Donations are essential to keep Write Out Loud going    

My Gazinta

I bought a pack of 2 cheesecakes yesterday.  When I got them home I realised just what a triumph of marketing over product they were.

Each of the tubs sat on a transparent plinth inside the cardboard packaging giving the impression they were 50% bigger than they really were.

Rather than feel aggrieved though, I started to give some thought as to how I might adapt the idea, making my gaz...

Read and leave comments (0)

Also by John Coopey:

Daily Mail | Cottage Sleaze | Hugging Candles | The Masterly Strategy of Inactivity (Not In My Name) | I'm The Urbane Statesman |

50,000

50,000 faces lined the streets
From Deansgate to Whitworth Park.
 
50,000 socialist workers,
Greens
Communists,
Mothers
And disabled all lined the streets.
 
50,000 marching the save the NHS
Protest against the bedroom tax
And cuts in everything
From trees to jobs.
 
50,000 people protesting against
Having to community work everyday
...

Read and leave comments (4)

Poetry Competition - £120 - £60 - £25 etc

Wirral Ode Show - Poet of the Year

 

More details can be found below

 

http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=38886

 

@ Gallaghers Pub and Barbers

20 Chester Street

Birkenhead

Wirral

CH41 5DQ

 

4 minutes to read/perform your poetry

Independent judges - All Poets Welcome

 

One of the longest running poetry competit...

Read and leave comments (0)

Also by Chris Co:

ThePoetry Spoke on Facebook | ThePoetry Spoke September 19th - Poetry Night & Guest |

Trash Overhead

Trash Overhead 

I live in the desert on my own little farm near the damn secret airbase where they do their testing.                                                                                                      

My grandpa saw your nuclear tests in the 50s shook our walls and gave him cancer.                                                                                         ...

Read and leave comments (0)

Also by NICK ARMBRISTER:

Zeus | Mind Men | Italia | Silence and Beauty | EDGE 2 | Dead Man |

air force lifeufosalienssecretsfarm landcrashevents

My Old Soul

My old soul has sung before.
It has lain many hands in mine;
I reach for yours, and link it to he
who needs. He stands in Bergen-
Belsen in the rain, waiting his turn
to expire. He takes hands he cannot
save and sighs and breathes
the gas. He is a petal;
I see inside his heart. I love you as
he and they who follow down
the stairs. My hand takes yours and hers
and his. Be c...

Read and leave comments (2)

Poem for a Barmaid

(Somewhat tongue in cheek but here we go . . .)

 

You’re not expecting the thunderbolt to hit

Then when it does it hits you like a brick

One minute innocent and unmoved

The next incensed with passion and feeling bemused

 

Lovely face and beautiful eyes

The curve of your body is no surprise

Your smile affects me so, I’m feeling weak

And like a fool I can h...

Read and leave comments (0)

Also by Steve Higgins:

The Cat that lived Across the Road | Disco Nights | Some Love | When the Holiday is Over | Poem For A Friend |

girlgirl crushlove

last thoughts

slowly decaying from the inside out..
sleep shall come to me that I have no doubt about, the ticking of the clock as it drowns out the noise of my slowing beating heart. It entwines it's self to a memory of what was my life a distant spell upon the horizon where the shallow graves of misspent souls linger in the shadows of the moon light sky, where the magpie birds captures it's prize, where ...

Read and leave comments (0)

Also by Anna Grinter:

A Lovers Mirage | visions of beauty | A poets words | forever more | for you shine like the sun |

Damsons at Bilberry Hall SE 077 219

Damsons at Bilberry Hall  SE 077 219

Blue velvet drupes with a white dusty bloom hang from scrubby hedge shrub

Germinating from a discarded stone years ago finding a favourable niche

Growing in the Quickthorn marking the edge of cleared moorland along the stony track

Some early ripened have become windfalls eaten by birds and insects on the dusty ground

Dry crazed stones add...

Read and leave comments (0)

Also by Graham Ramsden:

Walking in the snow |

Night time colours.

On a hot night when sleep is full of sluts and the train is heading towards Paris I sit in a bathtub and bathe my hands so I can write heavy words with soft palms. Standing and yielding with my head high I was gentle in my strength listening to blues guitar. One more time in the bathtub with a beautiful lady who tells me sweet words that mean nothing so don't ask. She's bad for you my mother sa...

