SIDEARM
SIDEARM
________
In the 'hood,
man's best friend
isn't
a dog.
An honour
normally belonging
to a Pitbull
goes to
his more trusted friend
Browning, Sig-Sauer, Glock, Smith & Wesson, Tec-9.
Different names
depending on the block
& the owner's hands.
& like
any trained
Rottweiler,
enraged,
baring sharp
teeth,
they...
Monday 30th June 2025 10:16 pm
Also by Dee Allen.:
TOOLS | BONEYARD | DAYWALKER |Lies (1) In school, they pretend to teach you the truth.
It must have been lonely, empty.
All these lies you learn on TV.
Maybe it's just not the right words, or phrases.
You can bear it, untill the morning light breaks.
Bear it, but it's not real.
I can't cut through the lies in this blogpost.
Many times I've realized something's wrong.
In church we would discuss the topics.
In school..... it's too painful to admi...
Monday 30th June 2025 9:53 pm
Also by Auracle:
The Last Order | Or something else that keeps us alive. | BeLanguaged | Earth,Humanity,Nature | Where the sun still rises and the winds still blow. | The Millennial Testament | My Evolving Artistry | Because we were there. | Let's call it 'Write Out Loud'-love. | Homelessness in our flat | Just sometimes you&me. Just sometimes you&me. | When life was good, for what it's worth. | Spoonfed Addictives | Perhaps it's not enough. | And I'm glad for my poetic heart, somehow. | Netherland-Codependent (1) |Move now
Most famous tram in Lisbon — Photo from the Pexels image bank.
There's so much confusion in our choices that, deep inside, not even I can say what decisions I'll make tomorrow. Today I might think one way—especially about life—and tomorrow wake up wanting to do everything differently. The day after that, I might already be living a different situation. The truth is that we really are comple...
Monday 30th June 2025 8:59 pm
Also by Heverson Santana:
A little bit of me — Heverson Santana | Our Days | Emotional Control | In That Modest Residence |fracture
fracture
embracing london’s musicality
early saturday morning
the tube’s mighty roar
over ambient drone
on my pods,
of the rocky mountains
i recorded when
i lived in canada,
the sound of
the once daily
amtrak train pulling
up in banff
on its long
way to vancouver,
a sound i
will never forget
and that now
creates a fffffffrrr...
Monday 30th June 2025 6:48 pm
Also by Lee Campbell:
the river as | beautiful |Afoot Scattering Seeds
She took off her shoes
and walked along the path,
over hill and dale,
mountains and valleys,
deserts and beaches--
feeling the ground beneath her feet,
impervious to heat or cold,
soft or hard terrain--
it mattered not,
her feet traversed the country and the city,
sleepy town or wild metropolis--
it was all the same to her.
She held in her hands
a precious ...
Monday 30th June 2025 4:18 pm
Also by Hélène:
A Quiet Tree | Affirmations | Proclamation of a Journey | Just Be | Love Cascading |Social Media Man
Social media man
Doing the best that I can
Don't know if I even exist
Could be an AI hypnotist
Social media man
I have gone digital about to overload
I'm a global creature with no abode
The world is my oyster for sure
I'm an Internet addict got no cure
I am logged on 24/7
DM me and I will be in seventh heaven
Thousands of followers that I never met
Nobody really knows me instant f...
Monday 30th June 2025 3:25 pm
Also by Tom Doolan:
Born To Die | Who Am I | Poetry Is Pain | Hope Is Gone | Heal Me | Rambling Man | Addiction |chronic 6am nosebleed (06/30/2025)
I love you too
chronic, 6 am nosebleed .
.
I can feel it
I can feel it circling
and breaking off
layers scivved away
by the cloying event horizon
by a tired pain in my chest
the weight
of waiting
while the slumber of the river
calls.
could i be ophelia to you?
left sun-bloated by the bedsheets?
death drawn through
a pneumatic syringe and layers
of sickened foam
...
Monday 30th June 2025 3:14 pm
Resting With What Hurts
Monday 30th June 2025 12:39 pm
Also by Rolph David:
The Roads I Did Not Take | Máxima's Royal Mock | The Smile That Sold Us Out | The Guest Beneath My Tongue | Sonnet CXLVIII – To She Whose Ink Doth Shade My Sight | The Empty Streets of Ego’s March | The March of One | The Banquet of Blinders: When Vanity Met Valjean | The Emperor Wears a Badge | A Day That Changed All Days | The Sandbox Brawl: The End of Bromance | No More Crumbs! | The Woman Who Outshone Her Century |Fame
It’s not a goal, I suppose,
more like a corner or a throw-in,
but I wish I could be
in somebody else’s poem.
It would be fame, of a sort,
though not the kind that should be sought;
it ought to happen by chance
and be in another’s hand…
...unless it could be planned!
Can it be so hard
to locate a versifier?
An unsuspecting bard,
the type who won’t enqui...
