Category: Letter from the Editor

My last joke, by Jorge Leiva Ardana


By Robert Garnham

My last joke
After Luis Buñuel

Should the day come and my soul be released,
though a convinced atheist, I’ll call in a priest
and the barber that messed up so much my hair
will tell those presents about our secret affair.

The service will be set around plastic flowers,
the ceremony held at the most inconvenient hour.
Bagpipes will be nicely played out of tune,
your headache will last until the following June.

A party horn shall be resting on my lips,
a bubble pipe between my fingertips.
Buried in a place I’ve never been,
I thought –why not- of Aberdeen.

Arranges will be made as follows:
Weeping or sorrow not allowed.
A ventriloquist must read my eulogy.
Please, invite to speak an expert on ornithology.

All the money I have although is not much,
will be donated where it’s really needed,
the Oregon Taxidermy Association,
where I can finally get a standing ovation.

My relatives won’t get a dime
which might be the last of my crimes,
and if you think all the above sinister,
remember a Nobel Peace Prize
was awarded to Kissinger.

 

A man on the 19.34 to Birmingham New Street, having misread the signals, uses his mobile to try to arrange another date with the woman who has hastily waved him off at Liverpool Lime Street , by Emma Purshouse


By Robert Garnham

A man on the 19.34 to Birmingham New Street, having misread the signals,
uses his mobile to try to arrange another date with the woman who has
hastily waved him off at Liverpool Lime Street

Whah?
Say again.

I bet yum freezing
ya baps off ay ya,
bab? Say again.
Say again. Whah?

I could come back

like, warm you up.
Whah? Say again.

Say again. Whah?

Errrrr……Runcorn.

Say again? Whah?

Thursday. Thurs…

Say again. I know,

yeah. Say…………

Ok…………..Tarrah.

Tarrahtarrahtarrah.

 

To Professor John Henderson, by Maria Andrews


By Robert Garnham

To Professor John Henderson, about my/his belly.

John,

Would be great to cut a fine figure.
I do, says your belly,
Swaying on my two pins.
Uh huh? I’m listening, I say.
Yeah, I cut a fine figure of a Henderson belly
asking John for a hug.

You’ve got persistence going for ya,
I give you that. Yeah I have,
my/your belly drawls,
taking a long drag of a cigarette,
I’ll ask him till the day I die. I placate curve
with smoothing palm.

Are you thinking about John now?
John Henderson belly closes her eyes.
Yeah. All his vocatives rolled
into one tumbling waterfall of cadences.
What about his ablatives, his hyperbatons?
All cases. All cadences. One long

Belly schmoosh. His semantic analytics?
His patterns? His parsings? His epics?
His topsy turvey word order?
My belly is opening her lips, lost
for words. His exploratory thematics?
She’s gone, lost in loin-louche.

Maria Andrews is a short film maker and photographer who occasionally gets published in poetry mags (Polka Dot Ceiling, Still Life) and was once published in a collection (Bloody Amazing). Her current alias is a puppet called Leopold, who is a London correspondent for Helmiflix.com She likes belly laughs. manifestafilm@weebly.com.

 

Earthworms are Awesome, by Holly Conant


By Robert Garnham

Earthworms Are Awesome

I mean, they literally feed the fucking planet. Take our fermented banana, yellow miasma and crap it out as wise-man’s gold. And I feel impressed with my morning turd! But that needs hours of processing, by loads of people in hazmat suits with fancy gizmos, before it turns into anything useful. I’d rather be a worm: take a shit, and boom, job done; it’s warm and ready to be laid into by a seed-bean or bulb. Maybe I’d be more fulfilled without a human brain to contradict my purpose. I’d find my way into a middle-class compost bin, spend all day eating potpourri detritus, and be a rent-free master architect, redacting common land law. I’d be humbled by my legless body, my simple ways of building, mindful of camber structure instead of grey velvet sofas and Mrs Hinch. I’d be at home in dirt, throw my gender away and bag the kinky night-time rendezvous’ amongst an orgy of grass with wet breath. The human hand would be no more risk to me than it is now, maybe even less, and mother Earth might forgive me for my flesh. I just hope being swallowed by a bird is a quick death.

