Body Art
Elephant face on the outside of his arm.
They tried to discourage him. Think of your kids,
they said. He laughed. Think of aging,
they said. I’ll get old and wrinkly, he smiled.
Like an elephant.
Jennifer A. McGowan is a disabled poet and re-enactor who generally prefers the fifteenth century but is addicted to indoor plumbing. Awkward. She has five collections out, and a sixth is currently under scrutiny by editors.
LOYALTY PENALTY
Dear Sir or Madam,
your Policy of Love is due for Renewal.
Wait!
It pays to shop around.
Switch now!
Whatever your offer we’ll beat it.
Comprehensive Love?
Damage to a Third Party?
We guarantee a minimum Level of Affection.
In the event of a Breakdown
we supply a Courtesy Partner
(for up to 28 days).
Choose your Level of Excess.
Suddenly kicked out by your Lover?
We’ll find you a lonely Bed-Sit.
Add European Cover? No Problem!
Add a Spiritual Dimension? Easy!
Note: we do not replace matching Items.
We do not operate a new-for-old Policy.
Indemnify your Heart!
You’re covered –
should you fall from Grace*.
*Terms and Conditions apply.
John Lanyon
John Lanyon lives in West Oxfordshire where he works as a gardener, linguist, musician and writer. He is approximately 25% of the poetry quartet www.fourwordsmen.com . He is excited by the secret lives of words, the play between the animate and inanimate worlds, the spirit of places.
AGEING PROCESS
Have you ever looked in the mirror
To reflect your age
And noticed cellulite and wrinkles
Have taken centre stage?
It’s then you wonder to yourself
How old must I be?
What sort of a body is this
To be given me?
Have you noticed the hair upon your head
Is starting to thin out
When the roots underneath are turning
White
And suddenly beginning to sprout?
It’s then you wonder to yourself
Am I really okay?
Why not have a wig aswell
Let alone going prematurely grey?
Have you ever been to the dentist
And while lying in the chair
He’s fitting you with a crown
As you gaze up his nose in despair?
It’s then you wonder to yourself
This guy’s a nice enough chap.
But I only wish he’d finish off
Bridging that gap.
Have you ever been to the doctor
To get a jab for the flu
And asked him time and time again
Can I make love to you?
It’s then you wonder to yourself
If my senility’s on par.
Why not have a man aswell
When I’ve a crush on my car.
Have you ever had a Garam or Tikka Massala
From an Indian takeaway
Not realising the effect it has on you
For many a day?
It’s then you wonder to yourself
If this stuff is going to keep on
Passing through.
How much longer must I spend VINDALOO?
My name is Jane Shaer & live in North London.
I was inspired by Pam Ayres to write poetry
when she won Opportunity Knocks back in
the 1970’s.
I have epilepsy & learning difficulties & putting pen to paper can be quite a challenge.
Jack Kerouac’s Orange (An Origin Myth)
Your mind makes out the orange by seeing it, hearing it, touching it, smelling it, tasting it
and thinking about it … depending on your mind to exist! By itself it’s a no-thing …
it’s seen only of your mind
– Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Like Jack Kerouac’s Orange
I am awake for you baby
baby taste this flesh, smell
smell the myth of limonene
this orange wants to be seen
see me, hear me, touch me
make me become.
Make me a some-thing baby
baby don’t you feel the want
want to feel how it is
how it is to be empty
empty & awake & a no-thing
nothing unless of your mind?
Spilled out like squeezed sea
sea squeezed from an orange
a sodden orange from a Spanish ship
shipwrecked & empty & a no-thing
nothing except for the mind of a poet
‘thinking about it it’s really mental
things only seen of your own mind’.
But Jack got it wrong baby
I am not your orange
you may have me
in your mind’s eye
thinking about it & me
& all that existential baby
& you may say you saw me
saw me only & only me
& only of your mind
but it was me who was looking
baby I was looking at the apple
& it was me who was awake
awake & looking at the apple
it was always me baby
baby it was always me
who took the first bite.
Cáit is a straying archaeologist. At home in the Scottish Highlands, she makes films and writing with folk hoping to assemble good ways of living in this queasy world. Poems have been peeling from her since January 2021. This is one of her first. You can find her tweeting @kittyjmac.
Knock,Knock
Who’s there?
Knock, Knock
Should I care?
Knock, Knock
Do I dare?
Knock, Knock,
yes I can hear, I’m aware.
Knock, Knock,
I didn’t do it!! I swear!!
Knock, knock,
I don’t need a prayer!
Knock, Knock
My house doesn’t need repair!
Knock, Knock,
I don’t need any cookware!
Knock, Knock
I don’t need any armchairs!
Knock, knock
I’m losing my hair!!!
knock, knock
Don’t have money to spare
Knock,Knock
OMG!! I’m in a nightmare!!!
Knock, Knock
Are you a Grizzly Bear!!
Knock, Knock
I’m only in my underwear!
Knock, Knock
please just be air
Knock, Knock
I have nothing to share
Knock, Knock
This isn’t a freaking daycare!!
