Category: Lyric poem

The Day I Cooked my Son’s Speech Therapist, by Beth McDonough


By Robert Garnham 
The Day I Cooked my Son's Speech Therapist

she arrived all kindly shiny in thunder, ahead
of his school bus return. Full of plans,
ASD-specific wisdom. He crashed in, appalled.
I no wanted to see her.
She flashed three PECS cards
at his face, intoned, in triple slow time
H   e   l  l o     K   eir
I       have     come    to     visit     you    and       your   Mum.
Put her whole fisog in his.
I no wanted to see her,
He dashed off his jacket. Ran out the back door.
She nodded towards my space.
I can help you understand how he communicates,
what he needs to let you know.
We followed him into the garden. He whizzed
for the trampoline. She chanted
from the circumference upwards. More cards.
My son turned to the fence,
bounded furiously, bounce, bounce, bounce
I no wanted to see her. Away now. Away!
Solicitously, she advised me
Sometimes he speaks very fast, and runs words
into one another, so we don't know what he says.
He turned quickly, saw her still standing, transplanted
from class to his own garden, 
then he spun away in disgust.
No wanted to see her.
Jumped on and on. Small splats of rain
did not dissuade him. I took her inside,
made coffee. Offered scones.
If we sat inside the conservatory we could
observe, as he leapt up by the lupins.
She enjoyed everything, I think. Seemed pleased to eat
that scone, as she helped me along.
My temperature rose. 
So I brought extra coffee, closed a window.
She took one more scone. I shut the door.
My son trampolined on.
Yes, she'd love another scone.
Steam rose from plants.
He pogoed on.
I'll come out whenever you want,
I'd love to help. I sealed
the last window. She lifted
her third scone as I watched
sweat drizzle on her lips.
At last I persuaded her that we must not
take more of her weighted time. 
Slowly, I sluiced her to the front door,
thanked her hugely, assured her
if we needed, we'd certainly phone.
She stilted formulaic farewells.
Away! Away! he replied.
Don't worry. We'll soon learn what he's saying.
As her car departed, my son 
came in for our usual time
of juice, maybe cake, and told me
I no wanted to see her.
We hugged. Don't worry. We won't.
Soon after, the Therapist married 
and moved to a faraway post.
I gave her a pretty coffee pot.
Considered very hot scones.

Beth McDonough’s poetry appears in many places; she reviews in DURA. Her pamphlet Lamping for pickled fish was published by 4Word. Recently, her site-specific poem was installed on the Corbenic Poetry Path. Currently Makar of the FWS, she’s found year-round in the Firth of Tay.

 

Infinite reveries, by Pawel Markiewicz


By Robert Garnham 
Infinite reveries

The loveliest dawn dwelleth in the bosom.
A mild magic word rests far below.
A balmy spark flying in the soul.
Homeland would be charmed!
I love slight journey towards stars.
I will wing conjuringly moonwards,
where the most reflective poem is made.
I long for dreaming angel,
who donates oneself – for your wings.
Most fervent fancy be unfolded!
Attractive muse, that attends me.

Paweł Markiewicz was born 1983 in Siemiatycze in Poland. He is poet who lives in Bielsk Podlaski and writes tender poems, haiku as well as long poem.

 

The Queen’s Secret Siberian Sisters, by Bryan Franco


By Robert Garnham

Bryan Franco is from Brunswick, Maine, USA. He is published in the US, Australia, England, Ireland, and Scotland, has featured for poetry events in the US, Canada, England, Ireland, and Scotland; hosts Café Generalissimo Open Mic; his book Everything I Think Is All In My Mindwas published in 2021.

 

They Will All Take Us With Them in the End, (After Tom Lehrer), by Neil Fulwood


By Robert Garnham 
THEY WILL ALL TAKE US WITH THEM IN THE END
(after Tom Lehrer)

When you click into your news app
it’s not comforting that what’s hap-
penning out there is global brinkmanship.
Europe’s status quo’s been ballsed up
by a goon who wants to call up
every missile that he’s got and let them rip.

But don’t you worry.

No more Tory lockdown scandals,
no more guff about Prince Andrew,
or price hikes, NHS, or student debt;
if BoJo, Biden and Vlad P
push this shit past DefCon 3,
you won’t care about bent coppers in the Met.

‘Cause they will all take us with them in the end,
when diplomacy’s been fucked off round the bend
and a jab of that red button
vends total world destruction -
you’d be “M.A.D.” not to know how this one ends.

They will all take us with them in the end,
loudly claiming they had something to defend.
Was it a patch of foreign soil
or the current price of oil?
Did the Footsie close ahead right at the end?

Oh they will all take us with them to the grave,
telling lies about the lives they tried to save.
There’ll be no more cant and spin
with the planet all done in
and no world leaders left to rant and rave.

