Category: Free verse

Wallpaper, by Anne Donnellan


By Robert Garnham

Wallpaper

It was no menial operation nineteen sixty seven
when the decision was taken to paper the kitchen
with walls that climbed to the sky flaking and bruised
a reek-making timber ladder from a the hayshed was used
lugged to the decorating site by a fleet of giddy relations
eager to exhibit their finer skills of smoothing ridges
they attacked the tedious of peeling scraping and filling
made festival of their chalky chore
with whistling lilting and tale spinning

our mother muttered at the makeshift paste bench
fretted over flour and water stirred in thick strictness
relieved when all was prepped to hang the sticky sheets
her elder sister plumbline dangling matched patterned strips
precision scissored like the postman’s moustache
she sponged bubbles and creases without blemish
patted the pink Victorian flora
splashed on velvet red finish

after decades of fading layers
I remember decorators no longer there
stories crawl from wallpaper

Anne Donnellan’s work has been published in the NUIG Ropes Literary Journal 2018 and 2019, A New Ulster, The Linnet’s Wings, Bangor Literary Journal, Boyne Berries, Poethead, Vox Galvia , Clare Champion, Orbis and The Galway Review. She was a featured reader at the March 2019 “Over The Edge: Open Reading” in Galway City Library.

 

Fruit, by Stephen Wren


By Robert Garnham

Fruit

I rub my wrists, being a male lemur,
to produce aldehydes that smell of fruit
they attract mates. I must be a dreamer!
I rub my wrists, being a male lemur,
the smell was designed by the redeemer
He devised bespoke aromas to suit
I rub my wrists, being a male lemur,
to produce aldehydes that smell of fruit

Dr Stephen Paul Wren was educated at Cambridge and worked as a chemist in industry for many years. He transitioned back into academia at Oxford before joining Kingston University in September 2018 where he works as a Senior lecturer.

Stephen’s poetry can be read at www.stephenpaulwren.wixsite.com/luke12poetry and on Twitter @Stephen34343631.

 

Enrichment, by Katherine Noone


By Robert Garnham

Enrichment

When you shake the family tree,
my branch will yield no heirs, no heirlooms.
Mired in brambles, curved
clinging to the garden wall.

Look,
a restless robin lingers there.
A wind chime tinkles heavenly tones,
in the gentle evening breeze .

Hold back the pruning shears.

Katherine Noone’s first  poetry collection ‘Keeping  Watch’ was published by Lapwing  Publications in 2017. Shortlisted Vallum Poetry Award (Montreal).Her poems have appeared in Orbis, Crannog, Boyne Berries, Linnets Wings, Skylight 47, Vallum digital edition, A New Ulster,Ropes.  Poethead. ‘Out Here’ was published in 2019.

 

Honorificabilitudinitatibus, by Mohammad Zahid


By Robert Garnham

Honorificabilitudinitatibus

This is no gasconade, do I need to depone
or cull an imprimatur to asseverate
that I am pretty good at anamnesis
I am no lamb that you may calumniate
for having muddied your waters flowing down from you
Your puissant depredation shall yield you no more
I’ve grown intransigent tenaciously
My skin has overgrown your claws
My heart, deaf to your war cries
My silence, louder that your vociferation.
Scan your fortress walls there’re cracks
My determination has insinuated in them
Your shields, armours have grown questionable
For, spears of my sight shall pierce them athwart
Count your days, despot,
I’ve etched my ingress to emerge
Honorificabilitudinitatibus

Mohammad Zahid is a poet and translator from Kashmir, India. His maiden poetry collection The Pheromone Trail bagged the Best Book Award from the Academy of Art Culture and Languages, Jammu & Kashmir in 2015.

His poetry has appeared in many Indian and international journals. He is a translation editor for Kashmiri Language at Muse India and Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts

 

Openings, by Mary Lee


By Robert Garnham

Openings

Henry Moore walks sideways
on the stairway down to the cellar –

keeps his eyes on the lighted doorway,
frightened of the dark as he fetches
apples for his coalminer father. Henry,
needs to find a way out,

remembering the crypt and the sun
struggling to press through the slag
heaps and the cavernous subterranean
world of his youth’s landscape. He sculpts

stone; the light enters through its
many openings.

chiselled poems– pursue precision,
may puzzle – a glimmer’s enough –
the tiniest ray, a wave, crossing
distance like sound – immensely faster.