Knock, Knock
Sigh Yes, I’m here. Are you still there
By Ed Poetastic
My name is Ed Poetastic and I’m here to make you feel fantastic. I’m regular at open mic such as Nuyorican, Barbwire, Grassroots, Antics Open Mic, Poetry Cafe, The Mitch Salon, Phynnecabulary Open Mic, Time to Arrive, The Word is Write, Unmesh Life Open Mic, Tokyo Kotoba, and many more. I was interviewed by Rick Spisak, Pal Sujata, and Harrison Hickman. My Facebook is Eddy Foreman and My Ig is edforeman92.
Whatever Happened To Fay Wray?
No one wants to fall
from the tallest building
in the world
but the journey down
sure gives you time to think
Broke nearly every bone
in my body – damn near died
took a year just to walk again
still, Time’s a great healer
Ma said, before she passed
Bullet holes closed up
but I got smaller inside
folks think cos you’re big
you’re strong
it ain’t the same thing
Couldn’t hold down
no job for a long time
not till TV came to town
but no way was I goin’
back in front of the cameras
I shoot doc-u-ment-aries now
not the people type –
sad fuckers in a trailer park
but dumb animals –
sad fuckers in a national park
Same story every time
but stressy folks lap it up
I just change the players
change the places
tell it forwards, tell it sideways
It’s all about sleight of hand
what really happens don’t matter
it’s what they want to see
what matters, and one thing
I’ve always been good at
is a side show.
Dominic Weston produces wildlife television programmes, runs over the Mendip hills and writes poetry. His work often relates to family or the natural world, undercut by a healthy slick of darkness. His poems have appeared in Agenda, Black Bough Poetry, Magma, The North, Under the Radar and many other publications.
HOMING PIGEON
You won’t bloody believe this. It’s his best stunt yet.
He’s only going to drive it back to Derbyshire in the car!
We live in Bristol, mind, so it’s a bit of a trek.
I really think he’s lost his mind this time.
It has one of those rings around its foot, apparently
so that’s how he made contact with the owner
and I guess when he offered to drive the thing back.
I wasn’t privy to that conversation, so I’m surmising.
But I’ll tell you this and you can call me cruel if you wish.
I’ve been to the Cat Rescue this morning and come home
with a muscly ginger one, who has an intense stare and licks
his lips alot. I’m not risking all this fucking nonsense again.
HILARY WILLMOTT
Hilary has been writing for many years. Her poetry has been published by Templar Press, Bristol Poetry Can, Obsessed with Pipework, Leaf, Velvet, The Exeter Broadsheet and Spilling Cocoa over Martin Amis. She has also been shortlisted nationally.
A man on the 19.34 to Birmingham New Street, having misread the signals,
uses his mobile to try to arrange another date with the woman who has
hastily waved him off at Liverpool Lime Street
Whah?
Say again.
I bet yum freezing
ya baps off ay ya,
bab? Say again.
Say again. Whah?
I could come back
like, warm you up.
Whah? Say again.
Say again. Whah?
Errrrr……Runcorn.
Say again? Whah?
Thursday. Thurs…
Say again. I know,
yeah. Say…………
Ok…………..Tarrah.
Tarrahtarrahtarrah.
To Professor John Henderson, about my/his belly.
John,
Would be great to cut a fine figure.
I do, says your belly,
Swaying on my two pins.
Uh huh? I’m listening, I say.
Yeah, I cut a fine figure of a Henderson belly
asking John for a hug.
You’ve got persistence going for ya,
I give you that. Yeah I have,
my/your belly drawls,
taking a long drag of a cigarette,
I’ll ask him till the day I die. I placate curve
with smoothing palm.
Are you thinking about John now?
John Henderson belly closes her eyes.
Yeah. All his vocatives rolled
into one tumbling waterfall of cadences.
What about his ablatives, his hyperbatons?
All cases. All cadences. One long
Belly schmoosh. His semantic analytics?
His patterns? His parsings? His epics?
His topsy turvey word order?
My belly is opening her lips, lost
for words. His exploratory thematics?
She’s gone, lost in loin-louche.
Maria Andrews is a short film maker and photographer who occasionally gets published in poetry mags (Polka Dot Ceiling, Still Life) and was once published in a collection (Bloody Amazing). Her current alias is a puppet called Leopold, who is a London correspondent for Helmiflix.com She likes belly laughs. manifestafilm@weebly.com.
Do come to my party..
This time, just for close friends
so no Facebook public event;
I’m celebrating the spring equinox
but haha – without fertility rites.
I am not inviting anyone’s ex
as far as I know, but nobody said
last time about Liz and Dean
or Janice and Liz, or the tragic death.
This time the veggie option
will not contain chicken stock
and I told everyone no hash brownies,
whether labelled or not.
The party games will all be voluntary;
there will be no charades
acting out cocktail names,
no removal of clothes.
No dog-sitters will bring the pooch,
another time for the twins with AHD
and we already established
next doors cat won’t fit the BB Q
This time no stand-back-fifty-metre
fireworks in the tenement’s back green;
it’s the wrong time of year
and the facing flats weren’t keen.
Though the emergency services
were actually rather pleasant
and the front door
has now been mended.
RSVP. Do come!
Ruth Aylett teaches/researches computing in Edinburgh and her poetry is published widely in magazines/anthologies. Joint author of Handfast (Mother’s Milk, 2016); her pamphlet, Pretty in Pink (4Word) was published Jan2021. More at http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~ruth/writing.html
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