The wind it tackles

The leaves and the litter

The leaves and the litter

The leaves and the past

The sun it dries

The paint and the puddles

The paint and the puddles

The paint and the past

I saw the land quickly approaching

the bend in the river

that soon would be passed

I saw her look

I knew she was leaving

The leaves and the puddl...

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A couple of WOL's hardiest veterans have spotted that the competition has attracted just 4 entries and have said strongly that the deadline should be extended (you know who you are and thanks for the interest!)

Therefore, to celebrate a cat's amazing possession of 9 lives, the deadline will be extended to 9th Feb (a Saturday). As well as the original themes, the poem may also be about or co...

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When I was with the Coal Board I worked for some right bastards. 

This wasn’t unusual.  The Coal Board’s cultural style was what management gurus euphemistically call “heroic”.  Managers were bastards and, to succeed, staff needed to emulate them if they wanted to become managers.

One particular manager I worked for could have made my life a misery were it not that I were so...

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So many faces I’ve seen!

Now I do believe Darwin.

                        ***

The patient was treated for jaundice,

The autopsy showed he was Chinese.

                         ***

Rotten is well hidden and forgotten.

                         ***

Do you mind?

Or you don't mind

because you don't have mind?

                         ***

The wor...

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Lady Jane Grey was little more

than a holiday home, a change of air;

Elizabeth Woodville was Long Stay –

students dreaded placement there.

Hers was a thicker atmosphere: moon-fogged

with menace throughout the year.

It’s the Western Australian Blue Mist, Doctor,

or else I’m losing my eyesight.

When a man said he wanted to meditate

it meant he wanted to ...

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`

The key of currency
is the changing of hands,
a baton passed on
in constant motion
that binds together
all its participants.

A fresh, crisp bill
is a virgin still,
between your fingers
whose anticipation
and epic journey
are yet to unfold.




 

`

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I said to myself I would like you

After all

We had both been swimming

Against a tide

A thing worth having…

And all that

 ‘There isn’t a girl in this world that doesn’t like me’

I said to him

Wanting that to be true

And one day in floats you

Quietly striding the breadth

Of the living room

Terrified

Expecting to see a monster

Tha...

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Serious accidents involving police chases are more common than you think.

The pursued in a panic to get away drive to the brink.

A stampede ignites in the perpertrators brain and panic sets in,

Innocent lives abruptly ended,completely destroyed, a sin !

6/01/13  South London

A positive hit on the police car's automatic number recognition system percipitates panic,

...

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 .

                          How We Used To Live.

                          When bestiaries were commonplace

                          and symbolised a path to grace,

                          the sheen that lights a raven’s wing

                          was held to be a common thing;

                          until such features lost ...

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I was fit and feisty at fifty
It was no big deal
Because that's how half a century
Is supposed to feel.

In my seventies, I'll take stock
Start making great plans
Ignoring all the 'you can'ts'
And embracing all the 'I cans'.

Can I be sexy at seventy?
And try all the fashions and fads
Wear stockings and suspenders
And Joan Collins shoulder pads.

I can deal with sexy at seventy
And...

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I'm the defective detective.

I marvel at the whiteness of frozen snow.

Left right upper leg.

Do you like beer?

No I like Ricky Gervais.

I'm inside the tumble dryer spinning in space.

Just made a hillinit bloody hooooot.

Why do I let the last 5 years drag me down?

Chained to me,

self destroying me from within.

I'm the Phantom Ray...

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Streaker on the news.

Epileptics warned against

Flashing images.

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Do tell me where I am, he said;
the men wear bras upon their head.
I said, I'm sure of where you are:
the Scottish town of Head-in-Bra.

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There’s always a way back home.

Maybe no one told you

But cement and brick last a long time,

Even when neglected.

You can disappear for a year or ten

Then come back again, to the street,

And watch history repeat

As memories breathe through old concrete.

And maybe it’ll seem strange to meet,

After all it was there I learnt life can be like

Spoilt conjoined...

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By 5.45pm on a bitterly-cold day recently, following a call to the car mechanic, I'd had enough. Nothing was going right. Not the three new poems I was working on.  Not my car. Nothing.

