Tag: humour

Something Fishy . . . By Carole Donaldson


By Robert Garnham

This is what culminated from a brief encounter at Sainsbury’s. It took five minutes to make up a rhyme about the extremely brief dalliance, but I think I had a close shave and dodged a bullet, yet unfortunately if the guy hadn’t been in such a hurry to ‘get his leg over’ we could have made fine music together, but I’m pleased that I usually always go with my gut feeling about things, and this guy was far too forward for comfort. Shame, really, he wasn’t bad looking but he let his mouth run away with him.

SOMETHING FISHY …

I met a man, while out shopping, at the salmon counter,
he came over quite suave and quite slick,
a few weeks on from that chance encounter,
he turned out to be naught but a fanciful dick

He kissed me and hugged me the minute we met
So charming – he addressed me “Dear Madam”
But how familiar is it right for a stranger to get
When I didn’t even know him from Adam

We exchanged our phone numbers and as days went by
I waited to hear from this Casanova
But I’d text and then wait but get no reply
So before it begun, it was practically over

He finally rang and arranged that we meet
His excuse for no contact? He preferred not to text
We went for a coffee on a posh market street
Where he wasted no time saying how much he loved sex

Well, I was appalled and quite taken aback
It was far too soon to be talking that way
But he took me to lunch, at Kings Road Seafood Shack
And when the huge bill came, he was happy to pay

(80 quid’s-worth of food was devoured that day)

Though we chatted at lunch and duly both laughed
With the same sense of humour we shared
I got a bad vibe and I thought myself daft
I could’ve been an old boot and I don’t think he’d’ve cared.

He mentioned the sex thing again I had noted
He clearly had his own agenda
He was quite up front, not a thing sugar-coated
And showed himself up to be a pretender

This encounter has taught me to be somewhat wary
This chap had manners like a pen full of swine
His ulterior motives can seem somewhat scary
But in truth that’s his problem, and certainly not mine

It’s been over a week now and he’s disappeared
At his hinted intentions, I told him where to go
Asking if I was adventurous – far too forward I feared
And on that score the arse’ole will now never know

 

Too Many Straights, by Claire Duthie


By Robert Garnham

There are too many straights on telly
The situation has really got very silly
And out of hand
Wny don’t you understand?

There’s far too much prancing
On strictly come dancing

Wny wallow in the mire
And watch ” married at first sight?”
It really, really is dire.

Lionel Blair
Is no longer there

Mayday, maidez
Paul O Grady

Heaven help us
Russell T Davies

 

Bruce Wayne : Space Pioneer, by Ross Crawford


By Robert Garnham

Bruce Wayne: Space Pioneer

Whit if Bruce Wayne wis a real guy?
Whit wid he actually be like?
Wid he still run aboot each nicht
Getting intae a ficht
Wae every petty criminal in the city?
Wid he?
Say ye pit him oan a fixed-term contract:
How wid he react?
Wid he sit through an annual review
Tae discuss aw the jaws he’s cracked?
Punchin fuck oot the symptom
Never curin the cause
Is much mair fun
Than trying tae change the laws
“Least ah dinnae kill,” he’d cry
“An ah’m no gonnae justify
Masel tae the likes ae you.”
But it starts tae make ye hink:
If he’s a billionaire who’s only kink
Is dressing up in aw that bat gear
And makin wee guys pish in fear
Is he helpin or hinderin?
Is he actually a guid yin?
Ah bet ye if Bruce Wayne wis a real guy
He’d prolly jist try tae get tae the moon
Like aw the ither silver-spoon
Billionaires blastin aff intae space
Auld Brucey boy racin big bald Bezos
Tae build the first galactic base
Nae cosmic threats tae fight
Fur this Dark Knight
But he still cannae forget
That his parents are deid
Instillin him wae this insatiable need
Tae dae them baith proud
And so he has vowed
That in the name ae the slain
Thomas an Martha Wayne
He’ll lead an interstellar trip
Perform a low-gravity flip
Inside a bat-shaped spaceship.

Ross Crawford is a writer/scriever based in Stirling, Scotland. He mostly takes his inspiration from the history and nature of Scotland, but his head can be turned by sci-fi and superheroes. He writes in Scots, English, and Gàidhlig. You can find him on Twitter at @RRMCrawford

 

Frames, by Eddie Gibbons


By Robert Garnham

FRAMES

He met her at the Art Gallery.

Made eyes at her
across a Caravaggio.

