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

Competition closes in 8 days, 16 hours. Get details and Enter.

Recent Comments

47

It’s Trump-tastic, policy elastic
What he said yesterday
Ain’t what he said today
What’s today’s favourite word?
What’s today’s favourite steaming turd?
It’s tariffs, tariff-tastic
Tariffs on cheap Chinese plastic
China, nowhere finer
For your cheap Chinese plastic MAGA tat
Your cheap Chinese plastic MAGA hat
Meanwhile here’s a pile for the EU
Meanwhile here’s a pile for the UK too
Not...

Read and leave comments (3)

🌷(3)

A Letter From The King

Does it smell nice?
A letter from the king
Of scented ink, that kind of thing
Mellifluous craft and flowery word
Meticulously well-observed

Or does it smell of dusty palaces and old men
Tainted by the mouldering stench of then
Sparse script spiked with iron gall
As if the king should have to write at all

How tightly clenched, the royal jaw
How white-knuckled, the royal paw
Nib mashe...

Read and leave comments (2)

If We Had Won The War

Oh, how different, if we had won the war!
There’d be no Nazis in The Whitehouse, that’s for sure
We’d all have homes for heroes, provided by the state
Free healthcare at point of need, without having to wait
Refuge for the needy and the poor
Oh, how different, if we had won the war!

Oh, how different, if we had won the war!
We’d want for nowt, and never need for more
One nation under God
...

Read and leave comments (9)

Happy Hour Is Over

Happy Hour is over in the New Austerity Inn
 And Rachel’s surveying the thinning crowd. 
“I thought it would be better than this,” 
She says to no one in particular.

The locals call her Rachel the Barmaid
They don’t think she’s qualified
To run the pub on her own.
She’s pinned her certificate to the wall
But done nothing about the flat beer
Or watered down spirits.

Meanwhile, outside...

Read and leave comments (1)

🌷(8)

The Wife of God

The reason that we call the past history
Is that his story was written by men, she said
But we were a veritable pantheon
In the temple of Jerusalem
In Jerusalem, back then

Before Israel and Judah drew the battle lines
Before the waves of Assyrians, Babylonians
You didn’t need a penis to turn water into wine
Before the wife of God was erased by the custodians
Of history
His story
His b...

Read and leave comments (1)

🌷(4)

This site uses only functional cookies that are essential to the operation of the site. We do not use cookies related to advertising or tracking. By continuing to browse, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Find out more Hide this message