Tag: poet

Dear Sir/Madam – by Karen Jones


By Robert Garnham

Dear Sir/Madam – by Karen Jones

We hope this finds you well
No need to respond
Our letters always start this way

Thank you for your recent correspondence
It languished in our inbox
Growing mouldier by the day

We refer to the issues raised
Certain you will feel heard
By their very mention on this page

And sorry you feel that way
(Add allegation here) without prejudice
The lawyers got their hands on this

Out of an abundance of caution
Very pedestrian steps have been taken
And nothing will change

We can assure you of that
It sounds solid when you read it back
We liked that last line a lot

There are no plans at present
We’ll bend like palm trees in the morning
It’s a fluid situation at the end of the day

As a gesture of goodwill
We hope the enclosed brings no luck
But needs must, court and whatnot

The matter has been referred
Somewhere, someone, head office
That dark hole of corporate resolve

Don’t hesitate to call
If we can be of any assistance
Now piss off pal, jog on

Committed to the highest standards
Is this statement of vague ambition
We like to shoehorn in at the end

Kind regards
Customer Services
(No, you can’t have the manager instead)

Karen Jones is new to writing poetry, a student of Kevin Higgins, and putting her head above the parapet with this first submission. Born in Northern Ireland, she lives in Dublin and works in public relations.

 

The agony of treading on Lego in bare feet at 3.30am, by Gabi Marcellus-Temple


By Robert Garnham

The agony of treading on Lego in bare feet at 3.30am

Dovchenko Bazooka Pants is up in the attic
He’s been there for years
He’s definitely plotting something
Fulfilling all my fears
Dovchenko Bazooka Pants
Is under the bed
I can hear him there sniggering
Trying to get in my head
Dovchenko Bazooka Pants
Hides in a kitchen drawer
Under old lighters and tape
Doesn’t like it there
He says it’s a bore
Dovchenko Bazooka Pants
Is down the back of the sink
For one little minifigure
He’s more active than you think
Dovchenko Bazooka Pants
Is under my foot
It’s 3.30 am
And now sleep is kaput.

 

Truth, by Maurice Devitt


By Robert Garnham

Truth

In my early years,
The Zebra Book of Facts for Boys
was my go-to reference;
rarely stuck for a capital city, flag
or element on the Periodic Table.
It was only when, at fourteen,
I brought it as a comfort blanket on my first date,
that I realised its shortcomings:
the conversation flowed
as I sought to impress my consort
with the range of my general knowledge,
but when I left her to her door
and she asked me
if I’d ever kissed a girl before
I didn’t know the right answer.

A past winner of the Trocaire/Poetry Ireland and Poems for Patience competitions, he published his debut collection, ‘Growing Up in Colour’, with Doire Press in 2018.

His poems have been nominated for Pushcart, Forward and Best of the Net prizes and his Pushcart-nominated poem, ‘The Lion Tamer Dreams of Office Work’, was the title poem of an anthology published by Hibernian Writers in 2015. He is curator of the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site.

 

The Half-Starved Virgin, by Bobbie Sparrow


By Robert Garnham

The half starved virgin

Mother told me not to be greedy,
to sit on my hands and wait.
‘Hold in your stomach and tighten,
you never know who’s at the gate.’

Mother always looked good in an A-line,
kept her fingers off the cream buns.
Smoked cigarettes at breakfast,
tried filling her hunger with puns.

‘Keep smiling at those dancing boys
be cheerful and do not pout.
Go walking, cycling, play games of cards
and never ever give out.’

Mother frowned at my father’s kiss,
sat straight on her stool thinking thoughts.
Did the crossword and drank fizzy water
for the little pleasure it brought.

I wore white on the night that he took it –
a boy with clean nails and a purse.
He spent longer than I thought
but during it I caught

desire is a belly full of want. Now

give me some sweet with my sugar,
give me chocolate with my wine,
give me tongues in my kisses,
give me rapture in my crying.

Give me saunas in the sunshine,
give me plunge pools in the rain,
give me sand in the desert,
give me ecstasy in pain.

‘Leave the table wanting more’ said mother,
To hell with that, I state.
Give her food when she’s hungry ,
unlatch the half-starved virgin’s gate.

Bobbie Sparrow‘s poems have been published in many journals including Orbis, Crannog, Skylight 47, The Honest Ulsterman, Cordite, and Southword. Bobbie won 3rd prize for her Chapbook in the Blue Nib competition 2018 and came second in the Saolta Arts Trust Poems for Patience competition 2020. Her Chapbook Milk and Blood was commended in the Fools for Poetry competition 2020 and she was nominated as one of Dodging the Rain’s best published poets 2018/19. She loves lake swimming and cycling downhill.

 

Gannet, by Catherine Doherty Nicholls


By Robert Garnham

Gannet

Alice had a mallet
and she swung it at a gannet
as it swooped
to steal her sandwich at the beach

Then the gannet landed on the
sandwich,
and with malice
pecked her hand that held the mallet
till she screeched.

She was really bleeding
but the tide was not receding
so she swung again
and nearly cracked his head

In the great commotion
they were swallowed by the ocean
as they fought for ham and bread
and now they’re dead.

Catherine Doherty Nicholls

Winner of no Poetry Ireland Competition, or any other competition, no published debut collection, nothing printed anywhere yet.
Her poems have been nominated for nothing so she’s nominating this poem to go on this page – a great place to start.

She is the curator of nothing. Her anthology doesn’t exist, yet she keeps going.

A student of Kevin Higgins.

