Read and leave comments (4)

School Rules

 

I have to say with words I play so much it ires some peeps

But those that like to listen still are my friends for keeps

Whilst back in school my rhymes did rule too much from time to time

In English class acceptable but in History t'was viewed a crime

 

One day we had to tell the tale of Henry and his wives

But I was bored and pepped it up with a few comic as...

Read and leave comments (2)

stay
interested
in your
lover's
life
and it will
please
both of you
the same

Read and leave comments (0)

Banal keeps you on an even keel
It stops you from dreaming
But at least you can say
you got a fair deal

A dream can never go wrong, if you've never had one
If you make a mistake
It is only you that has another chip off the old soul
Only you need know you've just scored an own goal

There is safety in stasis and excitement in change
Sadly those who choose safety often end up deranged

Read and leave comments (2)

Welcome to New York, the city that never weeps.

 

The man leaps and crucifies the sky

 

 

then he drops

 

 

then he stops

 

 

and doesn't rise.

 

Read and leave comments (8)

I'm performing one of my children's poems: 'Queasy Calypso' which I have now decided is highly topical.

This performance was filmed at The Manchester Book Market on Sunday 19th July 2009 during a torrential downpour. However, Ian Daley, of route publishing, who filmed the performance, has done an excellent job of editing so that the rain appears to have been especially planned to enhance the piece...

Read and leave comments (2)

I want to right click you
save you as an  emotion
put you on the desktop
where keyboard and mouse
are the best friends
she had no idea
I had right clicked her
saved her to my desktop
I started with her painted toes
her red shoes
ran a tracker ball up her leg
admired her fabric threads
you cant right click girls
and save em to your desktop
in an ideal world
I would right click you
save you to my desktop
so I could ...

Read and leave comments (4)

What shall l say?What can l do?Just going for another job interview.Heart racingMouth dryI'm starting to feellncredibly shyAs l sit in the corridorWaiting to dieWhat shall l say?What can l do?Just going for another job interviewAcross from meModels all threeDressed to killCleavages that thrillNipples that stand to attentionWhat shall l say?What can l do?Just going for another job interviewSmiles t...

Read and leave comments (7)

 

 

Revenge is a dish

best served cold

 

Even if it broke your heart

totally

I would try and advise you to

just get on with

your life.

 

You may tell me

you loved him with

all your heart

I would still try and

tell you to just get on

with your life.

 

You may scream and rant until

I am blue in the face

but I would still try

to tell you

to just walk away

and carry on

wi...

Read and leave comments (7)

A sTaRDuzTCLusTeR oF

bubBa buBBa BurzTinG

wiD xpressioN thirsty wonderLusTnesSs

ANTI ABRUPTLY erupted

ON2 the custard cusp

oV aLL thumbaLenAesqUe

ballerenA NoumenA

nimbus dwarf star galaxies

sphericaL tuniverseZ

pLuZ

planetZ

earth

anD the dynamic

dearTH oF sentient

biengZ that constituTeZ

thE aLL oV uS

trusting iN

thE utterLiLLy L...

Read and leave comments (0)

Poets in Need

(in partnership with the Campaign for Real Poetry and Poet Relief)

 

“Have you ever wondered what it must be like to be laughed at and ridiculed. Difficult eh? Not nice. But how much worse to be ignored and unrecognised?”

 

 While you’re sitting there wallowing in the self-satisfaction that comes from not giving a toss what people think about you, mired to the armpits in TV soa...

Read and leave comments (8)

I

When all’s fast, unforgiving, banana

my eyes are dry and rattling aubergine

in bony orbits asking:  tomato,

give us sleep! Give my head peace! Cucumber

but, sure, you’re a long time dead, raspberry,

and not a long time living pineapple

 

II

We acknowledged each other pineapple

there was a sort of kiss of hands banana

we ourselves may not have kissed raspberry

but our hands twined tog...

Read and leave comments (4)

Please do not put me in a rhyme
leave me out of your schemata
leave my name and broken
ways for some other tongue
for some other days.

Just write about that which
you know and do not
speculate or pitch dramatic
verse into the space I have left.