Holly is a mature student currently studying at the University of Leeds. Her poems have been published since January 2021 by Ink, Sweat & Tears, Anti-Heroin Chic, Spilling Cocoa Over Martin Amis, Dreich and more, as well as appearing in anthologies. She is currently working on her debut collection.

Twitter: @Holly_C_Writer

 

GDPR, by Marie Studer


By Robert Garnham

GDPR

He stretched his legs under the hospitality
Of her kitchen table, listed the locals lately deceased,
Those who reached old age, those taken young.
She offered currant cake.
Reaching for a slice he asked in a flash,
What age would you be now, Nonie?
She returned the plate to ellipsis equalised
On oilcloth. Smiling benignly, she enquired
What age would you think I am?
He subtracted generously from the score,
Near enough, she said.
No hacker would ever crack
My mother’s personal information or ransom her ware.

Marie Studer has written poetry since her teens in the1970s and started to submit in 2018. She won the Trocáire Poetry Ireland Competition 2020 and the Halloween Ekphrastic Poetry Challenge, Bangor Literary Journal 2019. Her poetry has been published in the Stony Thursday Book, The Waxed Lemon, Wee Book of Wee Poems, Fire & Water, Drawn To The Light, online and local anthologies.

Twitter handle: @StudiMarie

 

Why I ended up (for a while) in Hull, by Janet Sillett


By Robert Garnham

Why I ended up (for a while) in Hull

My group of friends read Larkin aloud
skiving off hockey,
outliers in a school
which dished out piety at 9am

We admired his contrariness,
dirty words,
and suburban weariness,
his constipated ennui

Larkin inspired me to study
in a god forsaken east coast city
a shared terrace with a parrot
a bath in the kitchen
on Anlaby Road

I skulked in vain in the library,
until we parted company abruptly,
Hull, Larkin and me
I moved on, as they say,
to Plath, Stevens, Crane
to a concrete place of learning,
and Larkin expressed his adoration
for Margaret Thatcher

I reread his poems, when living
in bedsits, in semis,
in the disillusionment of marriage

But let’s face it,
Larkin was a bigot, racist, serial snob
I want to see them starving,
the so-called working class
nostalgic for the good old days
when only white men played cricket for England

Consumer of pornography
(but never in the library)
composer of sado­masochistic reveries
shared to fellow man poets
posh adolescents fumbling with themselves
in bedrooms after lights out

I want to cancel Larkin
unknow his life,
his pervasion of archetypal Englishness
I settle for drowning in his poetry
with fingers in my ears

PS Apologies to Hull which I now think is a great place.

Janet Sillett recently took up writing poetry and short fiction again after decades of absence. She has had poems published in the Galway Advertiser, Poetry Plus magazine and Spilling Cocoa over Martin Amis, and flash fiction in Litro. She works for a think tank.

 

Advice for undergraduates re-submitting work for this semester’s poetry module, by Emma Purshouse


By Robert Garnham

Advice for undergraduates re-submitting work for this semester’s poetry module

If you see a cliché kill it dead.
Don’t use rhyme for rhyme’s sake, red.

Steer clear of obscure abstraction,
it will drive your lecturer to distraction.

Want to piss of him or her?
Then use a t’will, a t’was, a t’were.

All good things in moderation
applies in particular to alliteration

which when wildly wielded will
wind one up and make one ill.

At this point I’ll interject,
that it should only be used for deliberate effect.

As for rhythm don’t get me started
Please, avoid extra long lines which jut out miles further than the rest of the poem, these lines probably should be split and parted.

Oh and never say the same thing twice.
Don’t be an oxymoron all your life.

No tormented soul or bleeding heart,
this makes my nervous twitching start.

Show me, show me, please don’t tell.
Follow this advice and all will be well.

