Category: Free verse

When Two Worlds Collide, by Jeff Horsey


By Robert Garnham

When two worlds collide

Eric worked at the post office.
Sorting letters at 6 am.
Finished early.
Home at four.
Picked up guitar.
Played ‘til his fingertips were sore.
He had a plan,
he had a goal.
Dug the blues and jazz and soul.
One a these days “Johnny Sansom” gonna MAKE the grade,
not just get post office pay.

Johnny played in pubs at night
until one am and only then,
did he worry about the early shift,
sifting letters and whistling riffs.
See Johnny was Eric in the broad daylight.

Monday morning six am
One of his post office friends
said “Man, you look just like the guy
played down the Bull and Bush last night.
Me and the Missus went for a drink,
she said she couldn’t even think,
‘coz this guy Johnny was in the bar,
trying to play an old guitar.
He could NOT sing.
He could NOT play.
What a WANKER,
she said to me.”

And here’s a video of Jeff ‘The Horse’ Horsey:


 

The best superhero we can conjur, by Rob Schofield


By Robert Garnham

The best superhero we can conjure

sits in splendid self-isolation. He
does not fret about provisions, other
than how best to keep the plebs supplied with
bread and circuses. And toilet roll. His
tenebrous consigliere, last seen
scuttling away from the black door sans
smug grin, is at home now, mired in his blog,
scribbling his fiendish marginalia
and plotting how and where to push the blame.
How will he muddy waters already
soiled by years of verbal diarrhoea?
Where were his not-so-super forecasters
when the rest of us were glued to the news
from Wuhan? And the second string, these Lords
of Misrule, whose misplaced confidence rides
shotgun with incompetence, snatch at the
coat tails of the experts they scorned, alive
to the scapegoat’s scent. Eton College closed
its doors before our children were sent home.
What of the rich, no longer able to
stake sole claim to being idle? Boltholes
undetected, they feed foie gras and fox
cubs to the hounds, riding out the storm while
trusting their Joker to keep their backsides clean.

Rob Schofield writes fiction and poetry from a temporary bunker in the Yorkshire Dales. Rob is a member of the 2021 Northern Short Story Festival Academy and has been published in The Blue Nib and Prole. He has been long and short listed for several short story prizes. Rob publishes work in progress at robschofield.uk.  

 

 

Uncle Peter, by Nigel Lloyd


By Robert Garnham

Uncle Peter

Uncle Peter wasn’t Elvis, but he thought he was.
Admittedly, at family parties even after a skin full
he could hold a tune, but Elvis didn’t need to be
helped into a taxi after a gig, and he didn’t have to retrieve
his false teeth from the garden the following day.

Uncle Peter wasn’t Fred Astaire, but he thought he was.
Admittedly, at his daughter’s wedding, even with indigestion
after a three course meal and several brandies,
he could throw a few shapes.
But Fred Astaire didn’t nearly get arrested
because he was running through the town centre
with a traffic cone on his head.

Uncle Peter wasn’t Casanova, but he thought he was.
Admittedly, he was married three times
and always seemed to find plenty of women
who liked the aroma of Brylcreem and Castella cigars.
But Casanova didn’t put so much Hi Karate on
that you could smell him in the next street.

Uncle Peter wasn’t a young man, but he thought he was.
Admittedly, he had read the NME since the 60’s
but you can’t be cool forever.
He started to look like he had lost it
When he thought Kanye West was a holiday destination.

Uncle Peter wasn’t my favourite uncle, but he thought he was.

Nigel Lloyd lives in rural Donegal and has had poems published in several magazines

From Crannog to Progressive Rock Magazine, he also had a poem featured on 

BBC Radio Ulsters Soundscapes programme and was a finalist in the 

Bring your Limericks to Limerick competition 2018 and a finalist in

The Piano Academy of Ireland Limerick competition 2021.

Www.nigellloydpoet.com

 

I’m sorry I’m late, by Susan Jordan


By Robert Garnham

I’m so sorry I’m late
it was the weather the trains the traffic
a deluge of rejection letters I had to open
six weeks’ washing-up that couldn’t wait
a freak rainstorm that only fell on me
a hole in the road that swallowed me up
a crocodile that punctured my back tyre
a bomb somewhere that might have exploded
the clock starting to go backwards
the dog eating my sense of time
me losing the way inside my house
the streets turning back to front.
Actually I’m just late.

 

What I’m Like, by Kevin Higgins


By Robert Garnham

What I’m Like

Lively as an elderly blue-arsed fly
that’s just been clattered by
the weekend edition of the New York Times.
About as much use in a debate about anything
as a weighing scale floating through outer space.
Reassuring as a naked funeral director
stepping into the same hot tub as you
in search of new customers.
My future smells delicious
as the used odour-eaters
I was going to send you for Christmas
until I saw the price of the postage.
My dream, that little children of every
complexion and gender
will one day gather together
to play Frisbee with stray toilet seat lids
they plucked from the rubble.

Kevin Higgins has been described by The Stinging Fly magazine has described Kevin as “likely the most read living poet in Ireland. His sixth full collection of poems ‘Ecstatic’ will be published by Salmon in June 2021.  