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There is a city, hidden in the sand

where few have visited. I understand

it glitters in the scorching noonday sun.

To find it is the dream of anyone

who feels that they deserve great wealth,

who follow, creeping like a sphinx, in stealth

to enter through the golden portals great -

answer a riddle and confirm their fate.

The city’s treasures are truly renown...

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Grasping at half-conscious illusions,

The new year arcs through the post-Christmas crash,

As philosophical ironies regarding love appeared before, 

The most voluptuous scene, 

And whether this love sought others, 

Or only itself to please, 

The difference is not always clear.

As such, the turn of the year has all watching, 

As the time for a fresh start is ...

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The sound of running footsteps,

"No, no, please don't" - then a scream.

The knives were out to kill that shout

And murder the hope and the dream.

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SNOWBLIND

Like a pristine field of snow

you glare back at me and I know

that even with the greatest will

I’ll never get the words to spill

upon your virgin gown.

I want to smudge the ashes of my dreams

upon your frigid, frozen streams

that when the summer sun’s aglow

lap gently with a lazy flow

caressing inspiration from my brow.

My ...

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Salt spray the sensation you’d think to miss,

the heaving deck your only anchor

as the sun rises on set sails

and the canon roars.

A shout into oblivion, the black

trajectory of the missile falling

short, creating a fountain of brine

while the mate mouths

oaths and the captain shouts.

Blood on the decks as all hands

wield mops and pails ...

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That Google thrill;

seeing your name overtake

drain clearers, garage owners,

estate agents, even playwrights.

Habit had to be fed,

became second nature.

Alarmingly easy. Just change

a location, you’re on to a winner.

Imitation built a growing

reputation; flattery,

offers to publish

a first collection. That

MA in creative writing.

Creativ...

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I felt nothing at first.
Just the loud crack of a distant whip, the echo
Bouncing through the crumbling streets and fetid alleyways,
Painted with the stench of unintentional sacrifices
And scorched by the Middle Eastern sun.
He can see me, this one, even now,
Staring down the lens like a wayward sailor scanning distant rocks for Sirens,
Tempting him to death.
He’s watching me cr...

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For two days and two nights we architect a megalomania

in defiance.  Disguised in stray abandon amongst oblivious streets.

Scavenging on Oxford Street you buy skinny black jeans and converse.

Just like mine. We shamelessly crawl sex shops for new toys

and sully Soho square’s benches with marijuana smoke. 

You recite poetry loudly, off the cuff of your duffle coat,

none o...

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The magician cat.

Folds it front feet underneath

where they disappear

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At the door you turned back to me
And smiled so I would believe.
You said you would be back by November
And it wouldn’t be another lonely winter
Without you.

Well, the leaves on the ground already came
And a cold grey sky is all that remains.
 

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This is an ekphrasis on L'Agonie by Felicien Rops.

Sonnet on Death

Demons clutch at your rib-cage ladder

Grasping the arteries, choking your veins

Your bones are now fragile and ready to shatter

Oh dear, you're looking quite pale.

Your bloodless skin is as thin as paper

With cavities where worms slither in.

A struggling heart still resisting the Taker

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Shame - the greatest shambles; a sham

sex and guilt, beauty and modesty; molest

pitted in the stomach like acid,

spat swallowed pity, feeding starvation, an unquenchable famish, unsensibly sore

malnourished habits die hard, and lonely, resentfully

twisting and turning and diving, deprived

Lies for eyes, for ears and the nose; twitch

flies on the flesh of ...

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She  awoke,

And thought to find in the dawn’s smoky gloom

Her  friend;

But when she touched his damp cheek

He asked, ‘Are we still in our roles?’

His shuddering breath betrayed

The cold question.

‘Yes,’ she answered kindly, ‘we are.’

But ... Oh … Oh!

The light was cruel.

cbt

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Proligue

Okay fine folk of Write Out Loud……….and Nick! It was bin some time nuw that myself have written anything of umour, most of my werk pondering the more makaber of lifes machinashions. To this end, myselv have conduced a piece of wirk that gos some way into eleeviating the prejudism that is a-ssosiated with the more eldery of our populous. It is a werk that took some...

