Tag: gender politics

Boxes, by Rodney Wood


By Robert Garnham 
BOXES

I’ve found your secret Daddy.
What have you found son?
There is a room beneath the shed. It’s full of little wooden boxes of different sizes.
You won’t tell anyone will you son. I’ve only told the butcher and undertaker.
Why only them Daddy?
The butcher has promised to cut up my body and put away what should be in boxes. While the undertaker has promised to collect everything else, bones, flesh, skin and so on and have them put in a box labelled “Miscellaneous”.
I’ve lived my life being put in boxes, working in a box, living in a box, travelling in a box, dreaming of boxes. When I die I want to be buried in lots of little wooden boxes and not just the one to show that I’m an individual.
How long have you spent making little wooden boxes Daddy?
My life son, has been spent making little wooden boxes. I’ve made boxes for my toes, my false teeth, my heart, my ears, my eyes and well, you get the idea son.
When will you be finished Daddy?
Next Tuesday. After that I don’t know what I’ll do son.
Daddy, what if you're cremated?
 

Collage Machine, by Carla Scarano D’Antonio


By Robert Garnham 
Collage Machine
 
Before the sun is the sun
Inhale exhale
Shine bright
 
Stay play say
Name hard sharp
Cake lake
 
Today is your day
Make it happen
Join the human
 
Be wild be wild
Wonder the universe
The desolate melody of the spoons
 
The skylark voices
The kaleidoscope
Of the rock and roll

Carla Scarano D’Antonio obtained her MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster University and has published her creative work in magazines and reviews. She published two poetry collections, Negotiating Caponata(2020) and Workwear (2022). She was awarded a PhD on Margaret Atwood’s work at the University of Reading in April 2021.

http://www.carlascaranod.co.uk/

 

Holiday Memory, by Pat Jourdan


By Robert Garnham 
Holiday Memory                          
 
From the coast road, springily square,
car-crammed, the family, bull-bumptious,
descends to the shore.
Aunt Maud mumbles a knuckle-Kyrie Eleison
of never-ending keeper-key prayers against rain.
Uncle Owen, bottle-party-bovate,
sets out drinks four-square
while Baby Ann, duck dummy
milkteeth-mine cry-baby,
spinach-spitting, sobs on the sand.
Cousin Willy two-times-tables the sandwiches
next to Father’s drum-duchy with his
spouse-special tobacco treasury
and orange-peel organisation.
Wearing her haberdashery-handy straw hat,
Mother, nightdress-nifty, certificate chatty,
sits Empress enigma on her silver strand,
despot-direct, drop-dwindle-feeding
the fidgety pastry-peckish children
as they bucket-bustle, sandcastle-building.
 
At Bank Holiday’s end
traipsing back to trunk-road Tuesdays,
the car’s hostage-houseful returns
to minute-book miseries and ashpan aspidistras
to wait, promising-proper, for the next
Jam-Jehovah all-allowed holiday
with a sand-scattered holdall-homecoming,
leaving the darkening beach
nightwatch-noble to the bow-legged breeze.
 
                                                 
Pat Jourdan was writing poems even while at Liverpool College of Art. She has published five collections of poetry, the latest : Citizeness. Broadcast on BBC poetry Please, Radio Eireann, Radio Norfolk, Radio Suffolk. Latest poems in Orbis, Tears in the Fence and poetrycooperative.org.
 

Sort, by Sarah J. Bryson


By Robert Garnham 
Sort 

What sort are you? 
Tea or coffee? 
Victoria Sponge, 
or a rich fruit cake? 
Dark chocolate Bounty, 
or a Milky Bar kid? 
Would you choose 
a bag of lemon drops, 
or a sherbet dip? 
Would you prefer 
a large gobstopper, 
or an Extra Strong Mint? 
Milk Tray or Green & Blacks?
Are you a suck it and see type, 
or a gobble and go individual? 
Do you think birds of a feather
flock together, or rather that
opposites attract? 
Maybe you are
a Foxes Glacier Mint?
Me? I’m a Licorice Allsort

Sarah is interested in words, words for well being, people and nature and the connections between these elements. She has poems in print journals, anthologies and on line.

 

Dearly Beloved, by John Lawrence


By Robert Garnham 
Dearly Beloved

This poem is 
gathered here

to celebrate
the matrimony
of Couplet and Tercet.

This poem is not to be entered into lightly. 
Thus, we need to confess

that Couplet hath played 
fast and loose
with a sestet, thrice,

and Tercet hath also succumbed 
to the tenderness of carnal union

with a haiku, in an act of confused 
orientation. Nonetheless,
as a measure of forgiveness

and a certain degree of apathy, 
if no-one can show just cause 
or impediment, I proclaim 
Couplet and Tercet
to be a quintain.