Down by the old maelstrom,
Liz Truss is wondering what went wrong.

And they will all drag us down with them in flames,
with no scapegoat left behind to take the blame.
We’ll finally be united
when that fireball’s ignited,
nearly eight billion unrecorded names.

They will all drag us down to dust and ash, 
the victims of an act both cruel and rash,
dead as some assassin’s mark
care of a pissed off oligarch
deprived of his wads of laundered cash.

Of course they’ll take us with them in the end,
they’d do the same if they had their time again, 
so hum a Missa Solemnis
just before that Yellow Sun hits
and the farewell bash concludes at Number Ten.

You will all go directly to your version of heaven.
There will be no hero to save the day, no 007.

For they will all take us with them in the end,
every man, woman, child, foe and friend.
When history overtakes us
and we all turn slightly vaporous,
yes they all will take us with them,
oh they all will take us with them,
yes they all will take us with them in the end.


Neil Fulwood was born in Nottingham, England, where he still lives and works. He has three collections out with Shoestring Press: No Avoiding It, Can’t Take Me Anywhere and Service Cancelled. A collection of political satires, Mad Parade, is due for publication with Smokestack Books in July 2022.

 

Dressing up in Lockdown, by Shanta Acharya


By Robert Garnham

DRESSING UP IN LOCKDOWN

A pristine summer’s day, sparkling like champagne,
perfect for giving my garments an airing.
At home in a bubble of my own, lounging
in pyjama and dressing gown, numbering
my days’ illusions, comfort reigns over style.
My wardrobe reprimands me, cries in chorus
– saris complaining the loudest of not being
touched, embraced, admired – their silks, chiffons,
satins, crepes, georgettes, chanderis mothballed
in tissue, chide me for starving myself
in the midst of plenty. Unable to ignore their
pleas, I wear a sari with matching jewellery,
spray myself with Immortal and Eternity,
with a glass of bubbly watch Downton Abbey.

In the words of Mimi Khalvati, Shanta Acharya’s ‘poetry shows a rare combination of lyricism, intelligence, sagacity and a wicked sense of humour.’ The author of twelve books, her most recent collections are What Survives Is The Singing (Indigo Dreams, 2020) and Imagine: New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins, 2017). www.shanta- acharya.com

 

Schoolyard Memory, by Maurice Devitt


By Robert Garnham

Schoolyard Memory

When I refused to share my Latin homework,
you challenged me to a fight
outside the tuckshop, first thing after school.
With little choice, I accepted,
my strategy hopelessly unclear. You had form
and news of the mismatch sparked from class to class.

The lane was choked with the cough
of cigarette smoke and the acrid smell of BO
funnelling from the knots of baying boys
heralding my entrance. You strutted around
the makeshift ring, joking and laughing
with your cabal. I was tempted to admit defeat,

but conscious that attack is often
the best form of defence, I walked towards you,
shucking school bag and gaberdine,
baited you with words of bluff bravado,
silencing the crowd and tempting you
to hit me for the first time. I flinched

but didn’t react, tried to distract you
with the recitation of random tracts of Latin
unseen and the declension of obscure French verbs.
You continued your attack, my rubbery mouth
spitting out the syllables of broken words,
until I could take no more, legs buckling under me.

Curled on the ground, I sensed the mood
of the crowd shift to hushed concern,
and unfolding myself like a deckchair into standing,
rushed to concede. You win, I mumbled,
sweeping up my school bag and disappearing
into the maw of the crowd, tears starting to fall.

Perhaps chastened by the incipient shock
that rippled through the school, you never asked
for my homework again and, when we left school,
our paths diverged, until today – I saw you in town
stepping out of a brand-new Tesla,
pristine paintwork too tempting to ignore.

Maurice Devitt

A past winner of the Trocaire/Poetry Ireland and Poems for Patience competitions, he published his debut collection, ‘Growing Up in Colour’, with Doire Press in 2018.

Curator of the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site, his Pushcart-nominated poem, ‘The Lion Tamer Dreams of Office Work’, was the title poem of an anthology published by Hibernian Writers in 2015.

 

I Have Something to Say About Crochet, by Carla Scarano D’Antonio


By Robert Garnham

I have something to say about crochet

I was trained by my mother
when I was only 5 or 6
and could make granny squares and doilies
with tiny hooks and bright cotton.

She taught me how to chain first,
I made long ones coiling around my feet.
Then double crochet, treble, half treble, double treble.
They developed in patterns,
in things to use and wear.
Can you believe there are people who don’t value such a work?

The long solitary confinement of lockdown
required emergency.
I intensified my crochet work,
survival was suffused with the rituals of choosing the thread,
matching the colours, developing patterns
and creating something I felt.

How to break the sadness of isolation?
How to heal the unhappiness of lost social cohesion?
The thrill of creation, the minutiae of the stitches
were extra revelations.
I shivered with recovery.