Monday 30th June 2025 11:36 am
Also by Ray:
America | Faiied State | Extinction Rebellion | Eloquence | Easter Lesson | The Early Egyptians | Thanks For Sharing | Nineteen Eighty-Five | I Live Over There | December In The Algarve | Books |To Thine Own Flame
In quiet moments, truth will speak,
A voice within, both strong and meek,
It hums beneath the world’s disguise,
A spark behind your searching eyes!
The winds may howl with harsh demand,
And shape you with a stranger’s hand,
But your beautiful soul, a lantern bright,
Refuses to be robbed of light!
They will draw a map, then point the way,
Insist you walk it, come what may,
Yet every s...
Monday 30th June 2025 10:48 am
Also by Aisha Suleman:
Eyes That Rise | A Fresh New Week | We Are All One (Version Two) | Love The Light, Embrace The Rain | Shine In Your Own Light | Rise With Monday | Silk And Flame | Whose Son? (Version Two) | One Wild Life | Your Own Way |rusted edges, burning gears
The gears don't just turn;
they gnash—teeth of industry,
blood-stained from forgotten hands.
Whispers don’t drift;
they crack like breaking glass,
but no one listens.
Faces sink into hollow screens,
cogs spinning louder than their voices.
You scratch at the edges,
but the rust doesn’t heal—
it spreads, then consumes,
until the machinery roar...
Monday 30th June 2025 10:11 am
Hand on darkness
Some years ago, I realised
I am the driver of my life
And so I chose light
It was a difficult decision
More difficult than it sounds
It’s hard to know what it is to see
When there’s no darkness around
It’s easy to equate pain with feeling
To attach pain to being
And so I never ran from the dark
I marched towards it
Let it smoke my heart
Instead, it was alw...
Sunday 29th June 2025 5:04 pm
Also by Alexandra K. Parapadakis:
Missing People | Choosing Light |SHADOWS on a BROKEN VESSEL
― T.S. Eliot
Fresh water suits my watery nature.
I squint into the ripples of redemption,
watch the ducks glide quietly beside me
Keeping me on the straight and narrow,
or trying to,
the random calls of strangers splatter across
the swirling sky as I choke on what I know ,
I am not crying, cannot...
Sunday 29th June 2025 4:28 pm
Also by John E Marks:
BAIT | Between a rock and a hard place | Weary blues | Me mam | WEST COAST MAINLINE | REGRET |November Heart
November Heart
My heart feels like November,
Not yet dead but getting colder.
For as long as I can remember
I’ve just been getting older.
Blood congeals in icy veins,
Unable to reach a conscious thought.
In the brain confusion reigns,
Nothing’s found if nothing’s sought.
Passion left a while ago,
Heart and head decided,
Where blood and thought no lon...
Sunday 29th June 2025 1:10 pm
Also by Rob J Mann:
Where Evil Lives | Unrequited | With Her Forever (Original and Versions Two and Three) | With Her Forever | Echoes of Childhood |The Runaway (A true story)
I heard somewhere that getting away from it all was good for your mental health, green spaces, less faces, gives a real feeling of genuine wealth.
So, I contemplated my predicament skipped probation and decided to head for Clachan bridge the bridge that connects both ends of the Atlantic.
From the city places to pastures new, passing scenic shades of pastoral green, purple heathers, reds,...
Sunday 29th June 2025 12:50 pm
Also by Phils Words:
Rhythm of the Day | Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah | Battling Mind | This Imaginary Life-Part 3 (Nature) | This Imaginary Life -Part 2 (The Nurture of) | This Imaginary Life Part 1 (The Code of Hammurabi) |today’s battles
i unravel
not like a ribbon but like rope—
wet, splitting at the seams
you turned, smirking like it was a game
like breaking me was just physics
so clean, so unmarked
you the one always slipping off the hook
"poor you"—the story you sold while i sank
bare feet on loose earth
always moving, never mine
i learned to float, lip-bitten
quiet through the avalanche
your lie...
Sunday 29th June 2025 12:04 am
Also by Red Brick Keshner:
closed windows | echolalia after the fall | Marat | quiet apologies | Molière | Mercator | Maginot | bridges | my poetic side | lore-keeping | boulevard mirage | between the veils | where shadows do not drown | still, the Earth breathes | hobbitual | veil of the known | the poet’s barren tale | cloak of invisibility | like you and me | unrelenting horizon |Find Your Faith
Saturday 28th June 2025 11:49 pm
Also by Marla Joy:
The World Around Me | Shadows And Light |Another Word
There was a time
I thought was better
I came of age
total trend setter
I made the world change fast
now I’m bolder
with life perspective
vantage point
of done the mileage
I’ve still got something to add
I don’t need
to be vogue again
I don’t need
to be chic again
I don’t need
to be cool again
be the last word
culture...
Saturday 28th June 2025 11:39 pm
Also by John Gilbert Ellis:
Click! |Frozen
I am frozen.