John has recently moved to Cambridge (voluntarily) from Worcestershire, and writes poems (involuntarily) because he feels he has to or something bad might happen. He is a popular (reportedly) performer and has published a collection The Boy Who Couldn’t Say His Name.

 

The Yarn Spinner, by George Bastow


By Robert Garnham 
He sits in the corner of your local boozer 
Wearing a smile as broad as a battlecruiser 
He's got the spiel of a champ and the luck of a loser 
But lend him an ear and he's sure to amuse ya 
He's the Yarn-Spinner, you know him 
 
He's got a mouth that moves at the speed of light 
Emitting patter sickly sweet as Angel Delight 
He's as old as the hills and as young as the night 
Halfway between an oracle and a gobshite 
He's the Yarn-Spinner, you know him 
 
He used to work for MI 5, but he keeps that on the low 
He used to be a roadie, went on tour with Status Quo 
He used to be a boxer, trained in the States with Smokin’ Joe 
Plus, he played all the instruments on Enya's Orinoco Flow 
He's the Yarn-Spinner, you know him 
 
He's a world-famous artist with a masterpiece on his easel 
He's an ex-Hollywood tough guy, former stuntman for Vin Diesel 
He’s a lapsed circus performer with his own troupe of dancing weasels 
Oh, and his wife’s a scientist who's discovered a cure for measles 
He's the Yarn-Spinner, you know him 
 
He spent decades as a TV exec, commissioning comedy and drama 
He spent his work experience at the British Museum spit-polishing suits of armour 
He spent seven years in Tibet as an organic yak meat farmer 
And he spent yesterday as a Buddhist monk, making tea for the Dalai Lama 
He's the Yarn-Spinner, you know him 
 
He’s been known to beguile crowds with his eccentric charm 
He often bewilders bar-staff with his far-fetched smarm 
For a pint or three, he'll no doubt twist your arm  
But everyone can agree he don’t mean any harm 
He's the Yarn-Spinner, we all know him

George Bastow is a poet, writer, blogger and hat connoisseur from the picturesque wilderness of North Warwickshire. 

 

He has written for numerous publications and regularly performs at spoken word events. 

 

George also facilitates workshops for Writing West Midlands’ Spark Young Writers Programme. 

 

Blog: https://gdbastow11.wordpress.com

Twitter: @GDBastow

 

The mighty, by Ruth Aylett


By Robert Garnham 
The mighty
--
He arrived in the sixth form
from a poxy private school
that thought itself posh,
and though he was local,
they’d rubbed his voice down
until our local accent came off
and he spoke like an Etonian.

He had that up-your-own-arse
confidence of the rich,
but wasn’t all that clever
when it came to school stuff,
almost like he felt above it.
And his grades weren’t much.

So the summer we left
I bumped into him in the street,
and just could not resist
telling him I was going to Uni.
I’m not bothering with that he said
(Daddy’s business I thought)
Because, he said, I’m in meat.

I didn’t know Daddy had gone bust
until I caught sight of him next:
the boy on the local butcher’s van.
In meat.

Ruth Aylett teaches and researches robotics in Edinburgh and has been known to read poems with a robot. Her pamphlets Pretty in Pink (4Word) and Queen of Infinite Space (Maytree) were published in 2021. For more see http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~ruth/writing.html

 

On Passion Spent, by Cait O’Neill McCullagh


By Robert Garnham 
ON PASSION SPENT
̶ Somewhat after William. Shakespeare &
Vita Sackville-West; would be lovers all
 
Now that night has bled back into the black earth
& I no longer covet the cloak of sleep, impossible,
my heart (that desirous old fat-spotted oven) cools,
quits bigging ‘memories’ never truly hers to own.
 
Teetin the truth of it, in quick quartz dazzled dawn,
I find love’s swim in us was as ill-fit as a finless fish.
Between our thighs trickles only the dampest regret.
Dear, it’s daft to conjure dreams from wreathy bones.
 
Awkward as a gang of hangers thrust sidewards into
a frantic-packed case, I half-exhume ‘forget-me-nows’
of screen-preened hair (exhausted with flicking), eyes
dripped-dry with feigning drookit-dewy & a fret of lips,
                                                                                        ̶ un-kissed.
                                                                           
For if we had ever our ‘selves’ met, IRL with skin on,
offscreen, I doubt we would have set about to fraying
our zips. Perhaps, my Zoomy pal, my ‘could have been’,
my not ‘THE one’, we’ll let passion spend one last squib?
 
Then, I will weigh my eyelids down & steep my senses in
                                                                                          ̶ forgetfulness.
 

 
Cáit started writing poetry, at home in Scotland’s Highlands in December 2020. Over forty of her poems have been published since. With co-author Sinead McClure she was a winner of Dreich’s ‘Classic Chapbook Competition’ 2022’, awarded for their chapbook ‘The songs I sing are sisters’. For more information visit https://linktr.ee/caitjomac