Tag: literature

Review of the Sky at Night, by Ruth Aylett


By Robert Garnham 
Review of the Sky at Night
—
An uneven performance with some gripping parts:
Orion a definite success, just a pity the belt
is used only once; but then there is Hydra,
a random line of faint stars with no oomph at all.

The Milky Way really needs more volume,
we can’t all visit a desert for its full effect,
just dial it up a little for we city types,
and remove some astrology duds like Pisces.

The arrangement of Venus, Jupiter, Crescent Moon,
was a bit of a triumph, more conjunctions please,
and more often: waiting some twenty years
strains the patience of your audience. And brighter comets.

As for the Northern Lights – very fetching indeed,
but what a waste keeping them so far north
where hardly anyone lives. Try them in London,
say every few weeks, and vary the colours more.

Ruth Aylett lives and works in Edinburgh and has been known to attend readings with a robot. Her poems are widely published in magazines and anthologies, and her pamphlets Pretty in Pink (4Word) and Queen of Infinite Space (Maytree) were published in 2021.

 

Dracula’s Cock, by Colin James


By Robert Garnham 
Dracula's Cock

                                   It unexpectedly turned up
                                   on a peasant cart
                                   outside a railway station
                                   in northern Bulgaria.
                                   Seems it was severed from
                                   a live one, or not, depending
                                   on your perspective.
                                   Blood in the straw
                                   pooled despite
                                   a plethora of fodder.
                                   A devout looking crowd,
                                   caped to the nines
                                   loitered for a look-see.
                                   A few "Yikes" and 'Yowsers!"
                                   could be heard singing
                                   joyfully atonal in
                                   made up accents,
                                   that danced on the air a bit
                                   before being, save piety,
                                   proportionately bludgeoned.
 

Some of the Ones, by Kate Ennals


By Robert Garnham 
Some of The Ones
after La Figlia che Piange by T.S. Eliot
 
One was a news correspondent who when stocious
whispered sweet nothings in Russian and Polish.
Each word was a rasp full of Zeds and Gizzards.
His tongue used to flick like that of a lizard
clicking like a gun, whipping my neck
so, I let him escape and moved on to Rex.
 
To be honest, Rex was not his real name
I say so because the sex was a shame
He was very attentive but had three little pinkies
and his finger work was not very kinky
I tried to use mine to work some magic
but nothing happened. It was tragic.
 
My first true love was away with the fairies
a fatal attraction for a naive young lady
He sang in a band, was charmingly late
had chocolate brown eyes, but refused to say
in words or ‘lots’ how much he adored me
so, finally, I left him and went to university.
 
There, I met a rigid boy whose body was agile
who had thick eyebrows and the sunniest smile.
He studied the Norman, Saxon, and Viking wars
And we too, were duplicitous with daggers and swords
Happily, in the end, I was victorious
but in my conquering, he grew less glorious.
 
As I got busy at work, I found my loves taken
in the office, snatched from other good women.
Their men loved my zest and liked to unzip
until one such man decided to flip.
Today, after 64 years of hard love and labour
I choose words of poetry over any lover.
 
 
 
Kate Ennals is a poet and writer and has published poems and short stories in a range of literary and on-line journals. She has published three poetry collections. You can find her blog at kateennals.com.

 

Frailty, Thy Name is Gertrude, by Jean Taylor


By Robert Garnham 
Frailty Thy Name is Gertrude

I always had the hots for Claudius
that man could turn a woman inside out
seduce her with a glance
blind her – just by placing
his bejewelled hand across her cheek.
 
But here’s the thing:
second sons do not deliver kingdoms.
I wedded Hamlet.
 
After our boy was born, that sour old git
chucked me like a worn-out jerkin.
‘Your place is with the ladies.’
‘Look to your son.’
 
Hamlet got what was coming to him –
splayed out below the apple trees
shrivelled like toad skin.
Can’t pretend I was heart-broken.
 
If I hadn’t gone along with Claudius,
Christ knows where I’d be now.
This way I’ve got my throne
and a king keeping me warm.
 
