Category: Free verse

Thought by Joanne Key


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So I had a kick-around with the thought
in the garden for a bit. Not content
with that bit of sport, things turned nasty.

Of course, we’d all had a drink. Having flogged
the thought half to death with a cat-o-nine-
other-thoughts, I nigh on drowned it in rum.

The thought lay steeping, staring at me,
marinading and seething like a slab of living,
breathing meat. I added a spoonful of sugar

and a squirt of lime only to find I’d created
something so bittersweet I couldn’t stand
the thought of it. By this time, I’d had enough

so I flung it at the wall and it stuck. I left it there
and went to bed. After a sleepless night
worrying about the thought downstairs,

I woke to find it had grown to monstrous
proportions – a Thoughtzilla, of sorts.
It had squeezed itself into every room,

filling all the empty space like a giant
marshmallow. Its huge eyes followed me
everywhere. I was tempted to think of it

as the Mona Lisa, without the smile,
but I already had enough on my mind
and decided to leave that thought to one side.

Later that morning, I moved my chair
out onto the lawn, drank tea and watched it
sleeping. I studied it carefully.

It really was one big, ugly, mother-
thought. Slimy tentacles stuck out
of all the windows. It wore my house

like a hermit crab wears a shell. I must admit –
it wore it well, better than I ever could,
but as a last resort at flattening the thought,

I decided to run it over with a monster truck.
Just as I was revving the engines up,
the thought grabbed hold of me again.

It threw me off course and slipped away,
lumbering in all directions along the avenue,
jumping the fences of every dead end.

It shot off at tangents, trying to find the horizon.
I followed in hot pursuit. What else could I do?
I couldn’t leave the damn thing running loose.

Eventually, it ran out of steam and settled down
for a rest by the stream. I stumbled upon it
there, sleeping again. I sat under the apple tree

and hatched my plan. I was so angry, I rolled it
down to the foot of the hill and strapped it
to the railway line. When it woke, I almost

felt sorry for it as I watched it shrink to human form: a damsel in distress in an old film, struggling
against the knots, tied to a black and white backdrop.

It screamed silently for help. But it was too late, a new train of thought was already on the way and sadly I was driving so it was full throttle, no brake.

Joanne Key lives in Cheshire where she writes poetry and short fiction. Her poems have appeared in various places online and in print. She has been shortlisted in a number of international competitions and won 2nd prize in the 2014 National Poetry Competition.

 

A New Beginning by Norman Hadley


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When the Wilsons judged that they were halfway through the marriage,
they hired a jobbing surgeon-friend
to sever their heads
to sew back on
but swapped around.

They spent their second twenty years
apologising for a million insensitivities
but the sex was fantastic.

Norman Hadley is an engineer and mathematician who writes poetry, short fiction, children’s fiction and cycling-related nonfiction to keep all the hemispheres occupied. He’s produced five poetry collections so far and frenetic participation in Jo Bell’s “52” project has generated sufficient material for five more.

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Bulb by Gillian Mellor


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You screwed me, your hands all over me.
Used me to illuminate your fantasies.
What now? Discarded on grounds
of efficiency. Replacements, handsome
as cows’ udders dangle from fittings
instead of me. My filament remains cool.
Incandescence fading from memory.

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.

 

Toilet Roll by Lesley Quayle


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My life is crap.
You tear me up,
rip me apart, piece by piece.
You want me to be strong
but expect me still to be soft,
you use me, then discard me,
flush me from your life
even though I do all your dirty work.
The others ignore me now that I’m spent,
empty and hollow, squandered, depleted.
Only you seem able to rip me off,
throw me out, replace me so easily
with another.

Toilet Roll 2 – the sequel

I’m always with you.
Wherever you travel,
I’m there, sometimes unseen,
never out of reach.
Comfort and safety
are in the bag.
I’ll dry your tears
and blow your nose,
contain the worst of you.
If you fall, I’m there
to mop you up
and dust you down,
when you bleed,
I’m strong.
When life is shit,
I’m there for you.

Lesley Quayle is a widely published poet and a folk/blues singer currently living in deepest, darkest rural Dorset.

 

Richard by Peter Yates


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They found his crown
under a thorn bush.
He could not get a horse
for love nor kingdom.
He completely failed
as an undercover parking attendant.