 

Nothing, by Ama Bolton


By Robert Garnham

Nothing

Nothing’s worse than toothache.
Nothing’s worse than fleas.
Nothing’s worse than finding
half a maggot in your cheese.

Nothing’s worse than tasting
coffee you thought was tea.
Nothing’s worse than failing
your Maths GCSE.

Nothing’s worse than losing
car-keys down a drain.
Nothing’s worse than choosing
the wrong till, once again.

Nothing’s worse than Christmas
when you wake up with the ‘flu.
Nothing’s worse than birthdays
when no-one’s there with you.

Nothing’s worse than meeting
right person at wrong time.
Nothing’s worse than G&T
without a slice of lime.

You’re right, my dears, for nothing’s
far worse than all of these.
You’ve got one life. Enjoy it.
And stop complaining. Please.

Ama Bolton, former member of The Liverpool School of Language, Music, Dream and Pun, convenes a Stanza group in Somerset. Her poems have featured at festivals, on Radio 3’s The Verb, and in magazines and anthologies including Bridport Prize 2008. She blogs at
http://barleybooks.wordpress.com/

 

Do dust mites eat ginger biscuits?, by Trisha Broomfield


By Robert Garnham

Do dust mites eat ginger biscuits?

I did wonder as I sipped my morning tea
dark and caffeine free
accompanied by a ginger biscuit or three
it was the crumbs, you see
parent mites with little mites of their own
living on the breadline during Lockdown
but then I thought, of course not
they’d have gorged themselves on me
I know they eat people,
if only by miniscule degrees
but perhaps I could tempt them away
with my ginger biscuit crumbs, flax filled, gluten free.

Trisha has had three pamphlets published by Dempsey and Windle. She is a regular contributor to Surrey Libraries Poetry Blog and has a regular poetry spot on her local radio. Humour escapes from her work regardless of any constraints applied. https://www.facebook.com/Trisha-Broomfield-Poetry-2340859049276291

 

Ads for adults, not suitable for children, by Carole Donaldson


By Robert Garnham

Here’s one concerning my embarrassment at the conversation I was forced to have with a highly inquisitive and precocious four-year-old boy to which I’ve always told the truth …erm, except in this case. I mean, how does one start?

Ads for adults, not suitable for children

When your four-year-old is smart and bright,

and sat there watching telly one night,

Well it’s not quite what I’d call ‘night’ really,

more afternoon/early evening clearly,

then he looks to you to innocently ask,

while you look on, somewhat aghast,

about the advert he’s just seen.

And he’s like “What does it all mean?”

and in that moment it’s soon the case,

that you don’t know where to put your face

 Why so untimely the ads must show,

such intimate detail to let your child know,

that ladies suffer at a certain age,

and especially after the menopausal stage

It’s stunning these inappropriate ads

in front of young impressionable lads

without a hint of unbridled shyness,

discuss the ins and outs of vaginal dryness

 

Buffoon in a flowery shirt, by Hannah Kiely


By Robert Garnham

Buffoon in a flowery shirt

Hannah Kiely

Bastard, you took a piece of my life, screwed it
into a younger version, razed, ripped, torn apart

Bastard, you took the piano, the silent hall
echoes torment, tears, spartan space

And bastard, I cursed you harshly at night
closed the outside light, curled like a gnarled arthritic hand

Damn you, big shot, deluded at the apex
of your own illusions, a buffoon; child seats, schools

Who are you now, living under hollow pretence
is it greener on your side?

Your flowery shirts, an over-compensation
the rise and fall of a default man

Ill-fitting skinny jeans, Gen Z or millennial
you are not, they won’t make you younger

Long hair, an ageing rocker, who never made it
your fondness for the old wedding cake, three slices so far

Unbroken, I begin to steal it back,
middle aged fool.

I secretly don’t envy you anymore.

Hannah Kiely is from Galway. Kiely completed an MA in writing at NUIG in 2020. She has been published in Vox Galvia, RTE Sunday Miscellany, Pendemic.ie and has been a featured reader on Over The Edge.

 

Never eat shellfish, by Janet Sillett


By Robert Garnham

Never eat shellfish

My aunt, nothing like my mother,
used me as a sounding board, captured,
ten years old, in her stifling kitchen,
smelling of chicken soup
and terror

I was licking the cake bowl dry,
she proclaiming
that the Russians sent bad weather,
on purpose
tell your father that, the commie,
insisting I pray for Israel,
and that I must never eat shellfish
on pain of death from God

My aunt, never one for irony, was firm
that I should trust my instincts
and be myself,
but even then, I thought being myself
might mean downing small pink shrimps
from seaside stalls,
striped in pink sweet rock colours

I should shun men with slinky hips, especially
those with guitars
I had never met one of these wonders
but from then on, I would look for them on every street corner

Be careful what you wish for
I wished for Cadbury’s dairy milk,
and that her daughter,
younger than me, whose life’s work was snitching,
would be kidnapped to a desert island,
clutching her Hebrew scriptures
as her book of choice

Things happen for a reason,
I knew she meant
bad things,
as I mixed chopped fish in her yellow cracked dish

My father died later that year

My aunt was a lodestar
a beacon to what not to do,
an upside down road map
from childhood to flimsy maturity

In middle age, diagnosed depressive,
I missed her declarations
In old age, visiting my dying mother,
she picked wild flowers for her bedside

Janet Sillett recently took up writing poetry and short fiction again after decades of absence. She has had a poem published in the Galway Advertiser and is about to have her first flash fiction piece published in Litro. She works for a think tank.