Issue #11 out now

Issue #11 out now

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  • Blue vein

    blue_cheese

    Admiral of cheeses,
    placed on high behind the glass,
    your steady survey indifferent
    to the taunts of creamy sisters
    who flaunt in rows for late night shoppers.
    Who are they to me?

    You reason in my basket and whisper,
    humiliate my bread and beer
    with lectures of exalted pursuits
    and simple daily pleasures
    when rhyming poets walked with gods.

    I will not martyr you in modern ovens,
    nor melt your maturing angles
    (and with it my prejudices)
    on burning toast,
    but slice your flesh and serve you with a cheerful dried fig.

    Ramon
  • Alley

      I still hear
              the split of your laugh

    the sound of the half-way dead nee alive

          in the smallness
    growing, dizzy on dark
              at the back of the old cinema
    making homes for strays
    and legends
          myths
          unravelling at the hems

    our laces brambled tangles
    and pockets
           bleeding an unpieced puzzle
    on forgotten tarmac
    discarded
           debris of our ghosts
    turning walls in the day-lit hours
                until our echoes ring faint

    and no-one remembers
    us
          or the traces that we left.

    Zelda Chappel
  • The other

    We’d gone to see it on our way home,
    That place he’d held noisome fun before St Vincent ended the party.
    Standing on the path, we looked past
    His house, the thing we’d come to visit, and elsewhere,
    Out onto that palely glowing surface.

    When it happened,
    When the white sun melted into a sheen and the waves broke
    Far away, you took my wrist
    And asked me if I felt it,
    The soft, cold approach of night
    That made our day curl backwards
    In on itself. I did.

    But that evening had been our friend,
    So I kept quiet, not wanting to spoil what was coming,
    To leap ahead to darkness and miss the twirl
    Of thin, translucent, bright grey silent light.

    Emily Jeffrey-Barrett
  • And then there was light

    The Lady of the Night had the darkness wrapped in a colossal handkerchief. She settled the cloth over the town of her creation – because not only was she the Lady of the Night but the lady of life. This was, if truth be told, a rather large hankie, but equally this was a rather large lady. As the fabric fell the light crept in and the sky without moon lay on its back across the ceiling of the town hour upon hour. Shortly before the sun stretched out, creaking its bones, and awaking the belly of fire, there shone a beaming voice shattering the town:

    “Ellie breakfast is ready. Hurry up!!!”

    Rumbling earth followed briskly beneath their feet. Houses tumbled and bounced and many a person was knocked along the ground. Time passed between the voice and the beginning of daytime, but daytime, they knew, would eventually shine. They were made in her image but on a much smaller scale; she brought so much feeling and hope to the people – the Lady is love!

    When the darkness came they only ever assumed peace, quiet…darkness until the slow rising of the light much, much later. Water rushed and dragged homes with it – person after person lost in the swell. She with her mighty hands scooped the crushing, tumbling jar of light from its path of destruction, quashed the mighty waves and soaked up the town. She, the omnipotent – the gentle saviour.

    Morning never came gradually, the time to adjust never factored in; it happened in a sudden sweep and those that have been around to testify say that you can see the darkness seep and drag across the blue sky like a magician’s table cloth tugging, pulling in it’s wake the sun from the ocean but leaving the sky un-harmed, leaving the stars and moon in place, hidden and outshone by the brighter. As we now know we have no organic order to control our cycle, there is only her, the Lady.

