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.

Me and Joanna Lumley, by Jennifer A. McGowan


By Robert Garnham
 
Me and Joanna Lumley
 
I caught Joanna Lumley reaching
through the open window of a bakery for bagels
crisp and hot and frankly
 
much tastier than any dreams
that had consumed us
in our adult lives (as I said to Joanna)
 
and she agreed, then added, “Except for the Gurkhas.
I’m proud of that,” and I agreed,
then at the corner we went our separate ways
 
to stare at the sky, to dream of mountains,
of hot butter running everywhere, equally.

Jennifer spends as much time as she can in the 15th century, but comes back for hot showers and bagels.

The Happiest Days, by Finola Scott


By Robert Garnham
 

The happiest days

Do you remember gym, Amanda?
Do you remember a gym?
And the toilets that smell of piss and booze
and the games we play so scared to loose?
And the fleas that tease everyone's knees
and the cheers and jeers of the lower years?
And the years and years of our growing fears
The casual division of girls here boys there
The binary allocation without any care

And the years and years of our quiet tears
at the thump on the floor for more and more?
And the linking hands and the birl and swirl
of the girls dreaming and wild romancing
on those mats rolled back for social dancing
Do you remember the cotton and crimplene
and the boys' hot glances in between?
The wanting and waiting to be chosen
and those hard shoulders so very frozen

Do you remember a gym Amanda?
Never again Amanda
only the handbags laid on the floor
and the drum beat and bass line's solid roar
as we strut and show we know the score 
Those string vests sweaty hands no more
Only the bright laughter of fierce women
who stamp and chant that it's raining men
Only the boom as we own the room

Finola Scott’s poems are scattered on the wind as well as on posters, tapestries and magazines. Her work is in The High Window, New Writing Scotland, I,S&T and Lighthouse. Red Squirrel Press publish her pamphlet Much left unsaid. Dreich publish Count the ways

Combat Cheese, by Sally McHugh


By Robert Garnham
 
Combat Cheese

 
On the shores of Lough Ree
(although not known for its Fromageries),
solidified cheese surfed through the airwaves-
a lightning strike to the head of Queen Maeve.
As she stretched and bathed in full display,
she was crushed by the cunning of curds and whey;
aged-fresh Maeve, wrinkled white to grey rind,
was struck via sling (it’s prehistoric times).
Was the chalky meteorite of creamy Camembert
or of an ancient Brie - with a buttery flair?
Perhaps it was a local fromage blanc
or a full-bodied shaving of Parmesan?
How about a goatmilk flat white from Port du Salut
or a Provolone vegan with a vodka hue
or a chewy Caerphilly à la castle cellar store
or a blue ram’s rocket filled with Roquefort?
Whatever churned concoctions prevailed
and imbued this calcium-infused cocktail,
Maeve’s aged, matured, rapturous reign
crumbled - by combat cheese to the brain.

Sally McHugh lives in Co. Galway. Her poetry has appeared in ROPES2018, The Blue Nib Literary Magazine (2019), Pendemic (2020) and Spilling Cocoa Over Martin Amis (2021). She also likes to dabble in art and calligraphy. Twitter:@fordofthekings

Carrot, by Jenny Robb


By Robert Garnham
 

Jenny Robb is published in online and print magazines, and anthologies. Magazine publications include: Ink, Sweat and Tears; Dream Catcher; Prole; Orbis and The Lighthouse Journal. Anthologies include: Black Lives Matter; Bloody Amazing; An Insubstantial Universe and Despite Knowing. Her debut collection, The Doll’s Hospital, (Yaffle Press), is out soon.

Monitoring my body, by Carla Scarano D’Antonio


By Robert Garnham
 
Monitoring my body
 
I don’t know when it happened,
the slowing down of the limbs
the desiccation of skin
the pains breaking in me.
I borrowed the body of a spider,
the waist plump
the back arched
and legs and arms thinning.
My hair changed too
from straight and black
to crispy and grey
like my Sicilian grandfather.
Impossible to revert.
 
Inside I feel the same as before
slimmer and in shape.
In my dreams I fit in size 10-12
the mirror reflects 14-16.
Nothing is safe.
 
This fragmentation is my doing
invoking change.
The days spiral down
like yarn unravelling in the wind
spinning a shapeless web.
 
Thank you for my life flowing.
Thank you for the years that will come.

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/

Wrinkles.UK, by Rachael Clyne


By Robert Garnham
 

Rachael Clyne – from Glastonbury, is widely published in journals and anthologies. Her prizewinning collection, Singing at the Bone Tree (Indigo Dreams), explores our broken relationship with nature. Her pamphlet, Girl Golem (www.4word.org), concerns her Jewish migrant heritage and sense of otherness. @RachaelClyne1

Elon’s Folly, by Sue Spiers


By Robert Garnham
 
Elon’s Folly

 
It’s tall as four whales or Victorian folly.
A knob at the top like the bud of a lily.
The rocket, some tell us, resembles a willy.
We snigger and wink at the billionaire wally.
 
It’s thrust into space with no weight in its belly,
the glamorous passengers wobble like jelly,
all posed for their show on terrestrial telly.
 
He’s looking for Martians, like Mulder and Scully,
to work in his factories and make him more lolly.
He’s touting the rides to rich guys on a jolly,
returns on investment, exploiting space fully.
 
His moon shots drop junk in its silvery valleys
and boosters’ debris falls dark-side without tally
His ship spills its drool in a rocket-fuel chalice.

Sue Spiers lives in Hampshire. Her poems have appeared on Spilling Cocoa, Ink, Sweat & Tears and Atrium and in print with Acumen, Dream Catcher, The North and Obsessed with Pipework. Sue tweets @spiropoetry. Don’t follow me, I’m lost too.

Circular, by Sharon Phillips


By Robert Garnham
 
Circular

when the exit road was blocked
and a sign said men at work
although no men were working
and I couldn’t find the diversion
and the ring road kept on turning

when my satnav turned itself off
and the map from the passenger seat
was flapping in the footwell
and my armpits pricked with sweat
and the ring road kept on turning

when I’d forgotten the address
and I couldn’t find my phone
which had vanished from my bag
and I wanted to go home
but the ring road still kept turning

Sharon stopped writing poetry in 1976 and started again forty years later, after retiring from her career in education. Her poems have been published online and in print. Originally from Bristol, Sharon now lives in Otley, West Yorkshire.

Yes, the post-op went swimmingly, by Beth McDonough


By Robert Garnham
 
Yes, the post-op went swimmingly

May I say... an excellent job! 
Elegant at the bedside, she re-examined,
re-admired her neatly-stapled line,
on yet to purple flesh. 
Damned good work!
You'll be in a bikini soon!

Residual anaesthesia and brocht-upness
kept back my awful truth. I'm more
a regulation one-piece sort of gal.
I gagged my thought-reply.
Doctor, had you carved some Celtic knot
across my abdomen, I'd be chuffed.
At last the fucking cyst is gone.

Beth McDonough’s poetry appears in Magma, Causeway, Gutter and elsewhere; she reviews in DURA.Her pamphlet Lamping for pickled fish is published by 4Word.