Category: Free verse

Ducks by Peter Yates


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Now they have
Quick Snack Spots
on the lake
in the neat Home Counties park

Bread-free areas for waterfowl –
grain only on the menu
[which can be purchased
in handy bags nearby]

A kind of Duck Macdonalds.

Mothers with buggies and toddlers
Pass them by
much preferring to distribute
half loaves of Asda wholegrain
or thick sliced white – its great for toasting –
as if dispensing nourishment to the needy.
The ducks, likewise, were voting
with their webbed feet
preferring to pig out on couch potato fodder
rather than another slimmers fad.

So it was empty when I passed,
this eco-friendly duck-food parlour.
Just a lone coot,
balancing on the notice,
holding a placard reading:
Don’t let them exploit us.

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.

 

Page Three by Mab Jones


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(inspired by seeing a ‘page three’ topless model on a piece of newspaper floating next to a river)

Yesterday when out walking
I saw a pair of tits.

This is not a double entendre.

Yes, whilst out walking yesterday
a couple of tits flew by.
Not the blue or bearded kind

but the pink and perkily nippled.

Two tits flitting
about near the river.

Two snapped paps
flapping wings
in the wind.

They landed and I took a photo
of the photo. I wondered,
would they sing?

But the tits of course
were voiceless, the girl who
owned them nameless, the body
they belonged to headless
thanks to a papery crease.

Not that that mattered, of course.

Despite their lack of identity
the tits seemed happy, excited.
Their look was up-for-it
and very, very playful.

But soon they flew up from the grass
and continued on their journey,
wild and strong and free,

so glad they weren’t wrapping
fish and chips, or some other

menial task.

Mab Jones has read her work all over the UK, in the US, Japan, France, and Ireland, and on BBC Radio 4. She runs International Dylan Thomas Day, writes for the New York Times, and recently won the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize.

 

@paultheweatherman by Carole Bromley


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I’m in love with Paul the weather man.
Never miss Look North, must get my fix
of orange shirts and pink ties.
I would kill to have a man with his laugh,
that cleft chin, those dimples. I love it
when he tells himself a joke
and laughs so much he can’t go on.

The way he says isobars does it for me,
that sweeping gesture to indicate
the direction of the wind sends shivers
down my spine. I have to take an extra sip
of peppermint tea. Every day I tweet him:
selfies of me in sun and rain,
me in fog and snow, me in sea fret and drizzle.

(first published in The Stonegate Devil)

Carole Bromley lives in York where she is the stanza rep and runs poetry surgeries. Winner of a number of first prizes including the Bridport. Two collections with Smith/Doorstop, the most recent being The Stonegate Devil, October 2015.

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Content by Bill Allen


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Comfortableness
has topography, contours,
crevices between
syllables to wriggle bum
and shoulders into snugly.

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.

 

Life’s Great Unanswered Questions by Gordon Williams


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The fridge started it.
Did that light really go out when the door closed?
Questions that have no answers
Bother me.
Not the usual ones such as
Is there a God? And what happens when we die?
But the really difficult ones like
Did the cabaret on the Titanic go down well?
Do fossils meet through carbon dating agencies?
And if you made love in a JCB would you feel the earth move?

It’s not the deep philosophical questions but the simply mundane that perturbs me
Do vandals come from broken homes?
Can acupuncture cure people of pins and needles? Why do they play dance music on hospital radio?
Do people have arguments in fall out shelters?
And would there be any point in making Groundhog Day 2?

More and more questions:
If you tried to row across the Atlantic single-handed would you keep going round in circles?
If its “i” before “e” except after “c” did Einstein get it wrong twice?
Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
What was the best thing before sliced bread?
Do bakery workers on the slicing machine go through thick and thin together?
And if a word was spelt wrongly in a dictionary – how would you know?

I lie awake wondering: if overall prices have gone up 10% in the past twelve months, should I have bought my overalls last year?
And if they made a promotional film for Viagra would they play soft organ music in the background?
Do flashers in Alaska suffer from indecent exposure?
What do plain clothes policemen wear on their day off?
Are human cannonballs people of the highest calibre?
Where does the rubber from worn tyres go?
Do poor KGB agents take in brainwashing?
And do mountaineers rope themselves together to stop the sensible ones from going home?

Still puzzled, I wonder
What are the chances of a fat chance going on a diet and becoming a slim chance?
Can fortune tellers see us coming?
If the Metropolitan Police were issued with pocket calculators would they be a force to be reckoned with?
Do Wasps rugby club have a “B” team?
If BT went bust would they call in the receivers?
Do American evangelists do more than lay people?
Do bored chefs just fritter away their time?
Why are anger management courses currently all the rage?
What were Marcel Marceau’s last words?
What would Kraftwerk Unplugged sound like?
Did Pavlov’s dogs join the Salivation Army?
Why do I keep dong this?
If the buck stops here, where does it start?