    Nigel Buckley
  • Film in 140 characters

    James Bond, Freddie Krueger, “Dirty” Harry Callahan, Amelie Poullain, Bobba Fett, Sugar Kane Kowalcyk, Dirk Diggler, Patrick Bateman, Jessica Rabbit, Roy Batty, Withnail, Nurse Ratched & R.P. McMurphy, “Cool Hand” Luke, George Bailey, Scarlett O’Hara, Keyser Soze, Atticus Finch, Will Hunting, Martin Riggs, Hannibal Lector & Clarice Starling, Brody & Quint, Harry Potter, Rocky Balboa, Maximus Decimus Meridius, Donnie Darko, Mary Poppins, Ellis “Red” Redding, Marv, Mr Blonde, Cobb, Simba, Oskar Schindler, Jack Carter, The Driver, Phil Connors & The Groundhog, Randy “The Ram” Robinson, Hal-9000, Woody & Buzz, William Wallace, Tony Stark, Blade, Anton Chigurh, Rick Blaine, Tommy Devito, Ace Ventura, Hans Solo & Darth Vader, Ivan Drago, Annie Hall, Johnny Hooker, Michael Corleone, Forrest Gump, Travis Bickle, John McClane & Hans Gruber, Lt Ellen Ripley, Randal Graves, Lisbeth Sander, Luke Skywalker & Princess Leia Organa, Vincenzo Coccotti, Wolverine, Norman Bates, Axel Foley, Marge Gunderson, Ed & Shaun, Jack Torrence, Snake Plissken, Clark Kent, Fast Eddie Felson, Jigsaw, Daniel Plainview, Peter Parker, Don Logan, White Goodman, Leon & Mathilda, The Bride, Frank Booth, Napolean Dynamite, E.T., Dracula, Dr Rumack, Charles Foster Kane, The Elephant Man, J.J.Mclure & Captain Chaos, Batman, Bullet Tooth Tony, Ted, Jason Bourne, Tequila, Edward Scissorhands, Alex Delarge, Peter Venkman, Juno MacGuff, Yoda, Tony Montana, Indiana Jones, Harry Burns & Sally Albright, Martin Q Blank, The Wicked Witch of the West, Neo & Agent Smith, Lt. Frank Drebin, Marty & Doctor Emmett Brown, Jack Carter, Arnie Grape, Tony Manero, The Joker, Susie Diamond, The Dude & Walter Sobchak, Gandalf & Gollum, Marsellus Wallace, Truman Burbank, Wayne & Garth, Holly Golightly, Jacques Mesrine, Harry Lime, Annie Wilkes, Mrs Robinson & Benjamin Braddock, Captain Jack Sparrow, Tyler Durden, Mark “Chopper” Read, Ferris Bueller, Wall-E, The Man With No Name, Ron Burgundy, The Terminator.

    Jack Starks
  • mim

    she taught me again today, the sea

    (i returned like a reformed drunk

    still ill with booze but ready for rebirth)

    filled with the pomp of learning at

    her altar yesterday, i stepped off the

    shale ledge to commune with her, embalm.

    The judder hyperventilation scramble footing

    scraped furrows in clod thick feet

    and soles communed with rapid death

    to get out. YOU ARE NOT READY

    the sun crackled salt skin like a piglet

    on the spit, laid out on the trillion gems

    that clickered millennia like rollers

    casting factory carcasses off to cure. mim

    Rick Holand
  • Closer And Less Irritable

    Like stubble on shaven genitalia
    take the rough with the smooth
    in those simple moments
    of pleasure

    Babes,
    I’m a suicide case suited to you
    and unpacked I found the light lit
    with a match struck off the inside
    of your thighs
    and the outside of my face
    -graze graced
    we have that spark
    that sandpaper charm

    and it’s a true flame
    not a lighter, perfect photo finish
    or electric heater

    just real unphotoshopped people
    ugly in places
    but smoothed out rubbed down
    and repainted
    in our own time

    let’s go on holiday somewhere shit

    so we can reminisce
    about the good times
    rather than try to recreate them

    without realising we

    distil nostalgia to be bottled up and aged
    lying-in beds made only to be unmade
    by making

    not a vivid memory,
    just a contribution to the bank
    to something worth saving up for
    that feeling
    that we’re happy.

    Unbuckle your bra strap
    and I won’t wear socks to bed
    and we’ll feel sexy for the effort
    even though

    we’re probably not.

    And I’ll kiss you then snore
    like a trumpet playing an ode to us
    us happy unperfect perfectly happy us

     

    James Wheale
  • J D Wetherspoons

    A Haiku Cycle

    i (spring)

    damp leatherette seat
    slowly dries under air-con.
    special offer drinks
    ii (summer)

    a Beer and Burger
    served on a sticky table-
    J D Wetherspoons
    iii (autumn)

    aromatic spice
    a taste of the orient
    it’s raining in Hull
    iv (winter)

    at opening time
    the loyal flock through the doors.
    they are there at close

    Andrew James Brown
  • Notice

    A letter in her hand,
    she walks slowly,
    in brave, expensive shoes
    to the exit.

    Juliet Wilson
  • Life

    The eternal conundrum that what which one calls “life” and that.

