Category: Poetry

Poetry

Final Morning Table

Final Morning Table

Tom Pyle

Try to catch

September

In the silent pools before you.

It’s there, I promise.

An almost imperceptible movement,

Light. Refracted through tap water,

Taste it. Bitter, like the grains in your teeth,

It lingers. Asking to be recognised

Merely as part of the story.

Footsteps in the courtyard.

Flies drifting against lace.

The fierce scent of soap on your fingers,

Slicing the throat

In restless sunlight

Bottled minerals pouring

Through plaster pipes

Rotting in your bed

With window shards

And neon midnights

Statues, páprika paste

Peach-stone bells

Disorientation.

And the ache

Of your knee

Striking cold stone

In shadow,

Before you found the light switch.

In that ancient stairwell.

See, it has gripped you.

It demands to be included.

Poetry

Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss

Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss

Myfi Fenwick

It made me want to cry…the kiss,

Grasped in claws of gold,

A marriage of palms and ivy,

An ode to a bent knee strengthened

By the embrace of another,

Ribs fashioned of Eden,

Fools in the meadow of lust,

The Fabrication of love.

Poetry

Chase

Chase

Lawrence Gartshore

Chase:

A buxom chest, and charm to boot,

she really does offer much but

her friend, a beauty I’ve never known.

Is that a door I wish to shut?

I truly shouldn’t hope for both –

no, I must set my sights with care

for no matter how much she smiles

my eyes are always eyes are always fixed on…her.

The unobtainable its true

has always fixated me more

than stood beside that pretty girl,

than a gamble free shag that is sure.

Poetry

They Left When They Did Because They Could.

Post author By Isobel Salt
Post date January 25, 2023
No Comments on They Left When They Did Because They Could.

They Left When They Did Because They Could.

Isobel Salt

the Wind was lifted and drawn swiftly out.

Space roared,

‘what on Earth is going on here?’

(which, in its defence, was a good question.)

but Wind was gone, and the void was vast.

reeds crushed by air – nothing nurtures in still

and with Moon gone Water lost its wave.

BLOOD was forgotten – no need to kill,

come see mankind sent back to the cave.

Time quick tailed Wind, leaving man to suffer,

now void drinks silences’ lucent flood.

man dredges on, abiding stale hunger

by drowning pity’s glut in mud.

Space, back then, was the last to speak,

Time didn’t bother to leave anything

behind.

Poetry

Bathtime

Bathtime

Carrie Sear

For my kindred spirit

white bathtub, underpants, matching bras

coloured concoctions in clear glass jars

and the Mother laughs

past the door with no lock.

what a way to cleanse a cluttered life

charcoal fingerpainting is underrated,

skin for canvas hotly debated, yet

we make carving initials into trees

anti-kitsch, un-cringe.

when the long-cold water drains away

it takes hostage secrets and crud and hair dye

leaves us our bellies and spots, towels nearby.

all the watermelon gummies in the world

could not provide a mellow joy like this.

Poetry

Loosen Up

Loosen Up

Elizabeth Marney

It is a blistering Summer

as he strides into my house.

Doesn’t think twice

about my words, just my mouth.

Says there’s so many feelings

behind this feeling. Says that

He has more feelings than

I could possibly imagine.

He needs me,

he says.

The way you could barrel

through seven ice lollies

on a sweltering hot day.

The way that when desperation strikes

you don’t wait for sugar water to melt in your mouth.

Ravenous, he tells me,

you suck.

Poetry

My Mother’s Coat

My Mother’s Coat

Beth Blackwell

Between the living room and the kitchen

There is a door.

Signatures of my siblings form a road map,

Stretching from top to bottom

Sporadic lines like signposts

Marking the miles of growth.

Hung off the back is my mother’s blue coat.

Dark navy,

With ripped sleeves to wipe my tears

And deep pockets to hold my problems.

It hangs, oversized, just past my knees.

The wool inside gathers in

Irregular

Places.

This home of mine is spacious

And a curious little girl shares it with me.

I remember her,

From a lifetime ago

And her name is scribbled on the door.

She is like me,

Only her hair is blonde

And her nails aren’t bitten.

In many ways she is not me,

Except for the home we share,

Wrapped away in my mother’s blue coat.

Poetry

Lyric

Lyric

Cosmo Adair

Love rots away in the footnotes

Of the heart’s biography —

A musty, damp-eaten, hardback book

In an obsolete library —

Time sits by, with an abject hand

Fingering a quarter-to-three —

The ceiling doesn’t brighten now

And my eyes can’t shut or see —

The Moon is at its climax now —

And sad Pierrot thinks he sees

Lips in the starscape — the arresting

Water ripples in the breeze —

The water (that Great Rememberer

Of things it’s heard so much before),

Knows there’s one kind, abstract solace

And tempts him to the shore —

The water ripples; paint dissolves

From his quaint and guileless face —

Oh, what can moon-bitten lovers do

But tear at life’s anfractuous lace.

Poetry

To Dream

To Dream

Cosmo Adair

To dream — the cold awakens, darkness berths

A strange delight. We beat on. Wings outstretched

Make battle with land. One thing I’ve learned:

The struggle, the pulp — all dissolve, divide,

When the Sun first scribbles the land in Prose.

Poetry

The Sailing-Boat

The Sailing-Boat

Jake Henson

At once there was a Sailing-Boat,

A chariot of swift oak frame,

Then skimming upon the river’s throat

They heard the voice proclaim:

Pull on the silvery halyard!

Grasp th’ethereal cords,

Hear the mechanically whispering bard,

With tales of harlequin fjords.

Walk from our vessel of drudgery

A plank of fracturing joy,

To swim in an idyllic rosary

And thousands of fishes employ

For infinite trading and trafficking

along rows of celestial scales,

whilst idols and wheels are mimicking

a lattice of unholy grails.

Starlight creeps over the mountains,

To set the attention ablaze,

And five hundred luminous fountains,

Attract the pulsating gaze

And what of the boat which is sailing?

The swift-footed ode to the sky,

It carries its crew who are ailing

From an always-devouring eye.

wayzgoose

wayzgoose

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories