Category: Free verse

My new profile picture by Marie-Therese Taylor


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My new profile picture

is just an X-Ray
of my hip
but boy do I look good like that
everything in
its proper place and not
a gram of body fat

with cartilage missing from the right
the fit into that socket tight
you know it’s from my skeleton
not just that of anyone

Marie-Therese Taylor draws on everyone and everything… no one is safe. Her short stories and poems have appeared in The Glasgow Review of Books, Soundwaves, Mixing the Colours, Nutshells and Nuggets, and The Stare’s Nest. She lives in Glasgow where she has also been known to perform.

 

Competition by Meg Barton


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OK, that’s it.
Sent it in.
Hope he doesn’t jeer at it.
Chuck it in the bin.
I followed all the guidelines to a T.
No staples, single spacing, name on separate page.
Expect he likes professionals like me.
Although I’m a beginner, obviously.
‘Emerging’ they call it when you’ve had just one
Published in a local magazine.
What if he really likes it?
Have to go to Inverness.
How do I get there?
Prize money so much less,
Than what it costs you for the fare.
And what if at the reading he takes my hand
And says “We meet at last, the only other poet I have met
Who truly, deeply, understands”?
What would I wear?
And maybe he would ask me for a drink,
Say “Tell me what you think –
Of poetry”. Maybe we’d fall in love.
Live together somewhere by the sea –
All open fires, long walks and talks on literature.
Better start on Milton. Ezra Pound.
And Blake.
And maybe tackle Ulysses in case.
And how do I know we’d actually get on?
Although I love his poems. Bit intense?
That eagle face, the cheekbones.
Every day?
I don’t suppose he watches Masterchef.
Or Gogglebox. And I’d miss both of those.
Just walks and watching seagulls I suppose.
And I would miss my boyfriend, and my house.
My colleagues even. Wouldn’t have a job.
Although I could hobnob with poets.
And of course I’d be one.
Better lose some weight and get the reading done.
See how he fixes me with piercing eyes
Like some fantastic griffin in his lair.
Not sure I really want to join him there.
In fact I wish I’d never sent it in.
Oh god.
Please god.
Don’t let me win.

Meg Barton lives in Oxford, and has been published in a few magazines including The Interpreter’s House and Lighten Up Online.

 

Drudgery by Gillian Mellor


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He insists on coming in the utility room,
says he doesn’t feel dirty in there.
She had a breather until he found those tablets.
Now he comes in twice a day, every day,
opens her up, empties his load.

She feels like she can’t say no, wants to apologise
when fabric softener spills in the sink.
He says she’s electric. She dreams
of making him do it by hand,
putting him in a spin, buying a mangle.

Gillian Mellor lives near Moffat in Scotland. She has had poems published on and offline and can be traced to The Moffat Bookshop on the days they let her out.

 

Progressive by Brian Johnstone


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The way she said,
“I thought you might,”
was my undoing;

my chat-up lines
remembered more
for absence

than success. I’d said,
“What sounds are
you into?” Not caring,

but just putting out
the only line
that I could think of

aiming to connect.
Not even that alluring,
but a girl

that was enough.
How she answered
long forgotten;

but remembered
– when she asked me
that same thing –

is her response.
“Prog Rock,” I’d said,
so keen to get it right.

She didn’t wait;
said, turning on her heel,
“I thought you might.”

Brian Johnstone’s work has appeared throughout Scotland, elsewhere in the UK, in North America and in Europe. He has published six collections, most recently ‘Dry Stone Work’ (Arc, 2014), and his work appears on The Poetry Archive website. His memoir ‘Double Exposure’ will be published by Saraband in 2017.

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Broom by Peter Yates


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I have a new broom
to sweep clean
the detritus of my life.
I’ll collect it all in neat little piles

labelled:

Lost Direction.
Broken Promises.
Divided Loyalties.
Shattered Dreams.

And being part of that bold new breed
of eco-warriors
I will, of course, recycle it
recycle it all
back into my life again.

Peter Yates is a playwright who has his own Theatre Company Random Cactus. He works with various charities and is a Theatre Critic at London Theatre 1.

 

Interview Technique by Mark Mayes


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Why do you want this job?
Why do you want it now?
Do you fulfil the requirements,
the person specifications?
How do you fulfil them?

What can you offer?
What would you offer?
Why should we choose you
above the other candidates?

Communication skills,
do you have them?
How good are they?
Are you flexible?
How flexible are you?
Flexible under pressure?

Do you have a sense of humour?
Humour under pressure?
Is your humour flexible?
Are you bubbly yet dynamic?

What do you understand by:
customer service,
equal opportunities,
teamwork?

Where do you see yourself
in five years,
in ten years, in fifteen?

Do you have time-management skills?
Can you manage time?
How much time can you manage?
What is time?

In three words,
describe your personality.
In three words,
describe your ideal job.

Is this your ideal job?
If not, why do you want this job?
Why don’t you want your ideal job?
Why aren’t you in your ideal job?

This gap
in your CV,
can you explain it?

Why have you applied?
Why do you want this job?

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.