And will I ever
Get out of this fridge?

Gordon Williams was born near Manchester when the M6 was still cobbled. Moved to Northern Ireland for the peace and quiet in 1984 and, intractably indolent, still lives there. His stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies, on walls and websites. Some have won prizes; most haven’t. This poem represents 20% of a lifetime’s poetic output.

 

Assembly by Marilyn Francis


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It was while we were singing
‘All Things Bright And Beautiful’
that I first became Superman
soaring over the dull heads
red cloaked
and fast
as a dart
into the blue.

Clarissa Kent Form 1B
was just an empty uniform
on the school hall floor.

(first published in Domestic Cherry 4)

Marilyn Francis lives, works, and writes poems near Radstock in the wild south-west of England. She has had one collection of poems, “red silk slippers”, published by Circaidy Gregory Press. She also has some other poems out and about in the world, though she has even more lazing in her notebooks.

 

Dressing as a Man for a Day by Rachael Clyne


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Licking your lip for a last slick
of sauce, is unappetising
when mixed with bristles,

No baggy tops, let your belly flop,
assume others will be riveted
by what you say, that facts

are love tokens, when words fail.
On no account show weakness,
or gaze at other guys.

Stand wide-legged, claim space.
It really is an issue. A rolled up
sock is no substitute

for a cock, but it might
just get you better pay.

Rachael Clyne‘s work has appeared in Prole, The Interpreter’s House, Tears in the Fence. Anthologies: The Very Best of 52, Book of Love and Loss, Poems for a Liminal Age. Her prizewinning collection, Singing at the Bone Tree, concerns our longing for the wild . She also enjoys humour.

 

Moulding by Susan Jordan


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Yes, that’s right, fibreglass. Wonderful stuff.
You can make anything out of it. It’s been
my passion ever since my dad taught me
how to work it. I made boats then – simple.
Now I’ve moved on to furniture, shelving,
cupboards, you name it. Whole house full
of my creations. You paint it up, see – no end
of colours and ideas. You’d love the retro
psychedelic swirls, not to mention the faux
gilt chasings and the pink elephant settee.
I made the bed, the heart-shaped headboard
with the dralon inset – I do upholstery too –
and the clawed feet invisibly strengthened
with bits of old hoover pipe. And you’d die
for the bathroom, the bath I did in the shape
of a sardine-tin, open of course, complete
with key, and fishes painted on the bottom.
Pity the grinning octopus on the other wall
is a tentacle short – still, the eyeballs swivel
when you pull the cord and the oyster
loo seat plays three different tunes. It’s like
this stuff expands to fill the time; it hardens
into a shell that hides the space inside.
There wasn’t so much of it while she was alive.

Susan Jordan has always written prose but until recently wrote poetry only from time to time. Inspired by 52, Jo Bell’s wonderful online group, she started writing a lot more poems. Her poems have appeared in print and online magazines including Prole, Obsessed with Pipework, Snakeskin and Ink, Sweat & Tears.

 

Hornythology by Neil Laurenson


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The lesson would have gone well
If they had at least learned how to spell
Ornithology
Or so he thought.
He’d brought thirty dictionaries
And asked them to look up the word
Which they did
Online
And as well as words about birds
They found images
Of robins, sparrows
And great tits.

Neil Laurenson has read at the Wenlock Poetry Festival and Ledbury Poetry Festival and will be reading at The Quiet Compere at Worcestershire Lit Fest event in Worcester in June. His debut pamphlet, Exclamation Marx!, was published by Silhouette Press in May.

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Uncle Phil by Tom McColl


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I was throwing darts
at the dartboard
pinned to a wardrobe
at my Uncle Phil’s.

Uncle Phil came in.
He wasn’t really my uncle,
but then he wasn’t really a dartboard either,
and when he said
I’m just getting something from the wardrobe,
and had his back to me
as he opened the wardrobe door,
I threw the dart.

How he yowled
as I hit the bullseye
right between the shoulder blades.

I was five,
and I’ve never felt so alive
before or since
as when I heard that dull thud
and saw my mum’s friend –
my fake uncle –
wince.

Thomas McColl has had poems published in magazines such as Envoi, Rising, Iota and Ink, Sweat and Tears, and his first full collection of poetry, Being With Me Will Help You Learn, is out now from Listen Softly London Press.

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