But he made damn sure
Damn sure
that he was disinterred
in timely fashion
to witness Leicester City
win the league.

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.

 

The Poets and the Thief by Marc Woodward


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Ten poets in a room,
some imbibing wine,
when from the back a
ruckus started.

“A thief! A thief!
he’ll rob us blind –
he’s here to steal
our work, our souls,
our sacred lines!”

“Don’t be so dramatic dear..”
another replied “..and anyway – did I really hear
‘rob us blind’? good grief, oh dear!
Don’t you think you could do better here?”

“Yes..” a third spoke up
“..and to speak of ‘soul’
is over used and meaningless,
surely you agree?”

There then followed a hubbub:
much exclamation, declamation,
formal decree
and general hullabaloo

during which

the thief slipped away
with a sack of poems
he’d craftily purloined,
but, I’m sad to say,
very few were new
or freshly coined…

Marc Woodward is a poet and musician from Devon. His writing reflects his rural surroundings and often has a macabre undercurrent. He has been published widely including at Ink, Sweat & Tears, Prole, Avis, The Jawline Review and The Poetry Society and  Guardian sites as well as in anthologies from Forward, Sentinel, OWF and Ravenshead. His recent chapbook ‘A Fright of Jays’ is available from Maquette Press.

 

Catalogues for the More Mature Woman by Sarah J Bryson


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They slide heavy through the letterbox,
sheathed in plastic film, mixed in with charity
begging letters, and Estate Agents’ boasts.

The images within their glossiness entice her;
she returns again and again to feast her eyes
on the rich-coral swing coat, the double spreads

of soft cashmere knitwear (on sale at prices
never to be repeated) and this coming season’s dresses,
skirts, and blouses, in bright cotton flower-prints

displayed on slim, un-flawed models, snapped against
sun-filled backdrops of Natural Trust beauty spots.
She turns down pages at the corner to revisit each one

to play with the idea of trying them on in her mind,
colour matching this against that, considering the cost,
and when she might wear them, knowing that the wardrobe

is full already. She tells herself she doesn’t need them.
But time passes slowly, alone so much of the time
and later she gives in to temptation. She dials

speaks to a polite girl, a quiet girl who sweet-talks her,
who calls her Mrs, respectfully, not by her first name
unbidden, and she confirms her dreams in an order,

guiltily with her credit card number, then waits those slow
days for parcels, anxiously now, already weighted
with the dread of disappointment.

Sarah J Bryson is a poet and hospice nurse. She runs occasional poetry workshops, and more regularly she works in care homes as part of a project taking poetry into residential care. Her poetry has been placed in competitions and published in anthologies, in journals and on line.

 

Road Kill by Oscar Windsor-Smith


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Oscar Windsor-Smith lives in Hertfordshire, UK. He has fooled enough editors to get fiction, creative non-fiction and non-fiction published in diverse places, in print and online, and has occasionally been falsely accused of poetry. By jammy luck he has been a finalist/shortlistee in various international competitions. He is currently seeking to underpin his sagging creative writing on the BA degree course at Birkbeck, University of London.

 

The Light Programme by Brian Johnstone


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The wireless on, that gap
as valves began to warm,
and all that met our ears
was doubled up. Innuendo
in itself said so much more
to all our fevered thoughts.

Days were stuffed with
Mr Horne, what bishops
said to actresses. ITMA’s
Can I do you now? led on
to Formby’s stick of rock,
Howard’s please yourself.

Of course we did, but not
as he implied lest Whacko!
was on hand. No! Enough
that air waves throbbed
on any frequency of filth
slipped in below the bar.

All in the mind, but we
were so inclined. There
like static, what you got
with the reception every
time you listened in or
twiddled idly at a knob.

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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Severn Bridge by Mark Blayney


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Driving Wales to England
there’s a windsock so you know
what the breeze is like.

Why isn’t there one
on the other side?
In a way I’m pleased

that, like me,
even a giant bridge
can lose its socks.

More embarrassing for the bridge
because its ones are bright orange and huge
I can imagine its mum, saying for goodness sake
how can you lose that?

West of the bridge
we drive through stunning earth

bracken on mountains
ice blue lakes freeze
soil compressed by blackened sky

scanning the horizon for a glimpse
of the gigantic sofa
that the sock might be behind.

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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