Saw her framed against a Miro.

Watched her glide along
an avenue of Monets.

She saw him standing
like a prick
between two Pollocks.

Published in ‘The Republic of Ted’, Thirsty Books, Edinburgh, 2003.

Eddie Gibbons has six published poetry collections. ‘What They Say About You’ was shortlisted for the ‘Scottish Poetry Book of the Year’, 2011. He was a prizewinner in the inaugural ‘Edwin Morgan Poetry Competition’, 2008. He has a poem in the Bloodaxe anthology ‘Land of Three Rivers’. Twitter- @1Eddie_Gibbons

 

Oh Me!, by beam


By Robert Garnham

Oh Me!
I am a soggy biscuit
I am murking
at the bottom
of your
mug

I am a sang-widge
you thought you threw away…
a Summer ago

I am a surprise from a stranger
who’s known to the Gardaí
you didn’t wear your glasses
you thought I was waving
but I was wanking

beam is a 26 year old poet from Ireland. She has participated in workshops led by Kevin Higgins, read at Galway City’s Literary Organisation event ”Over The Edge” and has been published in Cabinet Of Heed, Broadsheet.ie, Impspired, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Spilling Hot Cocoa Over Martin Amos, WordCityLit, Ink Sweat and Tears & Open Skies. Recent work includes; surviving the pandemic and several disappointing sourdough loaves. She is becoming the kind of person who says the things you ”aren’t supposed to say”. You can find more of her poetry @personalbeam on instagram.

 

Cop O The North, by Cáit O’Neill McCullagh


By Robert Garnham

Cop O The North

After Nicanor Parra’s ‘The Poems of the Pope’

Insta this! I’ve been crowned!
I’m the COP o the north
King of the Anthropocene
every ‘ancestor’s wildest dream’

Oh, I’ve suffered decades of your resolutions
deny me no more, Anthro’s here darlings!
and petro-chemical green’s my scene
my cloak is all COP-washed glory

the forests burn, the earth expires
the sea’s an acid-gasp! It’s oil thanks to me!
I’ve anointed this planet in fire and flood
and folks while I rule it, you’ll consume it

We’ve peaked post-truth, BTW
my people write the scripts now
this one’s called ‘Beyond Petroleum
from filthy lucre to carbon-blue’

flush with the glow of burning ozone
I’m the green god now
I grace every couch on your blessed telly
but never admit, it’s fossil fuel that keeps me lit!

I can get you what you want today, no probs.
But tomorrow, things go nuclear
and I know where the button is
and I know the folk who want to press it.

Ever since our story started
when you pushed that first hungry plough
and took your axe to the lungs of the forest
Gaia has groaned to birth me.

So, bless her do your mother earth
perhaps one less flight will heal her extinction
but remember, while the crude keeps bubbling
it’ll be me who’ll be your final benediction

Cáit O’Neill McCullagh is a straying ethnologist writing at home in the Highlands of Scotland. She started to write poetry in December 2020, and since then her poems have appeared in Northwords Now, Spilling Cocoa over Martin Amis, Drawn to the Light, and The Banyan Review. Cáit tweets at @kittyjmac .

 

Tu-tu in Training, by Trisha Broomfield


By Robert Garnham

Tu-Tu in Training

Steph was wider than me, and shorter,
it was a gift, a hand-me-down
from her parents in their high house
to me and mum in our basement flat,
‘Come on try it on,’ Mum urged,
‘you’ll feel the part.’
I slid it up my non-existent hips
the shine of the satin, soft
as my hands smoothed over its bodice,
‘The skirt’s a bit torn at the hem,’
Mum said, ‘But I’ll fix that in no time.’
I looped straps over my shoulders,
they fell off, my pointy bones
unable to cling to pink ribbon,
‘Safety pins,’ Mum said, ‘hoik it up a bit.’
Hoiking and pinning, Mum, sideways pull to her lips
determined to make it fit.
‘You’ve got the book,’ Mum flicked to the page,
‘come on, position one.’
I tried, one then two, easy peasy this ballet,
then, knees like my dad’s, I stuck in position four.
‘Back straight, neck long like a swan.’
Mum had seen The Nutcracker on telly.
Shoulders cramped by a bodice pinned to fit
I sank a hopeful plié.
‘That’s it, you’ll make a ballerina yet!’
Mum clapped her hands in delight,
‘though, you will have to keep your vest on.’