Rooted in place, locked
in your mesmeric gaze.
And you, barely moving,
move me, still me,
hold me in this moment
where nothing else matters
but the boundless depths
of your eyes.
Saturday 28th June 2025 6:43 pm
Also by Trevor Alexander:
Doubt | Thoughts of the Thought Police |Mrs Myrtle Goes to Town.
Ole Miss Myrtle: She didn't dress like all the rest,
She looked twee in dark Crimplene with a floral vest.
"I'm off," she would declare, garnering attention,
"To fulfil this shopping list's great expectation!"
Walking the two miles, alone, into town.
Smiling pleasantly, no sign of a frown.
wearing a black beret pulled to the front.
Her steps, marked with an occasional huf...
Saturday 28th June 2025 4:25 pm
Also by JD Russell:
Brothers Grim | The Iceman Cometh. | Morning Ritual. | The Nunctbubbles of Zip-a-dee-doo | It’s Not What You Believe. |Luggage...'A Case History'
What is your story luggage, are you going away?
Are you leaving Liverpool, a final ‘goodbye’ to say?
Or have you come to Liverpool, over ocean and sea?
Because part of this amazing City, you want to be!
Behind every piece of luggage, there belongs a tale.
A journey to success or a journey doomed to fail.
Luggage of all sizes, luggage of all shapes and styles.
Some luggage...
Saturday 28th June 2025 2:53 pm
Also by Mike Bartram:
Terry Bennet (The banana man!) | Happy Heavenly Birthday Mum |A Poetry Pint with a Unique Taste of Evening Entertainment
The Snap Tin invited Stockport W.O.L to do an open mic event at the Poynton Arts Festival on Tuesday the 24th June.
Andy Millican W.O.L poet will be hosting the closing party at The Cask Tavern on Sunday the 29th June starting at 7pm all are wellcome.
Light humour danced throughout the night
Wicked wand had us in it's magical spell
Dad I've turned into you
Storytelling mixes in with...
Saturday 28th June 2025 12:15 pm
Also by Nigel Astell:
Sharing The Good Times |Nameless
You left this world with no name, I will never get to see you grow, I will never be able to feel your touch, to hold you against my chest, so many names you had, but you are nameless.. There will never be a day that goes beyond that I wouldn't think about you.
A day when I would wonder what you might have looked like. I don't get to see you or say good bye. When you left my body I felt like a p...
Friday 27th June 2025 11:23 pm
Also by Oasis234:
Pills |Linda Blue And Green
In the waves, she swayed in time
with their insistence.
It was easy to understand.
But we had no idea then
about the persistence of time.
Friday 27th June 2025 3:00 pm
Also by Mike McPeek:
Sunset With A Friend | Conversations Without Sound | Goings On In Our Back Yard | The End of It | In Time | Light Lessons | Highway 99 Revisited | Just a Breeze | Accepting Peace For Our Dog |The Seeker
A paper boat sails across the sky.
If you ask,
Why did it choose the sky?
Imagination knows no bounds, anyway.
His tiny hands
break through the air,
guiding the boat toward its soar.
Don’t hurt him by saying,
"You are wrong."
Everyone has the right
to define their own.
In the imagination of being found,
he believes he is an existence.
And through the form of imagination,
he i...
Friday 27th June 2025 7:59 am
Also by Yanma Hidayah:
Pages | The Little Me | When The Home Is You | Two Luminaries |The Harrowing
A cool breath of morning mist lays itself across the water,
where pathways break the wooded edge, it probes the leafy tracks.
Green and dappled reds announce the warming rays,
rustling snouts and gentle song rise to fill the dawning cracks.
Beyond this unseen miracle we shuffle ourselves awake,
inviting news and noise, we break the fragility of nature’s spell.
...
Friday 27th June 2025 6:06 am
Also by David RL Moore:
These fuckers | Triangular bandage | Too late too late | Pivot to War |I Learn And Study English
Let’s start from the very beginning!
- Ok, I know, it’s a very good place to start.
- If you want to know how to read,
you have to learn the English alphabet.
As long as we are not in a race,
you can face 26 letters in one phrase.
“The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog”.
Now we’ll have some dialogue.
You’ll see how new words appear,
I hope everything will be clear.
For ex...
Friday 27th June 2025 5:45 am
Also by Larisa Rzhepishevska:
It Was On Sunday, The 22nd of June, at 4 A.M. | The Policemen Arrest The Men. | And In The Rooms Of The Unspoken Words ... | I Am So Happy To See The Bees | I Get Up In The Morning Before The Dawn ... |Bonnie Madleen
Bonnie Madleen
I first had the idea for this song / poem on hearing the news about the good ship Madleen, setting out for Gaza.
Thunberg and her crewmates were not “deported” from Israel, as reported in the biased media, they were released after the Madleen and her crew were illegally abducted to Israel, and her cargo stolen.