I've taken my books from
the dusty shelves and
stepping over your out-stretched legs
I leave the room you've already locked
I steal away from easy rhyme.

Read and leave comments (6)

Season-ticket holders, origami folders

Kite fliers, Ebay buyers,

Dog walkers, obsessive talkers

Gym haunters, clothes flaunters

 

Looking for more

All looking for more

 

Speed demons, speed dating dream-ons,

Romance websites, gloomy club lights

Deeds in darkness, deeds in light,

Deeds of shame, deeds of delight.

 

Multi-festival attenders, Facebook thousand-frienders,

Write Out Loud ...

Read and leave comments (7)

 

Sometimes it’s hard

Not to listen to voices

‘Tart’ whispers one

‘Mutton dressed as lamb’

Another

Ruffled feathers

Freeze for a moment

Clipped, one too many times

But the shoes have bonded

And they are dancing

To a different beat

She smiles serenely

With 2 finely varnished nails

Salutes the world

And ‘totters’ precariously

Onto a ...

Read and leave comments (19)

 

Last Night I Heard a Squawk

 

Last night I heard a squawk of death

From the tree outside my window

And I thought -

A pigeon in the fox's jaws.

But … can a fox reach a roosting pigeon?

Not likely.

Was the pigeon low in the shrubbery?

Not likely.

Must have been an owl.

A pigeon in an owl's claws

Gagging for life.

But … the screams were strangled abruptly.

...

Read and leave comments (5)

Blue hands clapped wildly, as if

applauding the opening night

of a new hit Broadway musical show,

trying to sting them back to life.

Millions of feet puncture holes

in the virgin snow on a New York winters morn,

like a magnificent herd of wilder beast,   

stampeding across the open savannah

of a Central Park, bathed by a fading neon moon.

A few blocks away a xylophone of icicles

cascad...

Read and leave comments (2)

The sparrow speaks

 

The middle path weeps a thousand tears

As a thousand fears are laid to rest

was I a good man did I pass the test?....

while God and the devil wept about their failed marriage

the child of neutrality saw clarity and carried on living

forgiving everyone who had ever hurt him

knowing that one day they would turn to dust

and without trust they would ...

Read and leave comments (1)

Hello people...

Bit of a random request really, but I need food for thought!

Read and leave comments (1)

PLAYING OLD HARRY

(A counter charge to Andrew Motion's.

poem on Harry Patch)

 

A road-mender might well be 'Patch'

But cruel joke on a Squaddie,

Sent forward yet, still leaking life

From scarcely patched-up body.

Despatched on politician's whim

To corner foreign patch;

Earning mention in despatches

Or meeting swift despatch. 

It's Tommy this and Tommy that

But stark truth came from H...

Read and leave comments (1)

Hi there

Attached is my recording of William Blake's London, with my own poem Lights Out as a coda.

The words to Lights Out are below.

Thanks!

The cameras whirr and purr

On graffiti-less walls

And a megaphone calls out:

THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR.

And I’m sure they can hear every secret I’ve kept

And the thudding of my every footstep

Everyone’s scared of being scared

Regretting ...

Read and leave comments (0)

Throughout history

man has sought the light.

To emerge from the darkness

after the twi-light

hours where nothing seems to reign

yet something heals the pain of anguish.

In baldness of day when

the colour-dyes have drained away

from the mass of hair in all its glory

stripped, leaving stricken souls

to see the light in a brand new

sun-lit way. Forward!

Read and leave comments (7)

Peaches golds and different shades of oranges and blacks,

As the palm trees cast a shadow over the sky's lilacs,

The sea was completely flat,

As I watched on the beach from where I sat,

I watched the earth submerge into sky,

The sun cast a wave then said goodbye,

A bird sat amongst the palm tree leaves,

You can just make out the movement as it breathes,

This is truly a day I shall never ...

Read and leave comments (2)

I can’t believe I’m still awake.

I’ve had a cup of horlicks

And counted the lamb chops in the fridge

Yet here I am

Dreaming of dreaming,

Listening to R.E.M but just not gettin’ it.

 

That can of Red-Bull was a mistake.