Carla Scarano D’Antonio obtained her MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster University and has published her creative work in magazines and reviews. Her short collection Negotiating Caponata was published in July 2020. She was awarded a PhD on Margaret Atwood’s work at the University of Reading in April 2021.
http://www.carlascaranod.co.uk/

 

Go on, make mine that boil-in-the-bag by the stove, by Beth McDonough


By Robert Garnham

Go on, make mine that boil-in-the-bag by the stove.

God forbid, you’d think I’d want to eat it, mind!
Not that darling little clear plastic sachet,
excitingly bright with uncrystallised liquid,
which reveals a magic snap coin inside.

Oh, let me plop you in my pocket, wee friend,
as I swimsuit up, heap on so many layers.
All but forgotten as I pedal to the beach, strip,
and throughout my wintery swim, but then
I rigid-finger find you in my after-gear,
crack you into dynamic action. Fast warmth,
stuffed in my mitts, curled round my handlebars, go!
I’m always touched by your presence, dear.

 

Something Fishy . . . By Carole Donaldson


By Robert Garnham

This is what culminated from a brief encounter at Sainsbury’s. It took five minutes to make up a rhyme about the extremely brief dalliance, but I think I had a close shave and dodged a bullet, yet unfortunately if the guy hadn’t been in such a hurry to ‘get his leg over’ we could have made fine music together, but I’m pleased that I usually always go with my gut feeling about things, and this guy was far too forward for comfort. Shame, really, he wasn’t bad looking but he let his mouth run away with him.

SOMETHING FISHY …

I met a man, while out shopping, at the salmon counter,
he came over quite suave and quite slick,
a few weeks on from that chance encounter,
he turned out to be naught but a fanciful dick

He kissed me and hugged me the minute we met
So charming – he addressed me “Dear Madam”
But how familiar is it right for a stranger to get
When I didn’t even know him from Adam

We exchanged our phone numbers and as days went by
I waited to hear from this Casanova
But I’d text and then wait but get no reply
So before it begun, it was practically over

He finally rang and arranged that we meet
His excuse for no contact? He preferred not to text
We went for a coffee on a posh market street
Where he wasted no time saying how much he loved sex

Well, I was appalled and quite taken aback
It was far too soon to be talking that way
But he took me to lunch, at Kings Road Seafood Shack
And when the huge bill came, he was happy to pay

(80 quid’s-worth of food was devoured that day)

Though we chatted at lunch and duly both laughed
With the same sense of humour we shared
I got a bad vibe and I thought myself daft
I could’ve been an old boot and I don’t think he’d’ve cared.

He mentioned the sex thing again I had noted
He clearly had his own agenda
He was quite up front, not a thing sugar-coated
And showed himself up to be a pretender

This encounter has taught me to be somewhat wary
This chap had manners like a pen full of swine
His ulterior motives can seem somewhat scary
But in truth that’s his problem, and certainly not mine

It’s been over a week now and he’s disappeared
At his hinted intentions, I told him where to go
Asking if I was adventurous – far too forward I feared
And on that score the arse’ole will now never know

 

Cop O The North, by Cáit O’Neill McCullagh


By Robert Garnham

Cop O The North

After Nicanor Parra’s ‘The Poems of the Pope’

Insta this! I’ve been crowned!
I’m the COP o the north
King of the Anthropocene
every ‘ancestor’s wildest dream’

Oh, I’ve suffered decades of your resolutions
deny me no more, Anthro’s here darlings!
and petro-chemical green’s my scene
my cloak is all COP-washed glory

the forests burn, the earth expires
the sea’s an acid-gasp! It’s oil thanks to me!
I’ve anointed this planet in fire and flood
and folks while I rule it, you’ll consume it

We’ve peaked post-truth, BTW
my people write the scripts now
this one’s called ‘Beyond Petroleum
from filthy lucre to carbon-blue’

flush with the glow of burning ozone
I’m the green god now
I grace every couch on your blessed telly
but never admit, it’s fossil fuel that keeps me lit!

I can get you what you want today, no probs.
But tomorrow, things go nuclear
and I know where the button is
and I know the folk who want to press it.

Ever since our story started
when you pushed that first hungry plough
and took your axe to the lungs of the forest
Gaia has groaned to birth me.

So, bless her do your mother earth
perhaps one less flight will heal her extinction
but remember, while the crude keeps bubbling
it’ll be me who’ll be your final benediction

Cáit O’Neill McCullagh is a straying ethnologist writing at home in the Highlands of Scotland. She started to write poetry in December 2020, and since then her poems have appeared in Northwords Now, Spilling Cocoa over Martin Amis, Drawn to the Light, and The Banyan Review. Cáit tweets at @kittyjmac .