Category: poetry

Help, by Yash Seyedbagheri


By Robert Garnham 
Help

a word shoved into a garbage can
you know? beneath Swedish meatballs and empty Pepsis
help is a man beneath the sun-colored walls of some coffee shop
carrying cardboard shame and coughing toxicity
help is
 
a flaccid man in Bermuda shorts
murmuring sudden defeat, you know the type
waddling down a street with divorce papers, smile an upside-down parabola
you’ve only explored five hundred options
but help is a triviality. you know
 
every problem has its own solution
so help yourself
brush away words stalking like crazed Lifetime psychos
delinquent, overdue, risk, management,
they’re just little crumbs
 
nothing that can’t be swept away
and waterboarded in Merlot
doused with a few episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm
for comparison. after all Larry David got a fatwa from the ayatollah right?
and if they rise to the surface----visualize positivity


a week out
a month
a year into the expanse of time
just never ask for help
call it assistance, don’t call it help
it’s feedback.
 
yes, you’re sinking into negativity, you’ve bounced too many times
liver rotting like Rasputin, eyes rife with rings
get feedback, evaluate the options
eat more TV dinners, don't eat onions, visualize, self-actualize, cut streaming services while
 
asking for encouragement, support, assistance
after all you’ve sunk a little lower
the numbers like icebergs, your sheets stale, space rife with dust
but it’s just support, fine it’s assistance
but it’s not help

Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. His work has been published in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.

 

The I.T. Guy, by Sarah James


By Robert Garnham 
The I.T. Guy

Wired, he talks high speed
in a language beyond us,
our faces blank screens.

He e-valuates our systems 
with zip and drive,
recommends new leads.

He keeps our firm’s site
secure; but can’t help close
frozen windows.
 
His fast processing
mega memory leaves us lost
for Word’s.
 
His virus checks clear,
we return to work
with our hacking coughs.

And yes, when we call
to request more back-up,
sometimes he bytes.

Sarah James is a poet, fiction writer, journalist and photographer. Her latest collection, Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic (Verve Poetry Press), is partially inspired by having type one diabetes since she was six. Good laughter is a medicine she’s not always found easy to come by. Her website is at www.sarah-james.co.uk.

 

Inside my Head, by Susan Lindsay


By Robert Garnham

Inside My Head                                                                           

After Grayson Perry, Channel 4 

 

Under the skull

shaped to be my own,

smooth curves I’d love

to run my hands along

when gone –

I do love bone –

 

wild circuitry.

All my fingers tip

flashing right in;

impulses deployed 

for digital dance

 

the beat of my feet,

heat and my heart’s 

thump, thump

never missing a beat

flowing red, taking

oxygen from the rise

and fall of my chest

cleared blood, 

                           dear kidneys

thank-you, back for more

once it’s done servicing

the sorting house, my brain

 

and, still not mentioned –

fuel, taste, the process of waste.

 

I can see

not only through skin

that tree –

100 billion neurons

dendritic spines, soma –

deluged with light

ALL around perceived

to sort, prioritise

register, file

for recall 

reaction

through changing

expressions, 

                       voice,

speech central 

sound: sound-box – check Ö

language, words – check Ö

tone- check Ö

mouth shape – check Ö

sufficient breath – check Ö

speak….  AND listen,

more again,

simultaneous

      transmission

in system central

 

who knows who,

what, is behind it

maybe the great

sky mother –

 

and monsters

God and the gods,

utopias, dystopias

vibrating paint box

clay, the earth

the moon and, yes,

the stars

 

my own rocket

control centre

blasts off 

in less than nanoseconds

24/7

 

grey matter matters

the gut’s great

processor                              

under the skin,

who needs cylinders

I’ve got brain

the world

 

inside my head.

 

 

Biography. 

Susan Lindsay … a most compelling and unique voice in Irish poetry, Eamonn Wall, at her February 2022 Reading, University Missouri-St. Louis. Milling the Air (2018) is Susan’s third collection from Doire Press. Her work is published in journals, she has read at festivals and facilitates Conversations mediated by poetry. Blog: http://susanlindsayauthor.blogspot.com

 

So Surrey, by Trisha Broomfield


By Robert Garnham 
So Surrey

I’m tired of being Surrey
with vowels of pure cut glass
surface good intentions
and Pilates perfect arse
 
I’m tired of being Surrey
with legs like licorice sticks
tipped into boots, DuBarry
where obese is still size six
 
I’m tired of being Surrey
with hair five shades of fair
driving blind to others
volunteering just to care
 
I’m tired of being Surrey
sunglasses half my face
Botox, fillers, collagen
and running out of space
 
but being here in Surrey
it’s full of all things green
Pesto sauce and olives
and kale to keep me lean
 
I think I’ll stay in Surrey
though not so near a beach
I’ll take up Bikram yoga
and do my roots, so pass the bleach.
 

It Always Starts with Jumpers for Penguins, by Jennifer A. McGowan


By Robert Garnham 
It Always Starts with Jumpers for Penguins
 
Stitch small.  You’re covering
apology, not sin. Light fabric’s best,
to match their bones.
 
Flash colours. British birds
are little brown jobbies. They yearn
to steal the jazz of peacocks, lay down
a riff of hypersonic tremolos. Cardinals
want dominos, to pass unnoticed.
                                                           
Mind the seams are on the outside.
You don’t want to ruffle feathers.

 

Confessions of a Teenage Cigarette Smoker, by Sheila Jacob


By Robert Garnham

Confessions Of A Teenage Cigarette Smoker

Woodbines were my first: the cheapest, the commonest. Whose Dad hadn’t angled one in his mouth, picked flecks of tobacco off his tongue as he stooped on the front path, mended the puncture on his pushbike? Angela, my classmate, nicked some from her brother, invited me to her house in the school holidays. My throat raged. I dripped ash, burned a hole in my favourite dress. Never again, I vowed. Mum and Dad hadn’t suspected, knew I always rode home on the top deck of the bus where passengers flipped open packets of Players, Senior Service, Park Drive, swathed everyone in smoke. Four years later, in the Kardomah, New Street, I took drags of Silk Cut between sips of percolated coffee, shared steamy Sixth Form chat about D.H.Lawrence and The Rainbow. I made new friends at college. We pooled our Embassy Regal coupons, saved up for a hair dryer. I sampled Disque Bleu with my French pal Cathie, pretended I enjoyed the acrid taste, the dizzying after-kick. If I closed my eyes, I drifted on a pungent haze to Paris, the Metro, the pages of a Francoise Sagan novel. In my final year, I met a boy who loved me, bought me Lindt chocolate bars and shots of vodka and lime. My heart thumped when he placed two Dunhills between his lips, lit both cigarettes and handed one to me.

Sheila Jacob lives in N. E. Wales with her husband. Born and raised in Birmingham. she finds her Brummie ancestry a source of inspiration. She’s had poems published in many U.K magazines and webzines, is working on her first pamphlet and hoping life begins at seventy-one.

 

They hire a Badminton Champ to Comment on Wimbledon, by Sarah Lawson


By Robert Garnham 
THEY HIRE A BADMINTON CHAMP TO COMMENT ON WIMBLEDON
 
First I must explain some crucial things:
Yes, there are racquets strung with strings,
But what you are about to see
Would shock you without some notes from me.
The racquets are clunky in the extreme—
They must handle like a wooden beam.
The shuttlecock becomes a ball, completely round,
And the heavy nets reach to the ground!
This ball can bounce before you hit it
Or not, if you’re fast enough to get it.
The game goes on for hours outside in the sun
And you will probably fall asleep before it’s done.
If you think the game sounds arcane and boring,
Just wait until you hear about the scoring!

Sarah Lawson, Anglo-American, lives in London and has always delighted in stringing words together. Educated at Indiana University and the University of Glasgow, among a few other places. Besides poetry, she has written a play, a novel, and two memoirs plus some translations, mostly from French.

 

Ballet Dancer, by Lesley Quayle


By Robert Garnham 
Ballet Dancer
 
More like a farmer’s wife
than a ballet dancer.
 
I know a farmer’s wife,
delicate as a fawn,
voice soft as moss,
face a sun-tipped flower.
 
I know a ballet dancer
who could squeeze the life
from the strongest man
using only her thighs.
 
Lesley Quayle is a prize-winning poet, an editor, folk/blues singer and co-founder of 4Word Poetry Press. (https://www.4word.org/about/) Her next collection, Invisible Woman, is due out later this year from Yaffle. She is also a retired sheep farmer.
 

An Archaeology Student Thinks about Sex in Maes Howe Chambered Tomb, by Tonnie Richmond


By Robert Garnham 
An Archaeology Student Thinks about Sex in Maes Howe Chambered Tomb

She’s aware that Gavin’s staring at her bum 
as she bends double, clambers along
the long dark passageway into the tomb. 
The others follow, cluster round, eager to learn.

Her lecturer begins his talk; all about midwinter 
when this tomb aligns with the setting sun.
He offers theories - 
about it being a humongous womb,
the sun-god penetrating the long stone vagina,
rays striking the back wall, impregnating Mother Earth,
ensuring fertility and good harvests in the year to come.

As theories go, it’s pretty good. 
Gavin’s standing close, she feels his body heat
in this claustrophobic chamber.
All this talk of penetration, sexual congress overwhelms;
her nipples tingle. She moves, imperceptibly,
leans in towards him. Feels his breath upon her neck.

————————-

Tonnie Richmond has, since she retired from working in Local Government, spent her time either doing archeology in Orkney  or writing poems. As the digging gets harder, she finds writing a slightly easier choice. She has had several poems published and is currently working on a collection of poems about Orkney.
 

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.