Category: Slightly rhyming

Normal Dad by Jude Cowan Montague


By admin

for James Worse and Marlowe

Normal dad’s are nice dads,
normal dads are good,
normal dads do not have beards
and no one thinks they should.

Normal dads do not stare out
to see if there are ships.
Normal dads do not write pomes
or mess with English Lit.

Normal dads are not like you.
Normal dads aren’t cool.
Normal dads are more like them –
be normal! Toe the rule!

Jude Cowan Montague used to work as an archivist for Reuters and has written poetry about the news agency reports. She created and host a weekly radio show on Resonance FM called ‘The News Agents’. She has been an artist and a songwriter as well as a poet, since forever and you can drop in on her at her gallery in St Leonards-on-Sea which is called Montague Armstrong.

 

Doctor Smith by Tom McColl


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The surgery I go to
has a two-headed doctor.
‘Doctor Smith will see you, see you, now.’

It gets very confusing.
Doctor Smith, via his left head,
gives me a diagnosis
then, via his right head,
gives me a second opinion,
which always differs from the first
(and, as it happens,
that opinion’s
never the best one –
always the worst).

When Doctor Smith examines me with a stethoscope,
it’s in the left head’s left ear
and the right head’s right ear.
In other words, he makes a right pig’s ear
(and also a left pig’s ear)
of any examination he does.
However, when I once challenged him about it,
Doctor Smith’s left head
just said,
‘Can you breathe in a bit more deeply, please?’
while his right head shook morosely.

Apparently, his wife has got two heads as well,
and two pairs of breasts.
It’s said they met as impoverished but physically normal students,
earning money by undergoing laboratory tests.

Two heads are better than one, they say,
but I’m not too sure that comes into play
while attending an appointment with
the always-in-two-minds Doctor Smith.

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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The Poet Won’t Buy You A Drink by Joe Williams


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The poet won’t buy you a drink
Don’t request it
Don’t suggest it
Because the poet won’t buy you a drink

It’s not that he wants to refuse
If he could do
He would love to
But the poet won’t buy you a drink

It’s not personal, please understand
Don’t feel rejected
Or neglected
If the poet doesn’t buy you a drink

The problem is purely financial
There’s no way
On his pay
That the poet could buy you a drink

So next time you go to a gig
Do your part
Support art
And buy the poor poet a drink

Joe Williams is a writer from Leeds and the creator of Haiku Hole.  In 2015 Joe began performing on the poetry and open mic circuit to inflict his work on a wider audience.  Some of them claimed to enjoy it, so you can blame them for encouraging him to continue.

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Murder on the Gatwick Express by Susan Evans


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Long ago, before people had mobile phones &
felt compelled to share their destinations &
other dull information; for the whole duration
of their train journey (VERY LOUDLY). Before it
all got very rowdy: a time before people publicly
raged; projecting bile like they’re on Jeremy Kyle
& or having it away with way too many PDA.
Before the tinny torture of ineffective, personal
headphones ‒ yes, TINNY TORTURE!!! Before
passengers allowed their bags entitlement to
limited seats instead of floor, lap or luggage rack.
Before smelly food crept in: greasy brown bags of
Burger King & before when most people used a
bin & before it was deemed somehow permissible
for complete strangers, unbeknownst to you to take
your picture & or record personal conversations &
post online to the nation., (for fun!) Before arrogant
men; too blind to see that equality does not mean
sitting comfortably, while immobile, aged or heavily
pregnant women are struggling to maintain balance
& dignity! Before some train conductors turned into
Talk Radio DJs; gabbing on about nothing through PAs
(with little helpful info on length & cause of delays).
Before any suggestions of separate carriages in order
to protect women from any unwanted attention…
Must mention, that let the train take the strain was
once upon a time, a fitting strap line − a seductive
mode of travel, where you could unravel, driven by
rhythm; from Brighton to London ‒ poems poured
out of me; punctuated by pleasantries; my senses
not assaulted by anything too unsavoury. Long ago,
people mostly engaged in quiet conversation or read
newspapers or books or looked out at the landscape;
the journey a piece of a cake – arrived at Victoria with
this sense of euphoria; a notebook full of drafts to
return to on return & maybe later in the bath…
this was long ago, before the standard ride became a
privatised, over-priced, oversubscribed, endurance test;
before it became: Murder on the Gatwick Express…

Susan Evans is widely published; online & in print; appearing in: Dissident Voice, The High Window, Ink, Sweat & Tears, The Journal, Lighten Up Online, Message in a Bottle, Obsessed With Pipework, and Snakeskin, among others. A Brighton-based Performance poet, Susan was nominated Best Spoken Word Performer in the Saboteur Awards, 2016.