Mary Lee’s poems have been published nationally and internationally; including Skylight 47; Orbis; The Galway Literary Review; Poems for Patience competition, (highly commended, 2018) Crannog; The Poet’s Quest for God, 2016 (anthology, Eyewear Publications, UK); Dodging website; A New Ulster website; The Wild Word website; Her work has been broadcast on A Living Word, RTE Radio 1. Mary’s second poetry collection Everyday Epiphanies is due in 2021.

 

After the . ., by Siobhan Potter


By Robert Garnham

After the

…Suffering divine Jesus Christ almighty
Grant me the serenity to be an utter fucker
Grant me paucity of desire
Render that further into scarcity
Grant me the courage to change all I
Hold in contempt and still hold them
Grant me a dictatorship of vegans and
Wisdom whilst wielding a
Hand held tongue remover
Let me crow lyrical
Give me sleight of hand. No more
Sitting at home writing poetry
Let me fly- fleet of foot in
Boots of zoom leagues from
Open mic to open mic, garnering
Lines and concepts from the
Unpublished work of newcomers to
Plaster online and call my own. Take
Your only begotten son from his cross
Nail me on. Re-crucify him, because
I am worth it. Take everything so
I can write. Leave nothing but
Poetry. No lover nor kin, nor dog, be
Damned. Take my bitterness, leave me
Nothing to warm me but
Occasional spite. Then take that
Leave me reasonably content. Then
Come down, from on high on the
Backs of all four horsemen, so fast
That you trample the reaper
Leave me here in the woods, training for
Life. When I am proficient, have me
Eat fruit from the lonely tree and
Be driven back to the village I
Burned to the ground, with an
Olive branch, its adjoining tree and a spade
Make me fit in. Do—or
Let me never forget why I don’t
Take away access to the cupboard under
The stairs. Leave the stairs, so I
Neither remember nor forget
Make me love again
Fiercely
Wholly and holy
Have me swoon and gush and
Let it end there, on a corner
Let that light shine on me
Have me die in no doubt, my
Work here remains undone, that
My next job is lined up, and
That Mother is there

Waiting…

Siobhan Potter Bio
Siobhan Potter is a verbal artist.Her practice centred in relationship explores the capacity of oral epic poetic form to midwife experience. She has poetry published in oral and print form, curates ‘not the time to be silent’ and is a recipient of an Arts Council of Ireland Literature Project Award 2021

Twitter @soma_psyche

 

The Night I Told Genesis to Fuck Off, by Rodney Wood


By Robert Garnham

THE NIGHT I TOLD GENESIS TO FUCK OFF
27 May 1972, Farnboro Tech

Chubby set up a trestle table inside & said to me
Mike was a student here & I’ve seen
the band practising at the Farnham Maltings.
They’re on fire!
I nodded, took the tickets
from my old school friend.
The Melody Maker
shakes hands with you on that, I said, Pass
my Dad’s regards on to yours.
The stairs behind
him went to room 306 where I spent two
years, one night a week, studying, & failing,
English A level. Then to the bar for two halves
of mild & ten Embassy.
The equipment
gathered dust on stage, the drums & guitars
waited like groupies but the band were elsewhere
high, smoking, drinking & talking like me
and my girlfriend gabbing about how I never
spoke to Chubby at school, why I couldn’t
pass English, I mean, I knew Brave New World,
Two Cheers for Democracy & Anthony
and Cleopatra backwards.
It wasn’t that,
said my girlfriend, it was the essay, your teacher
said you wrote funny & not in a good way.
Just then a smell of musk arrived followed
by the ginger-haired Jasper, swearing as usual
and scratching his nose.
Then Nick, striking a pose,
saying Genesis sounded like a river of silver
that glows, & Jon, who really made an effort
to be hip with long hair, wooden beads, flowery
shirt, flares & suede boots; he was posh
and came from Farnham, the nicest town in Surrey
We sit & talk till the support come on
to play their dreamy cross of Bach & Bee Gees.
A break, two more glasses of mild then
ex-public schoolboys, Genesis, amble
from the wings & they looked earnest, the real deal
for a few seconds until the lead singer came on
dressed as a daffodil & sang, in falsetto,
Walking across the sitting-room, I turn the television off
Sitting beside you, I look into your eyes
As the sound of motorcars fades.
My girlfriend didn’t like this bunch of posers.
Jon & Nick loved them.
An hour later Daffy shouted
Do you want more?
I yelled back Fuck off.
The hall was silent & the band slunk off stage.
My girlfriend gave me a kiss & that was the best
thing I’ve ever done.
Telling Genesis to fuck off.

