed at Paddy’s Pub
and there was Barney Kelly near the ragged dogwood shrub
There I handed him me baggie and he sniffed it like a fop
then he pulled a badge and screamed “you’re pissed you moron, I’m a cop!”

Well I laughed like cousin Walter when his pants fell down at mass
then I shouted back “you got me bub! You’ve popped me Irish ass!”
Sure I’d wanted just to rip him off, but this was far more game
he’d busted me for wild mint, forever to his shame.

Ron Runeborg lives with his wife Linda and Montague Pierre the dog in Lakeville Minnesota. He writes poetry and short stories and currently has two books available.

 

Poem for all Time for All Lovers Everywhere and Anywhere in this World or any World, Alive or Dead, in Memory or Forgotten, to Come or Has Been or Never Will Be by Iseult Healy


By admin

This is dedicated to YOU, whoever you are

Will thou seek my maiden flower
Water it with thine love juice
Gild the lilies of my mouth
Tie me tight to seduce

Wilst thou hand me thine cock
Enwrought in gold and silver sock
In the dim and the dark light
Of night after night after night

But oh Danny Boy, your pipes
Your pipes are calling me
From down below and
Down your mountainside

But the question is to be or
Not to be my own true love
With white cooing doves adorning
Thine glistening treasure trove

But rock me gently, rock me slowly
In the arms of your manly embrace
In the heat of the moonlit night
My virginity you manly chase

Let’s prayest all’s well that ends well
And we have made lemonade with our lemons
And there’s a silver lining to any cloud
And you have not left with tail between your legs

But if thunderous threatening dark Heathcliffian clouds
Hang o’er my vales and hills
Then no monosaccharidian utterance will forbear
The tearing of limb and hair

Though you jirble your golden whiskey
Experience curglaff in thine bathing
Be a beef-witted spermologer and
Prize-winning queerplunger

Do not forsake me oh my darling
E’een thou I be with squirrel
I am truly a pure white zafty
Oh take me now in a pussyvan!

Jirble – splash
Curglaff – reaction to cold water on body
Spermologer – somebody who loves to gossip the latest
Queerplunger – old Victorian habit of a guy pretending to be in distress in water, a ‘passerby’ comes to his rescue and both drenched they to go an alms or charity house, are fed, dressed and given money and off they go to the next gig!
Zafty – person very easily imposed upon
Pussyvan – temper

Iseult Healy is published in several journals including USA, Mexico, and Ireland. Also Shortlisted Galway Hospital Trust Poetry Competition 2015.

She is a member of Ox Mountain Poets and A New Ulster groups, and loves Kevin Higgins’ Over the Edge international online poetry workshops.

website
twitter

 

Murder on the Gatwick Express by Susan Evans


By admin

Long ago, before people had mobile phones &
felt compelled to share their destinations &
other dull information; for the whole duration
of their train journey (VERY LOUDLY). Before it
all got very rowdy: a time before people publicly
raged; projecting bile like they’re on Jeremy Kyle
& or having it away with way too many PDA.
Before the tinny torture of ineffective, personal
headphones ‒ yes, TINNY TORTURE!!! Before
passengers allowed their bags entitlement to
limited seats instead of floor, lap or luggage rack.
Before smelly food crept in: greasy brown bags of
Burger King & before when most people used a
bin & before it was deemed somehow permissible
for complete strangers, unbeknownst to you to take
your picture & or record personal conversations &
post online to the nation., (for fun!) Before arrogant
men; too blind to see that equality does not mean
sitting comfortably, while immobile, aged or heavily
pregnant women are struggling to maintain balance
& dignity! Before some train conductors turned into
Talk Radio DJs; gabbing on about nothing through PAs
(with little helpful info on length & cause of delays).
Before any suggestions of separate carriages in order
to protect women from any unwanted attention…
Must mention, that let the train take the strain was
once upon a time, a fitting strap line − a seductive
mode of travel, where you could unravel, driven by
rhythm; from Brighton to London ‒ poems poured
out of me; punctuated by pleasantries; my senses
not assaulted by anything too unsavoury. Long ago,
people mostly engaged in quiet conversation or read
newspapers or books or looked out at the landscape;
the journey a piece of a cake – arrived at Victoria with
this sense of euphoria; a notebook full of drafts to
return to on return & maybe later in the bath…
this was long ago, before the standard ride became a
privatised, over-priced, oversubscribed, endurance test;
before it became: Murder on the Gatwick Express…

