The Echoes poetry competition to celebrate Write Out Loud's 20th anniversary is now open.  Judged by Neil Astley.

Competition closes in 45 days, 9 hours. Get details and Enter.

Paradoxical Voyage

 

Rocks will break the oceans top

and spill great sailors to their graves,

where hulls of ships become mere crop,

becalmed, at rest in coastal caves...

 

echoes of the timbers split

the wash and swell unseen by men,

blown by winds where lovers sit

whose hearts may never love again.

 

All men are wrecks upon some shore

their journey's spent, their cargo lost.

...

Read and leave comments (2)

🌷(2)

Advice from fallen angels

 

In a conference of murderers

who can you trust?

 

All those knives

all those lies

 

In an alliance of economies

where do you bank?

 

No place of residence

no character reference

 

With your back to the wall

you have only fists, feet and teeth

 

You fight with no rules

because they made the rules

 

When you're betrayed and hung out

you h...

Read and leave comments (3)

🌷(7)

A lull in the fighting

 

The guts of men writhe like landed eels,

they spill as if they never end.

 

Brains like cod roe and fat

wrapped in paper, torn apart.

 

A tooth, an eye and half a scalp.

An ear inside a mouth, its tongue split Scarlet blue.

 

And now, where metal forged its deadly path

beneath the forests open wound, sunlight feasts with flies.

 

The living men so nearly d...

Read and leave comments (9)

🌷(6)

Gift

 

It wasn't the morning that came,

nor the night that slipped from the sky,

but somewhere

between dreams

and my waking,

some other dimension

                                              passed by.

 

It wasn't an absence or presence,

nor the things with the traces of you,

but somewhere

between light

and moons crescent,

a ghost of you came

         ...

Read and leave comments (5)

🌷(9)

A Vermin Complete

 

"I thought I'd write something that offered hope then ripped it away, something more representative of real life"

 

They laughed at you,

your accent, your hair, your skin...

your knowledge of nothing

that they believed in.

 

Your best friend, a Jew

then Vikram the Sikh,

the Haggis, the Kosher,

the words you couldn't speak

 

Your smile now victorious,

wh...

Read and leave comments (1)

🌷(3)

One thing becomes another

 

He takes a sack of crumpled shirts,

a puzzle

and a gun.

He leaves with wigs and mini skirts

and "Chuzzlewit"

for fun.

 

He's in a Queue at "Waitrose",

transformed,

an amazon,

all selfish hair and Dickens prose,

prior signs

of him, all gone.

 

The High Street hums with laundries,

wringing out

their blood-stained cash,

all shiny fronts and ta...

Read and leave comments (4)

🌷(8)

Of sorrowful songs there is no fear

 

A face as smooth as glass

that time has fallen from,

tracks of tears have passed

the weight of years moved on.

 

Hands purpura petalled

fold like angels wings,

hair as gentle snowflakes

a midnight clear might bring...

 

a robin on a window ledge

a flower full in bloom,

the sacred vow of loves long pledge,

a summer gone too soon.

 

And yet the song ...

Read and leave comments (7)

Luddite

 

The reign is spitting mad

at the huddled masses yawning,

those maggots of the night

who hatch out in the morning,

 

it seeks to hold them under

to wash them clean away,

with their plastic bags of plunder

who'd miss them anyway?

 

They have no real accounts,

no footprint in the data

their sum to naught amounts

they are dead sooner than later.

 

They...

Read and leave comments (8)

Between two worlds

 

In dreams my father is with me.

He lives in his nightmare wide awake.

 

In dreams my legs buckle.

He falls in his nightmare.

 

I see him, we cannot speak,

his frail hands outstretched to his child.

 

His hanging mouth a cave

with all his life inside, forgotten.

 

Asleep in his bed like amber in linen,

withered by time and ages rot.

 

So we meet bet...

Read and leave comments (7)

At 5 o'clock a million things

 

It's five o'clock in the morning, it's -5,

my dog pisses as she stares at me.

 

Her steam, my breath as one

I think she's laughing.

I'm laughing, I'm wearing shorts and a beanie.

 

What is this,

eccentric englishness?

 

Stars in silver sulphide pierce a frigid sky

a Supernova vents it's dying throes.

 

She stands from squat,

the Blackbird sings

 

...

Read and leave comments (6)

🌷(8)

Are We The Only Living One's to Have Thought

 

Used to be

I could get all the news I need

on the weather report

 

When days

were long

and darker times came in short

 

I could gather all the news I need

on the weather report

 

Hey, I've got nothing to do today

but cry

and to cry and to cry and to cry

for what's going on

 

is this the only dying world

our greed's brought.

 

Most ...

Read and leave comments (9)

🌷(9)

Into the wild

 

Behind the songful thicket

where fields tuck in to ancient earth,

the tiny birds sing thanks to birth

 

trod and turned by boot and plough

much goes unseen by humans now.

 

Beyond the foamy edge

where breakers roll on timeless sand,

the wilding wind knows no command

 

stamped, then cleared by men and tides.

whose howls are drowned like griefs lost cries

...

Read and leave comments (5)

🌷(7)

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

Find out more Hide this message