Read and leave comments (0)

Goals in Perspective

When it’s going wrong

It’s him against ten

A boy can have the boots

Of a twenty year old

Can have the same boots

Since he was twelve

A young boy can only reach so far

Can only be seen to be trying

 

When it’s going good

He has nothing to do

Swinging from the bar

Excited and animated

Trumpeting breath

A young man

Awaiting a whistle of r...

Read and leave comments (1)

Also by CathyLCrabb:

The Prime of Life |

Transit

Unsure, Unopposed

lying in my arms

fleeting captivity

of bittersweet blossom

transient beauty as it falls

melting into the ground

and you’re gone

 

© Katypoetess 2013

 

 

Read and leave comments (1)

Also by Katy Megan:

Ouroborus | The Best |

lovelove poemlove poetry

The Makings of Kings and Pawns

The Makings of Kings and Pawns

 

 

     Would you like to play a game?

The computer asked through sterile blips

In the soft tones of a lure,

     I thought of tic tac toe

And Wargames but then,

I figured,

Do I really want to be

Placed belligerently without

Care or warning

Within the new Bauhaus,

     ‘Games’ are not what I’m about’

I repli...

Read and leave comments (2)

Also by Noetic-fret!:

Cut! | Headlong |

On Sandal's Field Of Ghosts

On Sandal’s Field Of Ghosts.

 

Mist hangs over fields -

ahead, the castle looms where

died the Duke Of York.

 

At the willows three

a chill permeates the air

and touches nerve ends.

 

Here fell the Yorkist

hope – body mutilated

and dragged through the mud.

 

Decapitated.

His head sent on to York to

top a traitors spike.

 

I...

Read and leave comments (0)

Also by Ian Whiteley:

dust | Cycle Of The Scarecrow | A Scarecrow Dreams Of Leaving | Damocles | stroke |

battle of wakefield 1460deathduke of yorkghostshaikusandal castle

Durban



Rain, beautiful, cooling
so  pacifying,  relentless.
Crowded  green trees dripping
tears  and  dew-drops,
spattering  in  shiny  puddles
around  bricks,  sticks  and
bits  of  floating  paper.
Amphibians  blink.
The  gnome  carelessly  throws  a  cast
hoping  a  tadpole - for - tea   passes  by.
Red  hat  in  the  downpour  shining.
Bending,  sharp  leaves, dripping,
...

Read and leave comments (0)

Winter

 

Warm memories of a long time ago

The street scene resembling a tableau

Whiter than white silent night glow

Temperature must be 10 below

Sloshing through the Arctic floe

The road salt is running low

Sliding down the street like it's Skid Row

As I walk in dog shit

Past the bloodstains in the snow

 

Read and leave comments (1)

RNCM Canteen

 
 
 
In the citadel
sounds clamber over each other,
scrambling against walls.
 
Silent instruments in shaped coffins,
rattle the dark, pall bared
by those who will resurrect them.
 

Read and leave comments (2)

Also by Neil Fawcett:

Pub Singer | Cliff |

Lines of support for Anne Feradi

 (From the ninety thousand member

(year of 2012) Celestial Abortees

Feminist  Society)

 

Dear Anne,

                                 

So, certain girlie-sprigs were sorted,

Selected, gendered and aborted

Sorted from mothers and next of kin

On the ground of being feminine?

 

Bravo! we here are all supporting

Selecting females for aborting.

You ...

Read and leave comments (2)

Forgiveness

We are wronged by people daily,
but to not forgive is unconscionable.
The Universal King had died for all;
for in eternity's view, we're pardonable.

He has given absolute amnesty
to everyone who has accepted Him.
Make no mistake about this unmerited immunity -
Grace's favor (over the course of Life) wears thin.

Death is inevitable, and our spirits
this mor...

Read and leave comments (1)

Also by Joseph J. Breunig 3rd:

September 11, 2001 | Visionless? | Danger of Zealous Fervor | Eternity | A Sinner Like Me | His Blessings | My Proverbs 31 Wife | Spiritual Irony | For Upon My Head, Nothing Gold Can Stay | Enjoy This Season |

christian poetrypoetryfaithbreunigForgiveness

The Mousetrap

My cupped hands warm

and still the shake

of heavy breasts

 

that bear the weight

of all the sex

that we’ve performed.