Emma’s first novel Dogged is now available to buy from Ignite Books.                                              https://ignitebooks.co.uk/products-page/emma-purshouses-books/

 

Ultimate Bathroom Experience, by Kevin Higgins


By Robert Garnham

Ultimate Bathroom Experience

The bathrooms of Late Capitalism differ
from the bathrooms of feudalism
and the bathrooms of the industrial revolution
in that they exist.
No more throwing it
out into the street
in the hope of hitting the neighbour
you argued with yesterday.

As you depart
the bathrooms of Late Capitalism
the attendant tries to sell you
bottles of your own widdle, jars
of what you worked so hard
to make, labelled Organic.
When they succeed
you feel like you came away
with a great bargain.

The perfect skin cream
for the Father’s Day market
to help them stop withering
in the face of Late Capitalism;
a dressing to drizzle
on your favourite salad
to stop it wilting
in the light of
Late Capitalism; the perfect
pep me up

days you’ve visited the doctor
and been told: Madam,
it’s Late Capitalism.
But, tragically,
not terminal.
On your way out
kindly swipe your card
on the relevant part
of the receptionist
and continue to the exit.

Kevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway. He has published five full collections of poems: The Boy With No Face (2005), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008), Frightening New Furniture (2010), The Ghost In The Lobby (2014), & Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital (2019). His poems also feature in Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe May 2014). Kevin was satirist-in-residence with the alternative literature website The Bogman’s Cannon 2015-16. 2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins was published by NuaScéalta in 2016. The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed was published by Culture Matters (UK) also in 2016. Song of Songs 2:0 – New & Selected Poems was published by Salmon in Spring 2017. Kevin is a highly experienced workshop facilitator and several of his students have gone on to achieve publication success. He has facilitated poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre and taught Creative Writing at Galway Technical Institute for the past fifteen years. Kevin is the Creative Writing Director for the NUI Galway International Summer School and also teaches on the NUIG BA Creative Writing Connect programme. His poems have been praised by, among others, Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul, Observer columnist Nick Cohen, writer and activist Eamonn McCann, historian Ruth Dudley Edwards, and Sunday Independent columnist Gene Kerrigan; and have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Times (London), Hot Press magazine, The Daily Mirror and on The Vincent Browne Show, and read aloud by Ken Loach at a political meeting in London. He has published topical political poems in publications as various as The New European, The Morning Star, Dissent Magazine (USA), Village Magazine (Ireland), & Harry’s Place. The Stinging Fly magazine has described Kevin as “likely the most widely read living poet in Ireland”. One of Kevin’s poems features in A Galway Epiphany, the final instalment of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series of novels which is just published. His work has been broadcast on RTE Radio, Lyric FM, and BBC Radio 4. His book The Colour Yellow & The Number 19: Negative Thoughts That Helped One Man Mostly Retain His Sanity During 2020 is just published by Nuascealta. Kevin’s sixth full poetry collection, Ecstatic, will be published by Salmon.

 

Dear Sir/Madam – by Karen Jones


By Robert Garnham

Dear Sir/Madam – by Karen Jones

We hope this finds you well
No need to respond
Our letters always start this way

Thank you for your recent correspondence
It languished in our inbox
Growing mouldier by the day

We refer to the issues raised
Certain you will feel heard
By their very mention on this page

And sorry you feel that way
(Add allegation here) without prejudice
The lawyers got their hands on this

Out of an abundance of caution
Very pedestrian steps have been taken
And nothing will change

We can assure you of that
It sounds solid when you read it back
We liked that last line a lot

There are no plans at present
We’ll bend like palm trees in the morning
It’s a fluid situation at the end of the day

As a gesture of goodwill
We hope the enclosed brings no luck
But needs must, court and whatnot

The matter has been referred
Somewhere, someone, head office
That dark hole of corporate resolve

Don’t hesitate to call
If we can be of any assistance
Now piss off pal, jog on

Committed to the highest standards
Is this statement of vague ambition
We like to shoehorn in at the end

Kind regards
Customer Services
(No, you can’t have the manager instead)

Karen Jones is new to writing poetry, a student of Kevin Higgins, and putting her head above the parapet with this first submission. Born in Northern Ireland, she lives in Dublin and works in public relations.

 

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