    If
    oranges
    are
    called
    oranges
    why
    aren’t
    lemons
    called
    yellows

    ?

    John Allison
  • HSBC Boy

    i really don’t know how to
    tell you
    that i have to stop myself
    from
    thinking about you,
    mostly at night.
    You seem to work the
    days i go in,
    and you look at me
    everytime –
    and its like wtf am i
    supposed to do
    i play it cool, too cool and
    look at you
    like i look at everyone
    else,
    which is so bad because
    you’re not
    everyone else,
    and by the time i
    withdraw cash
    you’re sitting down in
    your booth
    talking to somebody
    whose just
    moved into London.

    Sarah Chapman
  • The Client We Had To Kill

    It wasn’t something we wanted to do
    That, my friend, you and I both knew
    We didn’t have a choice at all
    We made that choice and made the call

    You phoned that bloke in Kentish Town
    I made the plan and wrote it down
    We made a pact right then and there
    “She has to go, it’s only fair”

    The stupid comments and stupid hair
    And stupid questions and stupid stare
    The stupid meetings, her stupid voice
    Her stupid logic for every choice

    She used to leave us seething mad
    With moronic points on every ad
    We tried so hard to make it better,
    You even wrote that lovely letter

    But now she’s gone and never more
    We killed the bitch, the fucking whore
    We knew the cost and up we coughed
    Come quarter three, we’ll write that off

    Jerry Turner
  • Come Again

    A child of breaking tendencies I grew up
    on ‘mols & ‘phens See me?
    See ma Ma’ Then the Lord grants me a
    Benz
    Come rain or shine Come again Come
    right on time Come on the five, or on the
    ten
    You simply must make tea. There’s
    no two ways about it. Come full circle,
    marmalade accomplice Contrarily; I
    doubt it.
    Come rain or shine Come again Come
    right on time Come on the five, or on the
    ten.
    I get a little mad at them as, They step
    into my night time. Cuppah-OJ-Weet-a-
    Bix-Get up and walk the line style I, mean
    while..
    Come rain or shine Come again Come
    right on time Come on the five, or on the
    ten
    What’s your story, multi faceted. All MOD
    cons, no knickers. Bit bitter for strippers..
    slip of the tongue. Slip of the tongue.
    Come rain or shine Come again Come
    right on time Come on the five, or on the
    ten
    Sit down Fat Larry for I’ve known you a
    long time. Furlongs of time, for long is a
    long time. But little white ones tire, bore
    even like minds.
    Come rain or shine Come again Come
    right on time Come on the five, or on the
    ten
    Brightest of boys but must try harder.
    There’s no account for this misorder.
    House of Lords. House of Strangers.
    There’s no ‘Lords’. There’s no saviour.
    Come rain or shine Come again Come
    right on time Come on the five, or on the
    ten
    Hold your horses soldier Take one step
    back and wave. Now sling your nose up
    over your shoulder And keep walking,
    dickhead.

    Daniel Higginson
  • Summer Haiku

    Warm night air which cloaks
    and softens sounds: muffled laughs;
    Birdsong; passing cars.

    Alix Land
  • Don’t Forget

    Don’t forget the day
    she whispered into your ear
    short verse is sexy.

    Jonny Rodgers
  • The Amount Of Sugar

    Over time I’ve been
    gradually reducing
    the amount of sugar
    I put in your tea.
    I think you’re getting
    fat but can’t bear
    to tell you. This is
    my way of helping
    you control your
    weight.

    Kat Franceska
  • I Am Your Fear

    I Am Your Fear
    Marianna Madriz
  • 24 Songs By Bob Dylan

    A hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
    Baby, stop crying. Can you please crawl out your window?

    Desolation row.

    Emotionally yours.

    Forever young. Girl from the North Country.

    Had a dream about you baby.
    I wanna be your lover. Jet Pilot. Knockin’ on heaven’s door.

    Lay, lady, lay.
    Mama, you been on my mind.

    Nobody ‘cept you.

    Oh, sister.
    Peggy Day.
    Quit your low down ways.
    Rollin’ and tumblin’. Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands. Tangled up in blue.

    Under the red sky.
    Visions of Johanna.
    Watching the river flow.

    You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go.