 

I make a guess,

that with encores,

the tally breaks

 

three thousand -  four!

We’ll overtake

The Mousetrap yet

 

you darken red

and say there’s more.

I understate

 

your current score.

 

 

...

Read and leave comments (4)

Soliloquy of the damned.

Soliloquy of the damned.
 
Is it not, such a bitter sweet paradox that it is only in our deepest moments of despair
that the seeds of compassion already inherent in our souls gain the propensity to germinate. Then in our healing permitted to flower.
 
Would it be the case that without rebuilding we could be whole or must we first be broken to be completed.  Are we left searc...

Read and leave comments (6)

Also by Ged Thompson:

Waiting for the duster. |

Catching my Breath

Why does my hurt come of late
from others who never stop
to think that their acts come from their own self-hate.

Cover-ups and broken promises,
continue to make my life a living hell.

The heat so hot,
with no shade in sight.

Worse off is the mirage
I see the in the distance
of people posing to care.
Saying words that only desperate fools
like me want to hear.

...

Read and leave comments (2)

Though I'm not a Shropshire lad

When every lad and every lass
that ever shared my bed
must find beneath the graveyard grass
a place to lay their head,
beneath their sheets, bereft of breath,
then shall I shed a tear
and sketch a stanza on their death
and drink another beer.

 

Read and leave comments (5)

Also by Marnanel Thurman:

tealice |

ImproviXation #107

ImproviXation #107 

Some days I wish I could bend my knees

Lean backwards and wail like a saxophonist

But I know anyone within earshot

Would hear that wrong

There are days

I feel like screaming

But I don’t dare

I’m afraid of what the

Vibrations might cause

On days like that I like to clamp on headphones

Crank up volume on John Coltrane

Archie Shepp

Alb...

Read and leave comments (0)

AylerCarterColtraneEmel SherzadImproviXing ChangeMarsalisMurraysaxophonesSheppwailing

A Lone Tree Survives

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lone tree survives

In Man's greed to make money

Is our own downfall

Read and leave comments (0)

Also by Shirley Smothers:

Alliteration Poem About Anger |

downfallHakiuman'sTree

Ineffable

 
Like the internet;
the pre-disposed characters
of life and love  - coloured with
asterisks, italics;
pressed flowers of lies;
the fingertip and the keyboard,
untying, tying bootlaces to trip over;
there is nothing really known.
 
Try to forget the sun;
the mortal warmth,
and your figurative too –
everyone disappears;
authority or not, th...

Read and leave comments (4)

Also by Marianne Daniels:

Punk | Tetris |

From Beyond a Dream

The ballet dancers swim outside my doors,
And pluck at scarlet fruits behind my eyes;
They pirouette in seven’s, eight’s and nine’s
Then drown in reddened lakes in twenty-four’s.
Their sodden tutu’s, drink them up through straws
And on their bloated bodies, here, do dine -
They make the most delicious cherry wine
So do not think their death was without cause!

Then from their shelled rema...

Read and leave comments (5)

Also by Simon Austin:

In Limbo | September Sisters | She, Mourning |

dreamfantasylucidnightmarepoem

A Cold Filthy Metropolis

From Plush Green Fields and abundant forests

To sleepy hamlets and hazy meadows

Sprouted monsters in the sky to smoke and choke

Factories of the Industrial age to dictate and invoke

 

Soon villages became towns, and towns became cities

Communities swallowed up, the ruling classes showing no pity

Slumlords charged extortionate rent

Working class relied on charity ...

Read and leave comments (1)

Industrial Revolutionworking classwage slavery

Speeding on through Somewhereshire

Unfamiliar livery

Adorns familiar trains

Myriad trees, multi-shaped

Silent window frames

Station signs unreadable

A metal phonetic blur

Speeding on through Somewhereshire

On a train to who knows where

 

TK Maxx and Staples

Retail worship shrines

Ears burst in tunnels

As beneath the soil we dive

Conservatories and patios

Buzzing power lines

Tearing on th...

Read and leave comments (5)

Also by Marksy:

Please keep on the grass | My Automare |

rappersretailsalesshopstagstrain journeystrainstravellingtrees

Fragment

The following story was related to me by a poet, in the autumn of the year 2013.  The poet had retired to bed after partaking of herbal tea and cigarettes, from the effects of which she fell asleep, just as she was contemplating the opening lines from Kubla Khan.