Susan Evans is widely published; online & in print; appearing in: Dissident Voice, The High Window, Ink, Sweat & Tears, The Journal, Lighten Up Online, Message in a Bottle, Obsessed With Pipework, and Snakeskin, among others. A Brighton-based Performance poet, Susan was nominated Best Spoken Word Performer in the Saboteur Awards, 2016.

 

Forbidden Swan by Maurice Devitt


By admin

I have never seen a swan
smoking after sex,
but suspect they do. How else

can we explain
the nervous pacing on the tow-path,
wings touching hidden pockets

to check for matches
or the slow draught of air
to mask a throaty cough?

So maybe
after fumbled congress
in the privacy of a hotel room

– webbed feet
snared on carpet pile –
the cob lights up,

pads to an open window,
tips a wing and looks back
to see a crumpled napkin.

(previously published in ‘In Other Words: Merida’ – Mexico)

In 2016, Maurice Devitt was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series and shortlisted for the Listowel Poetry Collection Competition. Winner of the Trocaire/Poetry Ireland Competition in 2015, he has been placed or shortlisted in many competitions including the Patrick Kavanagh Award, Over the Edge New Writer Competition, Cuirt New Writing Award and the Doire Press International Chapbook Competition. A guest poet at the ‘Poets in Transylvania’ festival in 2015, he has had poems published in various journals in Ireland, England, Scotland, the US, Mexico, Romania, India and Australia, is curator of the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site and a founder member of the Hibernian Writers’ Group.

 

Thoughts on finding an old till receipt by Bill Allen


By admin

CUPPA SOUP
EMERY BOARDS
NIVEA
MINI MUFFINS
BISCUITS 400 GRAMS
SUGAR
CHOCOLATE CAKE
You were fat, Sam.
VALUE SHAVING CREAM
RAZORS
I miss the mess.
PAN SCOURERS
LOW CALORIE SOUP
OLIVE OIL
TUNA CHUNKS
BROCCOLI 0.335KG
Oh, Sam,
you should have eaten your greens.
LEEKS LOOSE
RED PEPPER 2 @ £0.78
CONDENSED MILK
You were so naughty,
Sam!
MAYONNAISE
No more little white
mountains on plates.
FULL FAT MILK
McCAIN CHIPS
BURGER ROLLS
BUTTER
FLORA LIGHT
RED WINE
ORANGE JUICE
APPLES
LETTUCE
ON VINE TOMS
YOGHURT
HALF FAT MILK
TESCO SAUCY
STRAWBERRY LUBRICATION 75ML
Oh, Sam! I miss you.

Bill Allen lives in West London and writes in retirement. Worldly wise, a wicked sense of humour, he often observes the darker aspects of life as well as the curiously funny. Likes old films, modern plays, wine mixed with a pinch of conversation. Bill has published a few poems and short stories.

 

Big Hair by Susan Jordan


By admin

I knew at once I loved you for your wig
especially when it slipped over your eye.
I’d never thought that hair could be so big.

I must have seemed like such an awful pig.
It made me laugh and then it made me cry.
I knew I had to love you for your wig.

You looked just like a schooner in full rig;
I hoped your sailing wouldn’t pass me by.
I’d never thought that hair could be so big.

I realised you didn’t care a fig
and if you took it off I’d want to die
but still I knew I loved you for your wig.

It didn’t take you very long to twig:
a passion such as mine could hardly lie.
You’d never thought that hair could be so big.

You look at me bewildered as I dig
for all the very many reasons why
I knew I had to love you for your wig.
Who ever thought that hair could be so big?

Susan Jordan was inspired by 52, Jo Bell’s wonderful online group, to start writing a lot more poems. Her work has appeared in print and online magazines including Prole, Obsessed with Pipework, Snakeskin and Ink, Sweat & Tears. Her first collection will be published by Indigo Dreams in 2017.