Young Hamlet’s time will come.
 
Right now he needs to man up,
get real, sort himself out,
stop mincing round Elsinore
like a dying corbie.

Jean Taylor from Edinburgh loves poetry and paper and folding poems into paper aeroplanes. Her poems have been published in a wide range of publications, anthologies and poetry websites.  

Her pamphlet Deliberate Sunlight was published by Black Agnes Press in 2019. 

 

On waiting for a poetry journal’s acceptance/rejection email, by Terri Metcalfe


By Robert Garnham

Cumbria native Terri Metcalfe moved to Ireland with her Mayo born partner and two children in 2019. From a down-to-earth, tools of the practical trade family, she only recently in her forties thought it acceptable that she might be a serious poet. Terri has endured several decades of mental and physical ill health which she draws on in her work. She has been published in Abridged, A New Ulster, Green Ink Poetry, Spilling Cocoa Over Martin Amis and Skylight 47, amongst others. She was shortlisted for the Open Window 2023 mentorship programme and will be a featured reader at the 20th anniversary of Over The Edge Literary Events held in Galway city library this coming January.

 

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.

 

Doctor Zeus, by Tom Barlow


By Robert Garnham 
Doctor Zeus

A poet in my online crit group
wrote that the unintentionally 
comedic couplets in my new poem 
remind her of Doctor Zeus and I 

am taken with the image of lightning bolts 
thrown for no reason at Yertle the Turtle,
for capriciousness makes a god a god.
I realize the Lord of Thunder would never 

have allowed himself to be incarcerated 
in verse meant to draw giggles
and the good Doctor Seuss would 
never have written about Zeus the Moose

and his incestuous appetites, for there 
was seldom any innocence in those old 
ribald tales of characters fated to suffer 
or deal out suffering or both. What

parent would be foolish enough to put 
their child to bed with the story of a god 
who eats his wife when Doctor Seuss offers 
the epicurious Sam-I-Am 
and his beloved eggs and ham?

Tom Barlow is an Ohio writer of poetry, short stories and novels. His attention deficit disorder has kept his pen whirling like a merry-go-round horse and poems like these are what have flown off as he desperately tries to convince the carny to stop the ride. See more at tombarlowauthor.com.

 

The Lighthouse Keeper, by Ben Macnair


By Robert Garnham 
Mr Jones, the Lighthouse Keeper,
had an ever increasing collection of masks,
finding them on Amazon,
going for a song on Ebay,
fading celebrities,
an Amazonian Warrior,
Donald Trump, the colour of desperation,
everyday waiting for the knock.
The Postman whistling his happy little tune,
handing over the packages,
waiting for the signatures,
the always offered cup of tea,
wanting to get away from the hundreds of faces,
with no eyes.
 
Mr Jones liked the silence,
time to himself,
with no disturbance,
no company.
So, when the four kids,
the two attractive ones,
the two unattractive ones,
and their Great Dane with his
liking for eight foot tall sandwiches,
called in, after being stranded
it all got a bit too much.
 
Mr Jones, tried on his masks,
finding the one with best fit,
and the worst intentions,
and scared the kids,
and that pesky, overweight dog right off,
but he forgot about the body in his back-yard,
the diamonds under the patio,
the blood on the roof,
from the previous tenants,
and the Police came and arrested him,
put him away for years.
No lawyer would take the case,
of a Lighthouse Keeper,
hiding behind someone else’s
plastic face.

 

I Wish I Were a Vicar, by Trisha Broomfield


By Robert Garnham 
I wish I were a vicar
 
I wish I were a vicar
penned by Agatha Christie,
I’d visit many well-known faces
who ‘d kindly ask, ‘More tea?’
 
I wish I were a vicar
in one of Christie’s books,
I’d wander round the place bemused
I’d wear befuddled looks.
 
And if I were a vicar,
one that Agatha had penned,
I’d find bodies in my library,
exclaim, ‘Good Grief! Heaven forfend!’
 
As a black and white penned vicar
I’d live on countless pages,
in many different languages,
and truly live for ages.