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Its cold outside

And Winter in my soul

The virgin snowfall numbs my thoughts

And my eyes and ears are frozen whole

Still cold and colder still

Passion frozen as passion will

And still the snowflakes fall

As silently as a snowflake tends to fall

As cold as cold can be

And the heat within means nothing

It’s the heat from a thousand words in moti...

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(A revised post from my vanished blogs)

Hers was a beauty shear and clear and clean!

 ……………A beauty born to break

 Across the placid sight of placid men,

 Leaving such lovely turbulence in its wake

 That they be never - ever - the same again.

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Over weight, plump face Full plate, In front of your, 40 inch plasma, The afore, the size of your waist, Metaphorically and physicaly so, As you gorge before, Images of underprivileged folk, As you waddle past skeletons, On the high street, I hope your feet meet, The position of what your eyes see. How is it, as the world turns Calories are burned quicker, somewhere in the t...

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The wind that blows
in a breath of time
has no borders,
as it sings new ways
like flickering waves
across the sea.

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                               Salsa Man

I got a rhythm deep inside o me

Dat mek me want ta move n dance

Mi go to da salsa class n tek a chance

I put mi dancin shoes on n me come alive

Dis bruddah is groovin n dats no jive

I got nothing ta say n I aint walkin

Im shakin my ting n lettin my feet do da talkin

Everybody is funkin n turnin up da heat 

Mi fee...

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Published on Halfway Down The Stairs

http://www.halfwaydownthestairs.net/index.php?action=view&id=429

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photo credit: Deanna  Towne 

 Anniversary

There is no clean slate

No blank sheets of paper

To write our lives on

We palimpsestically erase

And rewrite existence like

Painters whitewashing

And rescaping canvas

With images telling new stories

Often by another painter

In some other time

With alterative visions

No story is complete

Life goes on in ways

That...

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Sat here on facebook.
Should be writing poetry.
"Stop messing! Start work!"

Writing a haiku
about writing a haiku
is really boring.

She always uses
angry alliteration;
it's so annoying!

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The curtains a cocoon

which I have outgrown

crushing me

though I dare not venture out

my wings maimed

by an internal eternity.

Some days they open

as the sunlight shines

and snow falls

yet it remains a parallel world

a door to an unfamiliar universe

remains locked.

Even inside plates pile up

like a porcelain possum

they ...

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I have a rat in my kitchen

he's grinding his baccy stained teeth

under his sticky brown moustache

he strains his throat to speak

'you want to forget about this '

'incase you get old'

'you write a good poem, 

you have potential'.

He does a bit of this and that this rat

 nothing more penetrative

no less pervasive than a lull, a lazy dull

anulled

...

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HI Everyone,

We are Pros and Coms and are new to Write Out Loud. We were told this is were the cool poets hang out and we want to hang with you. From time to time we have 5 poetry slots on our bill if you are from liverpool and the surrounding area we would invite you to be a part of it. At the minute the only reward we can offer are the sound of clapping from our lovely audience. So please...

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inspired by a brilliant accidental radio remark

poverty?

families living in poverty?

no one lives in poverty now

me dad was killed in the mines in ‘49

me mum had to bring up seven of us on next to nowt

I was talking with another old boy

about how tough it was in our day

how easy these young folks ‘ave it now

‘I know, ‘ ‘e says, ‘if you was cold when I w...

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Recycled memories

Fall like snow

Smothered across

Degrees of memories

Bits of paper flutter

Along the pavement

Get to work, boy!

I would like to wish you all

A really nice, safe new year

Taking stock of empty boxes

Mrs Browne is a mean old witch.

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Clock

Thirty silent clocks;

estate of an elderly man

who hoarded time in his bungalow

until each piece was spent

and he became time bankrupt.

I choose one for its looks,

wind it up like an old fashioned toy,

smile at its resuscitated tick-tock.

But on my mantle piece

it clamours above TV and chat,

raising its voice when I leave the room

...

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Deep down

inside,

I have

no pride.

Deep down

inside,

I've taken

the slide.

Deep down

inside,

my soul

the demons

 have fried.

Deep down

inside.

Shirley Smothers

I wrote this poem a few years ago. I wrote it to be bad on purpose.

Someone rec...

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