 

Absent Greeks by Sue Kindon


By admin

Sisyphus has left the scene
his rock came crashing down our track
there’s the wound
gouged in soft ground

the boulder bounced
then rolled to rest
balanced above the lily pond

he can’t be arsed to push it back
he’s had enough of uphill shove
he’s given up the slaving task
and joined Narcissus down the pub.

Sue Kindon‘s poems have appeared in a variety of magazines, and have achieved some success in competitions. She lives and writes in the French Pyrenees, where she also co-runs Valier Illustrated Books.

 

Freud by Fianna


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Plasticine vapours lift
from the brown playroom table
filling lungs and nostrils
with gluey desire

warm tyre
liquorish
all sorts of squeezy oozy
mud-through-toe skin-loves
rise through primeval body layers

now pulled and melded colours
drag eyelid to nose-edge
cheeks to dewlap
pistachio, fudge and vanilla ice-cream
deliquesce and gloop

I knock on Lucian’s door
I give him a great big hug
I give him a great big fright
I feel like a warm wet slug

Lucian turns to white.

Fianna (Fiona Russell Dodwell) is from Fife and lives in the Fens. She has had about 30 poems published in online poetry magazines.

 

What the Hell is a Peke? by Josa Young


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Pekes are pugs
In wigs
But not pigs
A pig in a wig
Is Miss Piggy

Josa Young is a novelist and copywriter. Her two novels One Apple Tasted and Sail Upon the Land are out there somewhere being read. She was a decent poet up until puberty, and has taken to verse again as all the creative frenzy of childbearing has faded.

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A Funny Thing Happened At The BBQ Party by Stella Wulf


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Libidos washed up like sagging lilos
on a rasp dry beach,
we bobbed about in cozy cliques,
chattering of the doings of offspring,
plumbing, leaks.
Chewed the fat of the latest diet fad.

The men snapped tongs,
slapped meat on the BBQ,
talked of bleeding rads,
brake pads,
and we all admired the view
of the perfectly ridged new roof,

and the new roofer emerging,
unabridged from the shower,
all terra cotta brown and limber,
his lithesome man-boy chest,
aquiver,
as he did his best to hide his timber.

The tide rushed up that deserted beach,
in a surging tsunami of passion,
breaching the maternal shore,
shingling everything in its passage,
and I gushed in immature ejaculation,
‘Anyone for sausage?’

Stella Wulf lives in France and is currently studying towards an MA in Creative Writing. Her work has been widely published and has appeared in several anthologies including The Very Best of 52, three drops from a cauldron, and the Clear Poetry Anthology. 

 

Wishing You Were There by Sarah L Dixon


By admin

We know where all the bins are
and the window keys
and how to operate the washing machine.

We know the quirks of the toilet,
the floorboard that creaks,
the pipes and tubes that are liable to leak.

We know where the dust gathers,
the knack to broken gates,
that the clock in the kitchen runs five minutes late.

We know our local A+E,
the nearest doctor,
that strange night-noise is the Police helicopter.

We know hours of pubs and shops,
takeouts we can trust
and which cupboard holds spray to treat the rust.

We know what the TIVO holds for us,
our spots on the settee,
my bed is memory-foamed the shape of me.

We know grubby cook-books well,
our stash of herbs and spices,
and where we store treats to feed our sugar vices.

Sarah L Dixon tours as The Quiet Compere.  She has been published in Ink, Sweat and Tears and The Interpreter’s House among others. Sarah’s inspiration comes from being by water and adventures with her five-year old, Frank.  She is still attempting to write better poetry than Frank did aged 4!

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