Rosemary McLeish is an outsider artist and poet. She is 72 years old and has been writing poetry for about 25 years. Ideas used to come at inconvenient moments while travelling by bicycle or car, but lately her writing takes over anywhere and everywhere.
Cottage where you can raise the roof
lop off chunks, spread doorsteps
with dollops of butter
and home made strawberry jam
yet sip tea in bone china
with an apostle spoon on the side.
Best slit the baton along its length
and stuff it – avec du jambon,
du fromage, de la salade –
et du plonk, bien sûr,
quaffed with gesticulation,
shrugs, lower lip extension,
and a petit soupçon of disdain
at not having made
the rank of baguette.
Bof.
Or pick up a bloomer,
the brash Brit baglady
of Carry On Kneading,
the baker’s chortle
at a hint of knickers.
Ace with kippers.
(Previously published at Your One Phone Call)
Sharon Larkin‘s poems have been published online (Clear Poetry, The Stare’s Nest), in magazines (Prole, Obsessed with Pipework) and in anthologies (Cinnamon Press, Indigo Dreams}. She has been chair of Cheltenham Poetry Society (2011 – 2015) and has an MA in Creative Writing.
Now they have
Quick Snack Spots
on the lake
in the neat Home Counties park
Bread-free areas for waterfowl –
grain only on the menu
[which can be purchased
in handy bags nearby]
A kind of Duck Macdonalds.
Mothers with buggies and toddlers
Pass them by
much preferring to distribute
half loaves of Asda wholegrain
or thick sliced white – its great for toasting –
as if dispensing nourishment to the needy.
The ducks, likewise, were voting
with their webbed feet
preferring to pig out on couch potato fodder
rather than another slimmers fad.
So it was empty when I passed,
this eco-friendly duck-food parlour.
Just a lone coot,
balancing on the notice,
holding a placard reading:
Don’t let them exploit us.
Peter Yates is a playwright who has his own Theatre Company Random Cactus. He works with various charities and is a Theatre Critic at London Theatre 1.
Tiger bread, Tiger bread burning bright
On a suntan bed of the oven’s red light,
The dough rises in a big round tangerine eye
And next to him, in a tin, is a bagel sweltering
In the yeast of his youth. A baguette
Lords it over them with his physique,
All bread and bones with an appetite
For the romance of the oven’s welding rings.
Grant Tarbard is internationally published. His collection As I Was Pulled Under the Earth, published by Lapwing Publications, is available now.