Read and leave comments (2)

a curse - for the mildly irritating

 

For those who’ve meddled, ired or slighted,

For those who’ve peeved or pinched or blighted

Or fibbed or fooled or faked - or worse

Upon them ever be this curse:

 

May your earnest endeavours all end in farce.

May your nostrils migrate to just south of your a**e.

May all your teabags get stuck in the spout.

May your luck and your toilet roll always ru...

Read and leave comments (13)

When I close my eyes
and stop breath
space becomes wider, like falling,
wider than the grey clouds
spread, uniform,
to the end of the world
like mud in water,
wider than you and I,
and loneliness is falling backwards
through the darkness of a void present
with this high pitched sound
of a whistle between two wires
so stretched that touching cuts.
I fall backwards, sightless,
in a dreamlike slow motion,
like not ...

Read and leave comments (3)

Audio file

Read and leave comments (0)

 On  the nineteenth of December,2001,

 They arrested my husband,

 Broke down our door,

 Me,in my night clothes,

 Guns, in the kids' faces,

"No one should have to put up with this",

"Shut your mouth!,you fucking terrorist!"

 

 My children...wet theirselves,

 Their Dad,forced down to the floor,

 Knees...pressed hard into the small of his back,

 'Til hum...

Read and leave comments (3)

Good blue bulging from the wrists

decadently serving china red,

meth formed sugar cubes piece a vase

to water the sad brain.

 

Good blue voices choral a record stack

sipping coffee cried in the back throat

of the jilted and the spilt

water of a sad stake.

 

Good blue to the lover's back

hurricaned in soles clipped

and frustrating on those lips; frozen

bold sad statues.

 

Good blue i...

Read and leave comments (0)

Finding My Way…

I lay here upon this earth, this earth I call my home. Were all apart of this story, apart of this tale

All along this journey, No ones to stay, where ever were going

What Is the way The earth is our mother she gives and she takes, She puts us all to sleep and in her light

We'll awake While we think we witness We're part of the scene, This never ending tale Where will it le...

Read and leave comments (0)

A night featuring London's poetry slam champions battling it out for two places in the BBC Radio 4!

Poetry Slam semi-final draw.

Read and leave comments (2)

 

I want one on my face

And one down south

A dog on my back

And a hamster in my mouth

Put me on your lap

And talk filth in my ear

Whilst you cheese grate my forehead

And ram a vase up my rear

Take a soldering iron to my nipples

Sandpaper my vag

Throw me onto the end of an opened badge

I want to feel pain

There’s no time for sorrow

Fuck m...

Read and leave comments (12)

 

I loved my rabbits so much

I set them free

Opened the cage

Threw away the key

 

Two shakes of a cotton tail

One left right left of a nose

And back inside

I found them

A crater the size of

A corn circle

Dug

In my not so

Pristine lawn

 

MORAL?

 

If you really, really love someone

Lock them up

 

                                                                           Or

 

C...

Read and leave comments (4)

I have recently stated how difficult I think it is to write effectively about beautiful things. Perhaps this is my best effort.

Read and leave comments (0)

Here's one I wrote a couple of years ago, but have resurrected in light of the recent unveiling of the sculpture in rememberance of 7/7....

 

THE RELUCTANT SCULPTURE

 

Torn edges sparkle like wet sap in the summer sun,

Sequined edges to the red and blue fabric of the sculpture.

The pure symmetry of its’ form has been dispersed in abstract torture

Casting off its’ purpose with helpless distr...

Read and leave comments (0)

A Poetess worth words

 

In my shoe I put the pilgrims flower,

Yellow heart and purple petal

The little star , Speedwell.

Through wooded lanes I climb,

Where rowan tree and cowslip

Bloom in froth of cream

And scent the air with

Procreation’s smell. Soft thunder

Of the waterfall, urgent torrent,,

Pillar of white liquid life ,a strand

On the mountain’s slatey shoulder

Where it break...

Read and leave comments (9)

A profligate professor peruses those before

Wide-eyed absorbed disciples

Whose souls cry out for more

Fixed upon his every word

And notion that he spews

Malleable, impressionists

His mind constructs their views

 

Such power has this libertine, they won’t identify

Their naïve thirst deludes

The truth passes them by

For more they want and more they’ll get

Far more than they have paid

T...