 

From the Rag, by Christian Scully


By Robert Garnham

From the Rag

Time drags as the barmans rags wipes another stain away from the bar top Feelingas though the clocks have all but stopped and the hourglass sand or the biggest hand are heading backward
Its funny how stood here in this palace of beer church to excess as tobacco laden breath requests another and sings a sad lament Cursing them who lurk on borders them past into obscurity and them who are royally fucking up the country whilst doing their best as you see… its complicated

Bleary eyed hobbling from pint to pint to bookies and back handing over scrunched up notes pulled from grubby back pockets as there lips smack down the sweet nectar.
Straightening ties telling the same lies how its just a quick one on the way to the office when we both know they will be back tomorrow.
Hearing grumbles and strife about distant kids and ex wives after pint after pint after pint
Some starting early
or some continuing
a perpetual night out that
they can never bare to end

Best mates at breakfast become bastards by lunch
as they are too drunk to stand let alone throw a punch
but then its all just a part of the carbon copied institution once known as a pub
Where now they serve kiddies and professionals grub
whist in the corner they lurk
all crude gestures and smirks
till its time to wobble back to bed
rest their red faced weary heads
grab a sarnie
grab a kip
buy the paper
and repeat

 

When I Come to Power, by Kevin Higgins


By Robert Garnham

When I Come To Power

Spiking women’s drinks
or bums with a syringe
will be an offence punishable
by having one’s body placed
in an industrial crusher
and turned into an easily
spreadable paste.

But it will be perfectly legal –
compulsory, even –
to, at least once in your life,
drug a daytime TV presenter of the male variety,
preferably Richard Madeley,
and deposit his twitching body
on the town rubbish dump
for the gulls to peck.

KEVIN HIGGINS

KEVIN HIGGINS is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway. He has published five previous full collections of poems: The Boy With No Face (2005), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008), Frightening New Furniture (2010), The Ghost In The Lobby (2014), & Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital (2019). His poems also feature in Identity Parade – New Britishand Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe May 2014). Kevin was satirist-in-residence with the alternative literature website The Bogman’s Cannon 2015-16. 2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins was published by NuaScéalta in 2016. The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed was published by Culture Matters (UK) also in 2016. Song of Songs 2:0 – New & Selected Poems was published by Salmon in Spring 2017. Kevin is a highly experienced workshop facilitator and several of his students have gone on to achieve publication success. He has facilitated poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre and taught Creative Writing at Galway Technical Institute for the past fifteen years. Kevin is the Creative Writing Director for the NUI Galway International Summer School and also teaches on the NUIG BA Creative Writing Connect programme. His poems have been praised by, among others, Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul, Observer columnist Nick Cohen, writer and activist Eamonn McCann, historian Ruth Dudley Edwards, and Sunday Independent columnist Gene Kerrigan; and have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Times (London), Hot Press magazine, The Daily Mirror and on The Vincent Browne Show, and read aloud by Ken Loach at a political meeting in London. He has published topical political poems in publications as various as The New European, The Morning Star, Dissent Magazine (USA), Village Magazine (Ireland), & Harry’s Place. The Stinging Fly magazine has described Kevin as “likely the most widely read living poet in Ireland”. One of Kevin’s poems features in A Galway Epiphany, the final instalment of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series of novels which is just published. His work has been broadcast on RTE Radio, Lyric FM, and BBC Radio 4. His book The Colour Yellow & The Number 19: Negative Thoughts That Helped One Man Mostly Retain His Sanity During 2020 was published in late by Nuascealta. His extended essay Thrills & Difficulties: Being A Marxist Poet In 21st Century Ireland was published in pamphlet form by Beir Bua Press this year. Ecstatic, Kevin’s sixth full poetry collection, will be published by Salmon next March.

 

Iona walk of shame, by Jay Whittaker


By Robert Garnham

Iona walk of shame

No minister
I did not leave
my sodden knickers
on the rocks
after semi-skinny dipping
on the Sabbath

that must have been some other pilgrim.
But there is learning here –
wet black pants
look just like kelp
strewn across a rock.

Jay Whittaker lives and works in Edinburgh. Her debut poetry collection Wristwatch (Cinnamon Press) was the Scottish Poetry Book of the Year (Saltire Society Literary Awards) 2018. Her second collection, Sweet Anaesthetist, (also Cinnamon Press) was published in 2020. Jay is widely published, including two poems in the recent Bloodaxe anthology, Staying Human. www.jaywhittaker.uk / @jaywhittapoet