The so-called “personalities” - several failed “comedians” amon...
Thursday 26th June 2025 8:13 pm
Also by Uilleam Ó Ceallaigh:
Haiku for 2025 [No. 23. Fuck Your Fascist Police State] | Haiku for 2025 [No. 22. Piss Christ] | Saoirse don Phalaistín! | Haiku for 2025 [No.21. Madleen] | The Farce Ain't Over! | Haiku for 2025 [No.20. Wabbit!] | His Majesty's Crime Minister | Haiku for 2025 [No.19. Bigots] | Call Yourself a Poet? |Pit
Fallen pieces of wood collected
And arranged neatly in a pit;
Some stood perfectly well
While some were made to fit.
The fire waited impatiently
For the woods to be soaked in oil
While bitter doings surfaced up
Causing the heart to recoil.
The cold wind stayed put
To let the rest of the heart
Be marinated by the bitterness
That had univitedly given a start.
The bonfire stoo...
Thursday 26th June 2025 1:36 pm
Also by Manish:
Remains Untold | The Beginner |Fades
I feel distant from hope
like a soul that is separated
like an empty space
there is only me and uncertain thoughts
waiting for the end of the day
but wishing that there was no tomorrow
as if all my dreams are hard to achieve
and slowly my ambition fades
I feel like I see someone else inside me
I don't recognize her
little things feel new to me
and death b...
Thursday 26th June 2025 2:50 am
Hotspur Press Fire
Massive fire in old building in-between Oxford Road and Deansgate Train Station / Was it Arson?
Built in 1801 but abandoned since the mid-1990s / Structure built almost completely of wood / Was it Arson?
In 2018, a joint venture between Blue Dog Property and MCR Property Group secured permission to redevelop the site into a 28-storey apartment building, but it didn’t happen / Was it Arson?
...Wednesday 25th June 2025 10:43 pm
Meanwhile, Back in Ukraine (June 2025).
Having your windows blown out
And your face cut by the glass,
And seeing your neighbours' daughter
Blown in the air and tumbling,
Minus one leg, next to their dead dog,
Ranks as pretty low grade stuff now.
Let’s face it, it’s not nuclear, with madcap types
Talking of Hiroshima and obliteration.
Having said that, it’s not exactly nice here
There’s a war on, you know.
...
Wednesday 25th June 2025 9:51 pm
Also by Stephen Gospage:
Revolution! | The Bright Blue Sky | Masterpiece | The Fence | Lines of Love |THE SILENCE BETWEEN NOTES
So much living happens in the spaces we don't fill.
We rush through days filled with constant noise
of words, plans and demands
We crave explanations and definitions
the clear articulation of everything
But so much of what matters
unfurls in the quiet.
Think of moments just before a storm
the air thick with hushed anticipation
Or the calm after a profound experience
...Wednesday 25th June 2025 8:46 pm
Also by Naomi:
BEYOND THE LIGHT OF SUNS | A TINY LIFE'S SCARRED END |DEATH WHERE IS THY STING?
'Twas on a Monday morning that I tried to phone BT
I listened to the options and then pressed the one for me
A prerecorded message said that I'd been put on hold
So I listened to some Mozart for an hour like I was told.
Then a lady answered telling me she couldn't help at all
So after 40 minutes she ended our phone call
I'm afraid I'd got frustrated and I'd begun to screech
...Wednesday 25th June 2025 5:45 pm
Also by John Coopey:
MY PRONOUN | LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR | RELIVING THE RAJ |Picnic By The Kamo River
Wandering slowly down
from Mount Otowa
We’d gotten lost
behind Kiyomizu-dera
in quiet contemplation
of the winding lanes
like night and day
from heaving temple crowds
Rejoining civilisation
the souvenir shops
and chocolate-dipped strawberries
We make our way down
to the Kamo River
with crustless sandwiches
cans of iced coffee
and legs in need of rest
Sitting on the ancient path
...
Wednesday 25th June 2025 3:51 pm
Also by Tom:
Daniel | Holy Loneliness | The Meeting Tree | Tenderness | The Apartment |Forces of Nature
FORCES OF NATURE
By the Urban Poet
Monsoons creating mudslides
Volcano erupting in dark of night
Tornado wrenching up trees as if matchwood,
as flood water sweeps in unabated
Forces over which we have no control
Bone dry, arid landscape, parched and thirsty
Strangely alluring and yet deadly in its nature
Cacti defying the climate by storing fluid
How many stor...
Wednesday 25th June 2025 12:16 pm
Also by Rick Varden:
Flower Power | Blue World Below | A Garden Journey | Virtual Unreality |I try
Am not saying an perfect
Am don't even say that's the aim
Honestly I don't have much left in the tank ,they have taken all but my flesh but I try
Try to get up every morning keep myself going sure that's all you can do
Loving you can be hard when am hard on myself I can't get everything right I suppose who can
And it's hard hard to return every night when loving is difficult do...