 

The Astronomer’s Wife, by Rose Cook


By Robert Garnham

The Astronomer’s Wife

That was the night she told us
her husband is an astronomer,
who drives off every day to his planetarium
with a box of sandwiches and a Mars bar.

He’s always has that faraway look in his eyes,
it’s quite attractive, we all thought so.
He has no idea of time though,
his head so full of space.

He knows all the stars and planets
and is looking into Saturn at the moment,
which has been troublesome.
Last year it was Venus, things got very tense.

He’s lovely though, they have four children.
He calls them satellites.
And a dog.
Pluto.

Rose Cook is a Devon based poet whose work has been published in six collections. Her latest book is Shedding Feathers (published by Hen Run, Grey Hen Press).

www.rosecook.wordpress.com

 

My Shot, by Nikki Fine


By Robert Garnham

When offered, I took it like a shot,
a shot in the arm – literally –
to boost the current state of existence.
It’s a shot across the bows of
the viral armada, steaming through
an unnerved population.
It may be a shot in the dark, though
I doubt it, with all the scienceing
put into it. It feels more like
a money shot, profiting everyone.
A twofer, it’s a Parthian shot.
Has the virus shot its bolt?
I’ll be okay, that’s my parting shot.

Nikki Fine is a one-time English teacher, now tutor and writer, with occasional forays, when permitted, into the theatrical world (off-stage). She has had work published in The Interpreter’s House, on Ink Sweat and Tears, and Riggwelter, and self-published a collection of poetry inspired by quantum physics.

 

it started with a Body, by Julian Isaacs


By Robert Garnham

it started with a Body / of evidence
a combined cadet corps / d’esprit
a white outline on the Parade ground.
Mysteriously // in the preceding chapter
it had been in the / Library.

There was no lead Piping
but there were some Soldiers / the nanny
and the little Princes in her care
were feverishly licking them / to get
as High as they could // before high Tea.

the simple Fact is that / the only thing
that starts with a Body is a Birth
and even that starts with // Two bodies.
Even the Sacrament / of corpus Christi
started with Blood as well // as a Body.

the Train of Essence / was in fact
set in perpetual Motion / by the difficulty
in identifying Somebody // as Nobody.
it all Started with no Body / and nobody
can always be recreated in their // Own self-Image.

if Death is so Bloody thrilling
then King Lear must be a // Thriller
but Shakespeare wrote it / and that makes Him
a Killer / so it didn’t Start with a // Body
it Ended with one.

in a Seminar on mary shelley’s / Frankenstein
Sheila asked Shirley / how she was going to approach
the Essay. ‘i’m going to look at the / Body’
she replied with a Face as straight as // the back
of a Hairbrush.

Author’s Note: NB primary research revealed the Body Shop does not sell // Bodies.

 

Art Students in a City Park, by Patrick Deeley


By Robert Garnham

Penniless, sodden, splattered
with mud and paint,
we cling to our brushes and easels,
catch tree-bark and bareness,
the on-off colours
of January light between showers.

What we offer the world
is what the world feels it can do
without. Futility,
say the cars tail-backed beyond
the railings, futility
the wind-wrecked umbrellas,

the errant golf shots
in far green spaces, the drug deals
done on side-streets,
futility the bank executives
in tinted restaurants
laughing off their latest messes.

Here, snowdrops cluster;
a scribble of moss
resembles yellow crayon-marks
where sunlight hits;
a sleeping moth, all
but etched into an old oak trunk,

gathers us together
to chaunt the idea of it as a tawny,
inverted love heart.
The park is about to be shut.
Suppose, one of us
suggests, suppose we mosey up

to the sour-puss
key-rattling park attendant posing
as Saint Peter
and smile our Mona Lisa smiles,
will he allow us
to stand just one more half-hour

in the wind and muck?
At which we all splutter into our
aqua marines, indigos,
burnt siennas, alizarin crimsons,
behind the tall,
rusty, suffering gates of Paradise.

Patrick Deeley’s awards include the 2001 Eilís Dillon Award, the 2014 Dermot Healy International Poetry Prize, and the 2019 Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award.  Recently he has had poems published in The Rialto, The London Magazine and Staying Human, an anthology edited by Neil Astley.  His seventh collection with Dedalus Press, ‘The End of the World’, was shortlisted for the 2020 Farmgate National Poetry Award.

 

Jan, Jen or Jean, by Thomas McColl


By Robert Garnham

JAN, JEN OR JEAN

I hadn’t seen her in years.
Her name was Jan, Jen or Jean,
I couldn’t remember which.

My face lit up like a fruit machine
when she caught my glance
as we passed each other on Southwark Bridge.

“Hi, Tom,” she said,
and as if she’d pressed PLAY,
I felt compelled to take the chance.

The names began to spin inside my head –
Jan, Jen, Jean.
I pressed STOP too quickly –
I had little choice –
and settled on Jean.
“Hi, Jean,” I said.

We passed.
I pressed COLLECT,
and got a sick feeling in my gut,
as the name Jan,
for first prize,
flashed before my eyes.

Thomas McColl lives in London. He’s had poems published in magazines such as Envoi, Iota, Prole and Ink, Sweat and Tears, and has had two collections of poetry published: ‘Being With Me Will Help You Learn’ (Listen Softly London Press, 2016) and ‘Grenade Genie’ (Fly on the Wall Press, 2020).