Two of my poems have been published on the Creative Writing Blog at Leicester University. My thanks to Jonathan Taylor.
http://creativewritingatleicester.blogspot.com.es/2017/06/two-poems-by-reuben-woolley.html
Rise? Rise. Dust of America,
Rise
The dream.
…………………. Hope.
Empty talk is over; for under
some lacklustre God have shoulders
dropped, factories rust shuttered
how our bible gives Babylon
God’s middle finger and
apple pie-….too much
noise from bodies thigh high
diamond glinting, righteously
broken, the way I like to see;
We must speak our minds openly.
(A person who is flat-chested is very hard to be a 10)
No more bitter, twisted lies. These
fleshed teardrops scattered like tombstones, my
people in the very dirt
like air – their different reality. Fluxed poverties,
cash flushed excite this daybreak that’s wondrously clear.
greasy dimes, a dollar welling swelling rise rise rise,
one dropping heavy as a nation made of flies.
Robbing so much potential…
Face challenges,
get the job done. Merely
an orderly and peaceful power transfer. Why are
you besest with gloom? It’s just
View original post 276 more words
Wiry, precise, like a wading bird —
egret, perhaps, or avocet, or stilt —
an elderly man in the coach queue
bursts out: ‘We were lucky! We had jobs!
Not to have a job was shameful; to lose
your job, a bloody disgrace!’ Startled by
his urgency, other grey heads nod agreement:
to be young now’s not much fun at all.
Round the corner, by the crossing lights,
the same young man, mud-coloured, sits each day
with his begging beanie, his hopeless, dreich politeness:
‘Spare any change? … Have a nice day then …’
When the rain comes he’ll slip under cover, resettle
at the stairs’ foot, take up his chant again.
On the coach, two ladies of a certain, uncertain age
talk in whispers; each wears six shades of beige —
blouse, jacket, trousers, shoes, plus skin and hair,
treading so palely on the earth, they leave
hardly a glint…
View original post 92 more words
You rubbed off a name from my wall.
I strip a tissue from your brain.
Today rain mocks time’s movement.
Sleep mocks coma.
Here I scratch a street.
There your Bible salesman seeks a door.
North of all music,
cold, my umbrella huddles with yours and listens
to a dying jazzman’s cigarette-hand.
You remove blue from my song.
I operate on the rest of the notes.
Sleep hiccups- good day,
and we dream- every soldier sings.
Every singer battles within.
we are divided
we are denied
we are dying
we have
exceeded the maximum
global requests per minute
for crawlers or humans
and cannot access
safety
cannot access
a roof
cannot access
food
cannot access
peace
even if we could crawl
to any
of it
we are humans
but have exceeded
humanity
have exceeded
its care
have exceeded
its capacity
we are everywhere
but nowhere –
we are in the
butcher’s slaughterhouse
though some
speaking better than we
call it falderal
our crawl is
falderal
and we have exceeded it
for Helen
and the mansion is a labyrinth of reflections,
corridors shards, rooms fragments, faces cubist.
Passageways lead to themselves. Kitchens
teem with the poor chewing cutlery.
In living rooms pianos have been detuned.
The library’s shelves are full of hollow books
that double as ash-trays. Few speak aloud
though refined voices murmur through walls,
locked doors. You can hear the clink of bone
china, shuffling papers, a gavel. In the cellar
there is sobbing, the clanking of chains,
the smell of burning. No-one ventures down
to see what’s there. Somewhere in the maze
is a lost self holding a loved one’s hand
but you’ll never find your way back again.
On coffee tables are newspapers full of lies
about an outside world clamouring to get in –
as if anyone would want to come here,
as if anything exists beyond the front door.
..
Jonathan Taylor is an author…
View original post 48 more words
for Helen
and the mansion is a labyrinth of reflections,
corridors shards, rooms fragments, faces cubist.
Passageways lead to themselves. Kitchens
teem with the poor chewing cutlery.
In living rooms pianos have been detuned.
The library’s shelves are full of hollow books
that double as ash-trays. Few speak aloud
though refined voices murmur through walls,
locked doors. You can hear the clink of bone
china, shuffling papers, a gavel. In the cellar
there is sobbing, the clanking of chains,
the smell of burning. No-one ventures down
to see what’s there. Somewhere in the maze
is a lost self holding a loved one’s hand
but you’ll never find your way back again.
On coffee tables are newspapers full of lies
about an outside world clamouring to get in –
as if anyone would want to come here,
as if anything exists beyond the front door.
..
Jonathan Taylor is an author…
View original post 48 more words
he can do anything he got us
our homes, our names, our cars,
our girls, our boys whose lives
we hope to keep from pain, he’s
got them too, he’s got our brains
even for coal dust, for reducing
taxes to the rich, he’s done
twisted our heads saying what
obama did was just too much for
the people now we going to take
it back and instead make you work
harder for less pay and health
benefits working dangerously
that’s our mantra things
moneterize everything even the
end of of the day say with this clown
taking what his father taught him well
take houses away from black folks
practice making sure that they
live in hell that there be no white
people america with black folk
moneterize
moneterize everything take poor
peoples’ hours and don’t protect their
overtime take their unemployment benefits
kill community healthcare centers
and their…
View original post 240 more words
I.
Oh for a muse to tell our sodden tale,
a dreamscape to cheer the sorry traveller.
Poet, sing us corvid-chasing buses
clearing the outer suburbs, to vasty
fields under a white horse on that bald hill;
huddled victims, and middle managers
of the failing public sector, with their
PowerPoints due on some restructure.
I met the liberal on a frosty night, as the sky cracked and its clear moon exposed our frailties.
Have you read The Grand Inquisitor?
This its antithesis.
He gorged on suffering.
Grabbing a pinnacle (not Westminster, Faringdon Folly) – loftiness in destroying an individual.
‘Children stuffed up chimneys, not with sweets at Christmas pantos.’
‘Who do you think you are? celebrities weep at slave-owning ancestors.’
‘Degrees in Leisure Studies less deadly than tuberculosis.’
Chronicling a tragic dinner lady who lives with badgers and worships Ferrero Rocher, Hunter’s chicken, two-for-one meals at Harvester.
View original post 171 more words
We have become Kings of Chaos
and Queens of Confusion
terror streams across our TV
so we grab our iPad
and quickly update our profile pic
to say we stand with _____________
(insert name of most recent locale)
as we slap together lunches for kids
that won’t eat them
and curse the ever-ticking clock
wondering why we decided last night’s Netflix marathon
was such a good idea at the time.
Reality is paused
as our goodness is posed
so it can be posted
on various social media accounts
“Say CHEESE kids!”
insert caption (Making lunch for the kiddos
they are so awesome!);
we have taught our kids
to be selfie addicts
and social media experts
while dressing them in the latest trends.
What about
being and teaching
ourselves and future generations
to be compassionate humans?
Kind and caring toward fellow humans
and towards animals as well
without the…
View original post 244 more words
reubenwoolley 