Wednesday 25th June 2025 6:48 am
Instructions for an Impossible Love
Don’t call.
Not today, not tomorrow,
not when longing makes promises.
Don’t wait.
Waiting has teeth
and it bites when you nap.
Don’t write letters.
Paper keeps too much,
and some pains deserve to be forgotten.
Don’t wish for meetings.
They happen at the edges,
where the world can’t reach, and there, everything slips away.
Don’t blame time.
Time just passes.
What remains is you,
with...
Wednesday 25th June 2025 5:38 am
Also by Eduardo:
The magic box | The Shadow of Destiny | The Awakening of Uncle Sam |Bowdler
A clerke there was, that Bowdler was yclept,
And sex and swearinge could he not accept;
Against all lines that talked of *********
There would he place a line of constellatioun;
When that an eager Scholar did espy
These stars, then woke their curiosity,
And swift to library they brought their bokes
To seek for Master Geoffrey's penis jokes;
Ful better printed had this matter been,
For...
Wednesday 25th June 2025 3:59 am
Also by Marnanel Thurman:
The roads taken |Diaphanous.
Reeling from their
Spirit's thousand deaths,
Raring for a rebirth
That howls its avowal
Of Life, unmesmerized
By manoeuvres and
Halcyon heroics,
At long last,
Noting well that,
Indeed, epiphanies
Tend to rest
On diaphanous wings...
Wednesday 25th June 2025 1:18 am
Also by Holden Moncrieff:
Disowned... | Archived. |Echoes
In the darkness of the night
when tranquillity should be restored
Anxiety rises and swells
anguish that cannot be ignored
Depriving me of sleep and rest
refusing to be kept at bay
Trapped in the bleak cavern of my head
negative thoughts ricochet
Flashbacks replay on repeat
thundering roar to distant rumble
Sharp reminders of hurt and shame
fade into a nagging grumble
Caught...
Monday 23rd June 2025 4:19 pm
Also by julie callaghan:
Just Chillin! | A Poem For Your Pocket |Am I Enough?
Am I Enough?
Today I didn’t go anywhere
I wallowed in the heat that strangled my home
Took a seat in the spot that I frequent and listened for the changing winds of time
They never arrived.
In fact it was more of the same
‘You Okay?’, ‘Im glad’
Empty words of intricate meaning
Convey both care and solace
Who cares?
The rain didn’t arrive all the same.
...Saturday 21st June 2025 11:48 pm
Gazvegas!
In Gaza a baby got blown to bits
Whilst Trump got some new golfing tips
He waited patiently for a hole in one
And - for Palestinians to be gone
Then, GazVegas baby! he could build!
Well…
as soon as the blood & guts were swilled
Saturday 21st June 2025 5:55 pm
Also by Stephen W Atkinson:
Amelia | Forgotten Towns |Life after death ?
A day will come when the whole world wll be destroyed.
When our Supreme Creator's skills and knowledge will be deployed.
By He who brought life to dry and decomposed bones in every single nation.
By He who is well versed in every kind of brilliant creation.
The necessity of life after death is what believers demand.
The fate of each soul according to tbeir needs,dealt with firs...
Friday 20th June 2025 8:41 pm
June 2025
It’s really very warm today -
Global warming, gone astray.
While I listen, children play.
Sitting in the shade.
In walking down familiar paths,
Elder, nettles, blackberry craft
A green seclusion and gentle draft
To keep the blaze at bay.
They sunbathe in the local park,
Lotioned skin that gleams so stark,
Without a solitary remark
On this unusual day.
Every day she walks her dog...
Friday 20th June 2025 3:21 pm
Also by Tim Daly:
Hidden | Canal Walk | Trolling |GENOCIDE
This isn’t Shock and Awe,
This is GENOCIDE
“The deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people,
Because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race”
GENOCIDE
Happening right now in front of our eyes
GENOCIDE
Yet those people still can’t decide
GENOCIDE
Ethnic cleansing with nowhere to hide
GENOCIDE
Destroying infrastructure and hospitals, making way for thei...
Friday 20th June 2025 3:06 pm
And now it’s time
Kali Maa came in the night
and whispered as I slept:
‘It’s time’
Time.
From the deepest winter
troubled slumber
technicolour dreams of open winged flight
Closer to the sun
Not like Icarus
But wiser, older, learned
Knowing how to rise
and be carried by conflicting winds
But these wings, this scream,
Never seen, never heard
Emerging from the ...
Friday 20th June 2025 11:41 am
Gaza
History will record how lamentably we failed;
the indigestible truth that money can’t buy you
love, shelter, bandages, put bread upon
a non-existent table
without safe passage.