 

F.W.Woolworth’s Leaving Do by Peter Raynard


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Late as usual a pasty-faced Greggs sausage rolls
to the bar, orders a pint and radars the room.
In the snug, old friends M&S & BHS reminisce
about the Man at C&A, watch Topshop’s figures,
it’s unique and boutique. Many others crowd
the dance floor Whistles stands alone, unaware
of Zara’s foreign presence. Heals may be higher
in price and class, But Primark may yet have the last laugh.

Others keep out of the spotlight hoping
it won’t spin their way. Waterstone’s wets itself,
Foyles cuts fingernails real quick, Anne Summers
vibrates scantily with fear. Bums are squeaking
all along the High Street. In a darkened VIP area,
the far-from-sadministrators disembowel Past Times,
autopsy Whittard’s fine teas, fix bulbous eyes
on His Master’s Voice and Blockbuster’s,
as they snort lines of coffins filled with the rewards
of Jessop’s losses, ready to hollow them out.
Clinton’s couldn’t be there, so they sent it a sympathy card.
‘Your time will come, don’t you worry,’ it read.

But there is still some fight, as Poundland
takes a swing for 99p stores but misses
and Pop Up shops poke out tongues,
Charity shops hold out hands, whilst
Amazon and eBay are virtually there.

Greggs shuffles round, asks the barman
‘What did the F.W. stand for in Woolworths?’
‘Fuck Wit,’ he replies.

Peter Raynard is a writer and editor. His poems have appeared in a number of publications and his debut collection “The Common Five-Eighters” will be published by Smokestack Books in early 2018. He is also the editor of Proletarian Poetry: poetry of working class lives.

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Performing a poem in a non-poetry space by Mark Blayney


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Hello, my name is Cough. I’d like to share my what the hell’s this? with you
and also to welcome bar till ping.
It’s lovely to see excuse me love here and also
so many of you who are mower starts outside window.

SO I’LL SPEAK a little louder to cover the Is this not Cuban salsa?
and hopefully we can move to the first well they told me it was in here
and then we’ll enjoy a reading from a new book by
oh you’re right it’s Thursday.

It’s good to see so many new faces FART
and I hope not all of our first-time performers will be nervous.

So don’t listen to him it’s all indoctrination,
put your bible away you wan- kingdom of the polar bear,
a set of poems about Greenland and the
ice sheet – me, let’s put something on the jukebox!

And please welcome to the stage, reading from her new book
‘Poems spoken in a whisper’
the very wonderful Police siren! Bar till! Where are the toilets?

Good evening. My first poem is called, ‘The long silence’.

….

….

….

Let’s go, Doris. We’re missing Casualty.

Mark Blayney won the Somerset Maugham Prize for ‘Two Kinds of Silence’. His third book ‘Doppelgangers’ is available from Parthian and his first poetry collection ‘Loud music makes you drive faster’ will be published in October.

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Heartbreak Bot by Mohammed Zahid


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The other day you were online,
I said, “hi,” you said, “hi u there!”
The feeling of being in a secret corner
in the vast open world sprouted
and made me smile, after all,
you were spontaneous to my call.
“How have you been?” I said,
“fine,” and you, with a smiley
that made me grin
“I missed you,” responded,
with an “I missed you too”

Unbelievable, though it seemed,
there was nothing to doubt,
soon the sentences flew
interspersed with emotions,
emoticons, facial expressions,
cartoonified, fake hearts beating
with digital cupids hovering
like butterflies on a sunny spring meadow.
The taps on the keyboard grew fast, blind,
typing tied to the rising adrenaline…

The heart beat fast, faster,
to the hits on the keyboard
and broke.
I had just typed,
“I am in pain without you,”
you smiled and winked
I wrote “qwertypoiuy,”
you said, “that’s a nice name.”

Mohammad Zahid is a poet/translator from Kashmir, India. “The Pheromone Trail” is his first collection of poetry. His upcoming work is translation of Kashmiri Language and Poetry, a critical work on Kashmiri poetry.

 

The Lost Property Locker by Robert Nisbet


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Dai the roadman takes stock after the town carnival

Two fivers, par, also the eight pound coins.
Small change, considerable. The credit cards
we can return, likewise two of the three
pensioner’s bus passes, but it’s tough luck
on Archie McPhee of Ross and Cromarty.
Five T-shirts this year: Hard Rock Café,
Gorseinon Rugby Club, U of Glam, Jesus Saves
and Little Red Riding Hood Kicks Ass.
With the smoking ban in pubs, we’re down
to just the one ashtray, a Watney’s Pale.
We have a cuckoo clock, a Nuneaton Borough
library card, a flour bag marked Bowker’s Mill
and a toilet roll. The knickers we could have
predicted, just one pair this year, pale blue,
medium to large. Two scraps from letters,
one from “Billy”, who sends condolences
upon his auntie’s flatulence, and one
from “Jazza”, who loves her Kev to bits.
Three photographs (two boring, Auntie-Gertie-
on-the-prom-at-Margate stuff), one though,
a very candid one, Katie, the Mayor’s wife,
taken surely thirty years ago. And wasn’t her
skin so soft and silky then? Wasn’t it just?
My oath.

(Previously published in the Prolebooks pamphlet Merlin’s Lane, 2011)

Robert Nisbet is a Welsh poet with over 200 publications in Britain, as well as a number of appearances in the USA, in magazines like San Pedro River Review, Constellations, Illya’s Honey and Clementine Unbound.