    Kim Hillyard
  • The Noodle Dictionary

    1. Noodling – a specific event involving noodles.
    “Hey, you want to go noodling tonight?”

    2. Noodler – a person that proclaims to be a noodle lover.
    “ That Christine is a true noodler”

    3. Noodledoo – unfocused drawing of noodles made while a person’s attention is otherwise occupied.
    “What are those scribbles on your page?” “ It’s noodledoo”

    4. Noodletastic – of extraordinary degree.
    “That is seriously noodletastic!”

    5. Noodlism – the art of eating noodles.
    “ Dylan was a true noodlist, he knew the way of noodlism’

    Christine Choe
  • Play

    “PLAY BEGINS AND THEN AT
    A CERTAIN MOMENT IT
    IS OVER.

    OTHERWISE IT IS NOT PLAY!

    AND PLAY BEGINS WHEN EVERYDAY LIFE IS OVER.”

    JOHN CLEESE

    Pelin Ergün
  • Ink And…

    Ink And…
    Dana Nicola
  • Grown-Ups Are Weird

    “Mummy, why do you call daddy Steve?”

    “Because that’s his name.”

    “Mummy, why do I call Steve daddy?”

    Steve Howson
  • A Puck-A-Lips

    If the world ended
    I would have nothing to confess.
    Instead, in those fleeting moments
    before death,
    I would turn to you and ask
    “Sex?”

    Jessica Cook
  • Bag For Life

    Check you out with your bag for life oh!
    What you got inside?
    A summer fruit trifle.
    Oh my word that sounds delightful, I must get me one of those bags for life oh.
    Check you out with your brand new Kindle!
    What you got inside?
    A bit of Ruth Rendell.
    Oh my word that sounds stupendful, I must get me one of those poxy plastic Kindles.
    Check you out with your speedy boarding pass!
    We’re getting on the same plane mate, we’ll get there just as fast.
    You’ve gone from sitting down, to sitting on your arse!
    Oh, how I wish I had a speedy boarding pass.

    Oh Standfast
  • New York

    I sat in the pub drinking my beer
    and looking at the TV screens
    as New York got a hammering from the superstorm.

    For all I knew New York could sink
    but I would still be here
    just me and my beer.

    Marc Carver
  • 6 Nov 2012

    in a basement gig
    on election night
    trying to forget about
    time. strobe lights
    split images, benign
    exit signs illuminated.
    all i can think about
    is you.

    Integers at bus stops,
    slipping past the crowds,
    now down in this cavernous
    void you wouldn’t think
    was central london. sheltered
    from the news, i lock
    eyes and some kate bush
    comes on. i forget

    my heart is a swing state,
    i’ve never known what i
    wanted. the security of
    a home, the passionate
    dirty smog of change,
    readymade. have another
    warm san miguel with me
    it can’t matter all the time.

    looking back, it does seem
    i’ve had a history of
    severe anxiety, sitting
    by the island in the inlet
    at the park, and how
    everybody fit together,
    and then she said, “all
    i’ve read makes me blue”

    Django Wylie
  • Serotonin & Dopamine

    Belief in something, some sort of faith, an idea of where you are going, trusting where you want to be.
    Knowing it’s going to be alright even though life is tough and people are unkind.
    Not caring.
    Not sharing the same life as someone else.
    We are people who can stand on two feet, we are vertical. We are erect.
    Don’t follow, pave your own path. A new route.
    Enjoy the unkind, see the humour.
    Wallowing in the mud will get you stuck.
    Take risks.
    Move in uncouth ways.
    Make people feel uncomfortable.
    Fall over on purpose so others laugh at you.
    Find what you are good at then get great, find what you are shit at then get good. Progress.
    Seem happier than you are.
    If you have something to say, write it on a wall.
    Swear.
    Don’t regret but do apologize.
    Find new words, places and people.
    Feed your mind, starve those who eat all your ideas, they will only regurgitate them.
    Don’t harm anyone’s feeling or bodies.
    Be busy.
    Fall in love, have your heart broken and learn to move on.
    Remember the good forget the bad.
    Mistakes are genius.

    Charles Keen
  • Doorways

    she said
    no
    after you

    she said
    pearls before swine
    shit before shovel
    tears before bedtime

    she said
    don’t look at me like that
    you started it

    she said
    tonight
    when you’re alone
    doing yourself
    you’ll be doing me

    Mr Black