 

Delta of Venus on the Bus, by Neil Fulwood


By Robert Garnham

DELTA OF VENUS ON THE BUS

Cruelly, I bend the pages back
until the force can be felt in the spine.
The volume opens like a calyx,
freeing its horny pollen of words.

My hand trembles. I lay my palm
against the cool smooth paper,
flex a single quivering finger
and caress the length of a sentence

that ends with the word “vigorous”.
I have hidden cover, title, author’s name –
folded them hard into each other.
But the words writhe shamelessly;

inky exhibitionists. How many times
can one use “penis” in a ten-page story?
How many times before it launches
itself into the aisle, daubs its likeness

on the steamed-up windows, provokes
the driver in an obvious fashion?
How long before all eyes are on me,
everyone knowing what I’m reading

and forming their own conclusions?

Neil Fulwood was lives and works in Nottingham. His new collection, Service Cancelled, is published by Shoestring Press later this year. 

 

Pants, by Sue Cose


By Robert Garnham

PANTS

Your underpants offend me.
I don’t care for the designer label,
I’d be happier if you felt able
To pull your sodding jeans up.
Up round your hips where they should be
Not sagging down towards your knee
So the rest of us are forced to see
Your PANTS!
Which may have a print of smiley faces
But fail to raise a smile on mine
And ‘no’, I’m not a moody swine,
My mood was actually quite fine
Until I saw your arse.
Which really doesn’t pass
For fashion sense or class.
If that is creativity
The art in it is lost on me
For all I see is PANTS.
And ‘yes’, this is a rant,
But one I feel is overdue,
For far too many men like you
Have got their underwear on view
And I don’t think it’s right.
It’s not a pleasant sight.
And even though you might
Claim your look is ‘hip’ or ‘street’
Your jeans are bagging round your feet
And seal the fate you soon will meet.
For suddenly you trip and fall
And face-down on the pavement sprawl.
Your jeans now well below your arse,
There’s nothing you can do to pass
For trendy, hip or cool.
You’re just a flat-out, fashion, fettered, fool.

 

Trousers, by Ray Givans


By Robert Garnham

TROUSERS

“Is there no one who feels like a pair of pants?” Kenneth Koch, from his poem ‘Fresh Air’.

38L

54% Polyester, 44% Virgin wool, 2% Elastane.

We met in the Men’s department of Marks and Sparks.
I was hanging on a ‘bargain rail’
squeezed between a short-sleeve, Hawaiian-style shirt
and a chunky mauve jumper, XX Large.
He examined my labels. Dry Clean Only.
I recall being taken only twice to Ballyhackamore Dry Cleaners.
The attendant addressed me as, ‘one pair of pants’.

I am, what-they-call, a year-rounder
which gives me an advantage over the 30 + pairs
vying for a prominent position on his wardrobe rail:
chinos, cargo, drawstring, khaki, joggers, jeans – regular,
relaxed and loose – suit pants, moleskin, 3 band hi-vis polycotton
and corduroy – narrow and wide wale, in cream, blue and green.
In lightweight wool I am his favourite for the Office,
but, in truth, I am uncomfortable in summer, supplanted by
cropped trousers, shorts and long-leg cool linen.

Sometimes I am worn 2-3 days consecutively,
then shunned for several weeks.
Stich by stich my loop-holes are unravelling,
I see the day when I am turfed out for some bright young Turk.
I stay positive, think back to happy days of our association.
I was there when his son was forceps delivered in theatre,
proud to carry the digital compact in my front pocket.

There is still a faint stain on my knee
from the spilled celebratory flute of bubbly.

Ray Givans lives in Belfast. He has been published in five poetry pamphlets, and in one full collection. The latter was ‘Tolstoy in Love’, published by Dedalus Press, Dublin. This collection was shortlisted for the Strong award, for best first collection by an Irish poet in 2009. His most recent pamphlet collection is, ‘The Innermost Room’, Salzburg Press, at the University of Salzburg