 

The poet remained in a deep sleep until awoken by the radio alarm clock, at which point she began to experience the most vi...

Read and leave comments (7)

Jousting

 

"Lances, shields and armour plate?

They're long since out of stock.

The ancient art of jousting, mate -

It's taken a bit of a knock."

 

 

 

Read and leave comments (2)

Also by Gareth Glyn Roberts:

Hygiene hats |

Creative Input Required

David Farrow is looking for Writers, Poets, Illustrators and artists (especially those who work with children but not exclusively) who would like to participate in some voluntary work.  This starts with going along to a brainstorming session to try and come up with a creative, alternative and enagaging theme to help with David's writing project.

The project is being set up based on this:
...

Read and leave comments (2)

Also by Stockport WoL:

Stockport WOL Prompt 9/9/13 | September Collage Poem - The Sun |

FADING BLOOM

Godfrey Bloom

Too quick to quip

To a waiting room

Upset UKIP

 

But much worse -

And infinitely seedier,

Is the "outraged" curse

Of a modern media.

 

Manipulating words like 'sluts'

Removing proper context,

Minus any 'ifs' and 'buts'...

Who knows whatever's on next? 

 

You cannot hope

To bribe or twist - (they say!)

The British ...

Read and leave comments (5)

Also by M.C. Newberry:

GRAVE DOUBTS! | LITTLE AND LARGE - AND LLOYD! | SYRIA - MAKING A DIFFERENCE | AL ASSAD | A NAVY MAN |

Interest Only

 

all square within the confines
of the cask conditioned discothèque
from without my fitful anti-sleep
came the wasps 
and creeping hands 
that spidered across the ceiling and floor
unsure of the etiquette for trembling
delirium
yet, for three pages, I was
in the clear, gone, beyond the provincial
boots of leaden grit, though by the fourth
the int...

Read and leave comments (3)

Also by Paul Sands:

Mutuality | written in the dirt | shelter '76 |

PPIbanksanticipationdisappointment

It's different

It's Thursday morning in Asylum Link.

The English class has a visitor,

Community policeman Phil.

Kindly, friendly Phil.

His honest face has our attention.

He smiles, they smile, we all smile.

Roads – safety – cars – safety -

licences and rules – safety – bikes – safety.

How to be safe, in a nice warm voice

in a nice, warm country.

Good old Phil.

Ra...

Read and leave comments (7)

Also by Dave Bradley:

Keats |

Liverpool Tate

''This machine kills fascists'' ...

''this is not a pipe'' ...

''Policeman accused of 'inappropriate' treatment of Whitney Houston's corpse''...

which, if any, are considered Art? 

 

A repost:

 

The gallery

Someone left luggage
in a pile on the floor,

I lifted it up
to a hook by the door.
 

A crowd had then gathered,
and to my lasting surprise
t...

Read and leave comments (5)

The BEX Live 2013-POETS CORNER

I am performing the BIRMINGHAM TOWN HALL on Saturday 21st September 2013 at the following times:

1pm

2pm

3pm

 

At the POETS CORNER- Come and find what I am about

check out:http://blackexposurelive.co.uk/marcia-calame/

Read and leave comments (0)

Also by Marcia Calame:

The Comedy Variety Showcase |

Would They Have Listened, Then?

 

Words fall cheap to unhearing ears. Some, if not most books, digital and broadcast media will disappear into the future without a receptive audience. Sad.
 
 
 
Would they have listened, then?
 
.
 
 
Would  they have listened, then?
when his voice gone cold   
His words a faded digital imprint.
Without the aid of compassion or curiosity  
...

Read and leave comments (2)

Don't Give Away Your Loved Ones!

No need to give away the loved ones,
Those who are near you or far away,
And those who are almost invisible,
But very often so dear and desirable,
They come into your life as the sun ray.

When all is good and in the brightness,
Your life is burning like a fire.
Why do you worry about happiness?!
If all comes true and do not tire!

But when the evil of caustic words,
The...

Read and leave comments (1)

loved ones

Tunnels

Tunnelling in the dirt below my feet
I've been digging here all week
carving this hollow so deep
today, I hit bone

This is heavier work than I imagined
surveyed the ground from beyond the fence
And we both agreed that this was right
but now the toil is breaking me apart

As a new day rises
I'm bawling in the shower
never knew I could feel this pain
with the taps turned up to ten
nev...