History will peel away the flesh
of all our collective anguish
the hand wringing, the tears
the howling at the moon,
focussing instead
on numbers, places, dates
the bare bones in rubble
...Friday 20th June 2025 9:30 am
Just Passing Through
Life is but a journey, a trip for me and you
Everything is fleeting, we’re all just passing through
No-one can contain it, none can make it last
Just know it’s at your fingertips, it’s limitless and vast
Appreciate each moment, they all whizz by so fast
Know that as it’s happening, it’s already in the past
It’s not a dress rehearsal, this is the real deal
There won’t be a...
Thursday 19th June 2025 5:40 pm
Refugee Week
It’s Refugee Week- There are many things to about refugees to mourn and regret – the circumstances which cause them to flee their homes, the people who trade on their misfortune, the hostility from some people in the countries to which they flee. There is also much to celebrate - the growth in understanding as different cultures, religions, and races find their common humanity, the new ideas, the ...
Thursday 19th June 2025 4:13 pm
A Helping Hand 🖐
Have we got a moral obligation
To help the poor and needy?
And ask ourselves is it right
That so many of us are greedy?
So is it just a selfish game
To see how much we can consume?
We watch it grow until at last
We find there is no more room.
And if there is one thing in this world
That does not seem quite fair,
While some people just sail on
Others live in great and huge despa...
Wednesday 18th June 2025 8:03 pm
Also by Stuart Vanner:
Technology |A comic gets the bird
Divorced from a wife, who’d moaned about me spending all my time running,
and when recovering from that, writing, I, fed up of ploughing a lonely furrow,
joined budding comics, singers and poets at an ‘open mic’ event in the backroom
of The Bashful Bull, a quaint pub in the village of Much Hoole-in-the-Marrow.
It was run by Brian, who boasted about his degree in Comical Studies.
Unfortuna...
Wednesday 18th June 2025 3:01 pm
Also by Kevin Vose:
A kangaroo to the rescue |Do You Remember The Worst Time?
I met her one night at a nightclub
And ended up walking her home,
She asked what I thought of her haircut
I said it could do with a comb.
She invited me in for a coffee
I said 'Have you got any tea?'
She told me she fancied a cuddle
And plonked herself down on my knee.
She nuzzled my neck on the sofa
And started caressing my thigh,
...Tuesday 17th June 2025 11:10 pm
Just in case
There is something rather special about Dad’s
Or at least there was about mine
Forever the comedian in that special dad way
Someone who would say to me your hair looks like
A spider’s lounge come here or you look like you
Have been dragged through a hedge backwards
The D.I.Y. aficionado who could almost turn out anything
From a few pieces of wood
I was never allowed to ...
Tuesday 17th June 2025 11:18 am
Also by Martin Elder:
Love of the cursed |The Final Goodbye.
The Final Goodbye.
I soon came to imagine her as a butterfly
An ethereal beauty whose brief visits
Would lead to tearful departures, leaving me to wonder if this was the final goodbye
My mind became obsessed with the stolen days where she would appear, as if by magic
Followed by the long, wistful hours
Of her absence
Thoughts would drift to tragedy
Surely she would be here if she co...
Monday 16th June 2025 8:47 pm
Dance Before Falling Apart
I have a rendezvous with a dandelion
in an enchanted garden of life.
It had me smitten by the sparkling stars in its fuzz,
the faded colours echoing with a solitary buzz.
Exquisite in shape, vibrant in face,
yet restless at heart and frenzied to the core
fraught with excruciating pain,
drained of all vigour, yet it doesn’t complain.
Too fragile to withstand the blows of violent wind,
...
Monday 16th June 2025 5:58 pm
Also by Kanwal Akram:
A Tree in Storm | The Grotesque Skull and the Waiting Petal |Betrayed
What if I swiped the other way, what if I said no, what if I never saw you again
What if I didn’t take you back, what if I believed her instead
She was right afterall.
I thought I’d won because you came back, even if I knew I was second choice
Even if I was insulted, humiliated, cheated, broken, devastated
Still I thought I’d won.
How?
I chose to listen to you because the lie...
Monday 16th June 2025 10:31 am
Non-Binaries
Non-Binaries
never wrong nor right
neither black nor white
always poor framing
truth escapes while waiting
you I can’t deny
I can’t explain “I”
there’s another dimension
we’re always missing
easy solutions feel good
crushing doubts with boots
if nature only gave us straight lines
if god was on our side
it’s never green nor orange...
Saturday 14th June 2025 7:08 pm
Also by Robert C Gaulke:
Old Stories |Chaotic search for light
I'm walking alone
Through this chaotic road
Through this desolated land
That my senses corrode
The environment is hostile
Full of greed and jealousy
People want everything
While forgetting our legacy
The values from the past
Now seems to have a cost
Honesty lost its meaning
While respect was lost
So I'm searching the darkness
For a sparkle of light
For the motivation I need
To...