Read and leave comments (1)

                        “………And I Say Unto Thee”

 

 

 

            There is a coward clinging like

A child upon the breast,

His mindset beset with difficulty

Of shaking other hands,

     His plans weak,

                        Weak while sat

Upon his mothers lap ��" tethered

To the apron of a vacant hookers

Station ��" a vagrant of a mirth

Where worth for fellow nations

Like the hol...

Read and leave comments (2)

They tuck you up, your mum and dad
They like to, and they do.
They fill you with all the love they had
And add some extra, just for you.

For they were tucked up in their turn
Wrapped up warm as a duffle coat,

And quickly given Tixilix

If tickles appeared in their tiny throat

Man hands on happiness to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
So be as tactile as you can,
And don't miss any hugs yoursel...

Read and leave comments (5)

Old Photographs

 

I came across

An old photo of you

Today.

Torn around the edges

And faded

Now

As old photos 

Stored and forgotten

Are.

 

I was smiling

And you looked

Proud.

Your arm was wrapped

Protectively around my

Shoulders

Our baby cradled warm

And secure against my

Breast.

 

How could we know

Then, what the future

Held?

The years not yet

Lived, stretching out

Ah...

Read and leave comments (8)

Summer.

 

The monochrome water colour sky

Reflecting the waters of tears from time.

Blood diluted

But only the blood shared by our veins

Despair spilled overtime

Broken.

 

The complicit silent bonds disintegrated

I didn’t see this coming.

Ironing ironic as a thoughtful moment

Imparts an awareness

Warmed by the weak summer sun

Piercing the crying sky.

 

Wings dry soaring to join ...

Read and leave comments (4)

You tumble home-

weaving your transient web

around my heart.

Planting silver weed at my feet,

rings of regret on my fingers.

Am I immune?

Even now I breathe you in

and my sighs ripple through the air

Could I forgive your careless neglect,

as you petition and plead with petals and perfume

and your kisses freckle my skin.

I look into your eyes

for a glimpse of what it means-

I guess it'...

Read and leave comments (9)

Stillness, frost, a clear sky before dawn.
All sleeping.
A small finch settles, lifts its tail, begins to sing a brief note,
Repeating it.
Like a heartbeat, the rising falling rhythm of a distant train
Lays down a base.
The birds mark off their notes, counting uneven seconds.
Seagulls sailing over.
Trills of song, little scoops, like flower garlands iced around a cake.
Silence.
Taking their own time.
Each ...

Read and leave comments (2)

 

Broken ��" The transformers

 

When I came to South Africa

I packed little information

And what I saw and what I learned

Gave little cause for celebration

 

What I saw on arrival

Gave me cause for some surprise

The manmade heap rising in leaps

Echoed the miner’s cries

 

The people here, it seems to me

Are eager to transform

But given expectations

Change will only slowly come

 

...

Read and leave comments (2)

new poesy... its the 1st thing I've written since I moved to Bristol, yikes. rather than me expaining it away, lemme know how you feel about the tone of it. its for saying out loud really so im gunne try and do a recording when i get chance. thanks! sally x x

 

 

Cleansed

 

Murky brain border control says

no to crossing thresholds today.

Only the slow procrastinating dance

the stale pavan...

Read and leave comments (5)

=======================
Did a Spirit Knock
On Rossbawn's Walls?
=======================

Read and leave comments (5)

Read and leave comments (3)

on the hills yonder
cloudragonmouth lays

his head descending down the valley
a black peril
spawned by the wind

he floats as fire burns

born of chance, his image etched on the hillside
scorching the grass

***

silencing the trickling
                       liquid
                             harmonic rhythm
he disenchants rainbows with his blazinglare

a redkite hover frenzy
cloudragonmouth swoops

looming over the ...

Read and leave comments (2)

Here’s what the stats are telling us happened last month:

1.5 million hits 2,171 log-ins to the site 117 new events put on gig guide 45 events updated on gig guide 27 new poets added their profiles to the Poets' Showcase 289 poets' profiles where updated on the showcase 1,530  ‘comments’ were made 282 Blogs were made

 

Here’s the latest chart on which co...

Read and leave comments (0)