Read and leave comments (2)

break updepressionlowmoving onsadness

Empty century

Stay with me boy we gonna

run tonight

like flies do run

burning after touching the light bulb

 

stay with me, 'cause  it's an empty and sad little century

i might have tears in my eyes

but i don't wanna see

just don't want to see

 

Right on time

pain arrived

why would we

stroll apart?

 

Walk with me now we never

had any time

it...

Read and leave comments (1)

emptycenturylondon

What do you eat?

 

What do you eat?
 
I eat carrots, I Eat turnips, cauliflower, lettuce leaves
I eat sweetcorn, I eat parsnips, I eat sprouts and I eat peas
I eat mange tout, three, four, five, six and seven
Throw in four tomatoes and that makes eleven
 
I eat apples and bananas, grapes and pears
Seeds in seedless tangerines make me bloody swear
I eat gooseberries and ra...

Read and leave comments (0)

Veggie food eat

Independence Day

Here we go -

Dredging her room and netting the hairdryer, straightners, bulging cases of clothes and IT, dismantling the computer desk, loading buckets and bleach

To squeeze the car skyscraper high

And driving through screwdriver rain

The length of England.

Scrubbed and kitted

The past, present and future  knitted with cuddly toy and pillowed dreams,

The bed now empt...

Read and leave comments (9)

family

Turning Over Tables

(Poem dedicated to the Liverpool Tate art gallery which has chosen to buy and display this piece of abusive exploitative art)

 

 

Sometimes I wonder if I'm wearing the right glasses

wrong glasses

wrong lens

or  wrong vision?

 

All around me

people see things

differently -

depersonalise

rationalise

intellectualise

 

forgive

the unfo...

Read and leave comments (18)

abuseexploitationintellectualised art gone wrongloss of humanity

Metaphor

No longer do we slice, strangle

bludgeon or burn victims

upon our godly altars

live offerings for appeasement or power.

Death for personal gain.

 

Yet behind intimate walls

with calculated cruelty

daily

we sacrifice child, partner, parent

upon slabs of self-interest.

Not much different -

‘Death for personal gain.’

                           ……...

Read and leave comments (5)

abuse

Shattered Saturday

Shattered Saturday.

 

I was shattered before I had started,

With yesterday bearing me down,

Just living my life in a circus,

And cast as the unhappy clown.

 

Of course we have days to remember,

And days that are better forgot,

There are days that are studies of rapture,

And days that are certainly not.

 

Yesterday started with promise,

A shini...

Read and leave comments (1)

Also by Ian Gant:

TEDDYBEAR |

Phoenix

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” 

Jack Kerouac, On the Road

 

for Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty

 

“The only people f...

Read and leave comments (6)

🌷(2)

Jack KerouacOn the Road

Mickey Finn(Awld Lancy Poem) Anonymoose

As a was goin tut traycle shop I met mi awld swaytart Mickey Finn

An wot dust think e sed tu mi ?

Wilt cumpt funrel if a dee ?

An a thowt a bit an a thowt a bit

an a sed Aye a might us well

 

Eeee an he did dee  

Thi all cried but a laughed 

Thi all wore black but a wore red

Thi all brought flowers but a spit on is grave

An that was the end of ma awld swa...

Read and leave comments (1)

Years

Years

Stacked up

Sentinel like

A wall of defeat

On every side

Watching

Me

Microscopic me

Dictated to by giants

Running

The mouse on the wheel

No destination

A thirty year chasm is inside me

Ever famished

Its mouth is wide open

Wanting my surrender

Waiting for dominance

But......

A tiny crack has shown up

In the dam that...

Read and leave comments (4)

Weekend Wanderer

Weekend Wanderer

 

A buffeting breeze smashes the cobwebs from befuddled braincells

 

As the sun glints off gleaming chrome, many a mile away from home

As the flies embed in grins miles wide, over hill and tor, past idling tide

 

The sights, the sounds the scenery abounds

The sensations the feeling the tyres a squealing

 

My company on this voyage of spee...

Read and leave comments (3)

motorbikemotorbikingmotorcyclemotorcycling

Show more entries …

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Find out more Hide this message