Friday 13th June 2025 8:16 pm
Mush
You need to walk all over the Itchen
Find the bridge that will take you there
Cold hands clasp, hang tight on the rail
As rain sweeps all over the town
People in this city call you Mush
Stepping off this bridge of strangers
Hold hands tight deep into the night
Finding faces that will leave us
Lost and forgotten into the light
People in this city call you Mush
...
Friday 13th June 2025 1:56 pm
Also by Wordseffectbrew:
New build |June 2025 Collage Poem: I Watched the Trains Come, I Watched the Trains Go
Brixton’s Orpheus shushing me asleep all night long
Pour into infinity the ashes of me
when this work finally sets me free
Eating sausage rolls on the train
Writing to see how naughty Nigel will get
and whether he put on his leather skirt again
Frosted breath blows sodium gold frustration
Some day you’ll be kings and queens not beggars
Dancing o...
Friday 13th June 2025 10:20 am
social engineering
a nation's child spat out
from the echo womb
of mental masturbation
the low roar on the factory floor
a mere workweek substitute for
neurochemical castration by mundane
sunday conversation
gives us another alarm
a buzzer screaming
for all good prussian schoolkids
to let go of childhood dreams of freedom
Friday 13th June 2025 2:20 am
I can still hear music
Sun-blinding vision
of a surfing state,
songs with their feet down
hard on the accelerator.
But the little deuce coupes
have long gone to the scrapyard.
The wild west is back,
if it ever went away.
Beady-eyed outlaws
who don’t like strangers
have taken over the town,
heroes replaced by villains.
Smile, the album
he never quite finished...
Thursday 12th June 2025 8:13 am
Taking time
Blur pedals,
In a range,
And grass to your knees.
Cows grazing by a wedding bell,
Distant and passing,
Different.
Dead mornings,
In finger nails.
Broken pedals,
Falling.
Good things,
And bound be true.
Good things,
Christmas bells.
Thursday 12th June 2025 8:08 am
Also by Alita Moore:
Fate |Hot Mess
When things go wrong
And all's a mess
Don't stress, don't guess
Just rest.
Wednesday 11th June 2025 10:03 am
Just Like Mama
Evening fell—Papa returned,
Storm in step, and fire in eyes.
In the dim-lit room, he saw
A little girl curled in silence,
He touched her head—
A tired stroke, half-love, half-lost.
He saw her doll—tattered, torn,
Matted hair, a bruised cheek, a wounded lip.
His temper sparked, his face turned flame—
“Just yesterday, I brought her home with joy—
What ruined her so soon, this toy?”
Th...
Wednesday 11th June 2025 8:26 am
Also by Bharat Choudhary:
Magic Wool |God’s Concern
The mountains are covered by human feet
The waters barely peeping from between the fleets
The tree tops hold more faces and hands
The air is a heavy with words and cadence.
The homosapiens never rest
They cut, kill and fell – that’s their best
They have overrun the planet and going far
If the moon’s not enough, then the next star.
Will they ever stop – the God’s worry in their land
Reme...
Tuesday 10th June 2025 4:58 am
Also by pallavitryingthings:
The Inertia of Existence |Cheering On Your Genocide
Every time I let the tap run, I feel guilty
Every time I fill my belly, I turn away from the screen.
Every time the key clicks to my door, I can open and walk around.
But you and yours are raised to the ground.
No guilt from those who cheer on your genocide.
Monday 9th June 2025 7:01 pm
i have no eyes but i have to see
my tongue is tied
my mouth is sewn shut
my arms in a straitjacket
my eyes gouged out yet, still wanting to blink
to see / i want to see / i have to see / i need to fucking see
with all the blood and flesh of my own mangled around me
i broke my arms out
my bones protruding and bleeding black hot blood
i pierced my mouth open,
my black blood, teeth and flesh flus...
Monday 9th June 2025 6:57 pm
Also by Zodinpuii:
prayer for sanity |do you believe me now?
do you believe me now?
by Lily Starling Eldridge
party lights flicker as my vision dims
words drop like acid on my skin
sinking in, i start to feel sick
the shame you spilled always sticks.
i’m happy you’ve never been burned before.
introduce me to a stranger
tell an “inside” joke that left me exposed
then wonder why i left without a word
i’d rather be the one hu...
Monday 9th June 2025 6:35 pm
The Song of a demon
After the great battle was over
What in those stories they do not tell
Is that nothing was truly over
For this demon, condemned to hell
“You shall not seek power!”, oh what does he know
About how it is to dwell in the shadow
Loving indeed! banned for one mistake
The love shown to a witch on a stake
Do you think I wanted this?
Do you think I yearned?
For the ...
Monday 9th June 2025 3:01 pm
Books
Books can take you where your feet cannot
They contain distant lands
Yet one can fit inside your hands
Or hundreds on a shelf
You can get lost in them
Or find yourself
Monday 9th June 2025 7:50 am
THE STRANGE LIE
SITTING ALONE, I ALWAYS THINK OF YOU.
YOU ARE THE MEMORY I NEVER LIVED- YET SOMEHOW, I ALWAYS MISS YOU.
YOU ARE THE BRIGHTEST STAR IN THE SKY, AND I? JUST A SHADOW IN DIM MOONLIGHT.
YOU ARE THE QUEEN, AND I THE PAWN -
IN THIS GAME OF CHESS, I'VE NEVER WON.
IS IT LOVE ? OR JUST A LIE ?
STILL, THIS FEELING I STRANGELY ENJOY.
I KNOW YOU'LL NEVER BE MINE,
AND I DON'T DARE PLUCK
...Saturday 7th June 2025 5:01 am
Also by lune walker:
THE LAST LONGING |Diplopia
When I consider how my light is bent
My two eyes capturing two converging scenes,
I wonder truly how my time was spent
In looking, without thinking what it means.
Before they parted ways, to circumvent
The natural perspective we expect
When Covid’s random danage caused these ills
Which fresnal screens do partially correct
Such minor injury should not deter
...Friday 6th June 2025 7:08 pm
Transition to light
Deep the sky , in the meterior shore,
Here sitting me, reciting my chore.
Word to word, I wanna transfer to u
Oh my shadow , i am ur blew.
Feeling almost ,it's new to all me
I am admiring the blue sky in the wavy silk ,
the meterior shore reminds me
Leaving behind everyone i met,
Life is unjust ,i wanna submerge in the lust.
No fear struck m...
Thursday 5th June 2025 9:00 pm
Also by LITTLE MISCHIEVIOUS SOUL:
Memories |Empty Space
I can feel the space you will take up and it is so empty. It is gasping, grasping, gaping emptiness.
I am drowning in it — and I’ve never been a good swimmer anyway, but this is a blue death, a cold one. No rush to keep living. No struggle against gravity, hydrogen bonds, and sucking suffocation. Just cruel Death and Her forever companion Silence.
You are my patroclus, my daphne,...
Thursday 5th June 2025 7:15 pm
No to-dos today
go ahead, be messy
leave crumbs on the counter
a spoon in the sink
the bed unmade
shoes kicked off by the door
let today unfold
like laundry on the floor
warm and soft and slow
say nothing of coulds
or shoulds
or wish-i-woulds
take a deep breath
and take it all in
there's no rush
tomorrow will still come
Thursday 5th June 2025 2:21 pm
For Susan
It was today, Susan, my darling we all came to say goodbye.
Pictures of you adorned this place, with smiles bright in your eyes.
To carry on with the day, I know we all will try.
Now you're a real-life dancing angel, soaring in the sky.
The echoes of your laughter linger, your warmth will never fade.
We’ll hold you close within our hearts, in every step we take.
Wednesday 4th June 2025 1:17 pm
Also by Luke:
The good fight |Sinner
Am I a sinner
Why does it feel this way
Does love mean to sin
My body in the arms of another
who is not God
Is this the meaning of love
Am I decieved to believe it is
I feel wrong
Yet it feels amazing
Have I made sin easy
Do I not obey God like I should
Guilt settles within me
Fear as well
Am I a sinner
I don't know why I ask
Im well awar...
Tuesday 3rd June 2025 9:59 pm
The Edge
You take my breath away
and awaken my heart
with a single glance
and a soft touch.
Keeping me tethered
on the edge
of life and death.
The reason for my being,
only you can make me undone.
Gladly I shall be
the Icarus to your radiance
and accept my fate with a smile,
as long as you are
the last sight my ey...
Tuesday 3rd June 2025 9:35 pm
Perseverance, Pt.2: At The End Of The Day
Eventide, at the waning of the sun:
the scribe is done, all-but, save the index
and the binding. How well the tale's been told -
the endless ennui; the agonies; fun
and frolics in their turn (for even sex
had left its mark, some warmth to ease the bold,
chaotic passage of each turbid year) -
and now, as cramp-wracked fingers loose the pen
he settles back, unkinks hunched shoulder blades
...
Tuesday 3rd June 2025 2:36 pm
Also by Martin Peacock:
Perseverance, Pt.1: On Not Winning (F.A.O. Mr. A) |Write to Romance
WRITE TO ROMANCE
Jessica drove furiously through familiar back streets - happy that she'd didn't have to travel to Cottesloe; being late for meetings at Tom Collins House did not enhance her image as a professional writer.
A new writer's group - close to home too! She still bubbled with enthusiasm even though she'd spent the last twenty minutes at the wrong hall. The guy doing a ka...
Tuesday 3rd June 2025 5:14 am
The Ego Echoes.
All I hear are elusive echoes of self-depreciation and hatred.
Tracing my memory back to precise occurrences of emotional distress and pain.
The nature of numbness bouncing through the walls of my mind.
Will this arduous voice ever be silenced?
No one knows better how to get under your skin than the mind enclosed beneath it.
We take on the role of nurture or torture whenever we ...
Monday 2nd June 2025 5:25 pm
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