The Patriots, by George Szirtes

I am not a silent poet

An essay in Audenesque

When patriots go bawling in the street
Cursing and threatening as is their wont,
When politicians strut and yell and bleat
And right wing rags scream in their largest font,
When you can hear the thugs mutter and blag
Gathering below the nation’s flag,
You know you’ve heard it once before
Or twice or three times, maybe more,
It’s history kids, you know the score.

You know the score
You know the score
You go to bed and lock the door
And wait for them to bawl for more.

When roars of Traitor, Pirate, Foreign Scum,
Rise from the throats of educated toffs
Who feed the mob with the odd tasty crumb
So one man hungers while another scoffs,
When rhetoric is pitched ready for war
And lynching is demanded by the poor,
When nationhood comes down to race
Your nose cut off to spite your…

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Putting On Greens with No Holes, by Kevin Byrne

I am not a silent poet

so I’m putting on greens with no holes
Grafton Street is a penny old
and green tomatoes are ambassadors now,
so the question is
is there enough in our pockets for a pint?

obviously I’m putting on greens with no holes
when the barber has to sneeze in discarded hair
when Tuscany looks like Kinnegad in deepest January
and Wexford is a lake called Geneva
the question is
is there enough to cross the toll bridge?

so regardless I’m putting on greens with no holes
all graveyards are dogged by Thomas Hardy look-a-likes
they insist on standing in downpours on isolated farms
in Wessex repeating over and over again ”the question is
whose goin’ to be Baillie now!
I’m putting on greens with no holes
They’re rezoning land in Timbuktu
and the dentists are using continents for fillings.
I can remember when they used to leave cakes
on a circular…

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Stab, by Math Jones

I am not a silent poet

like i’m angry
but it fits in my pocket
can’t have the disrespect
got the mind got the man
enough to mean it
don’t have the discipline
not to use it though

carry it like i mean it
wear it inside, like a sabre
bring it out, let it flash
light will make them run
step back step up like
i’m showing them something to run onto
like they’re going to get their’s out anyway

’cause of fear of a flash of silver
it’s a spill and you can’t catch it
in your hands can’t control it
in their hand can’t dodge it
too quick can’t feel it
like spit but sharp
reflex stab

and now i’m open
and my hands can’t catch me
my clothes are soaking me up
and cold blows in
floor falling
all the screams
mum

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When you knife someone to death, by Antony Owen

I am not a silent poet

There are only two blood types –
one a midwife wipes from you at birth
secondly the one a paramedic uses to stem the knife wound.

There are only two types of lives –
the one two people make through an act of love
and the one a pack takes through an act of hating everything.

When you knife someone to death
a gaping hole appears in the mouth of a victim’s Mother
she will want to save her child like the first time he or she fell over.

He, or she will not be getting up from this one and neither shall you.

There are several types of love –
the one given to the lucky and the one denied
if you decide to stab someone you are denying what is denied to you.

There is only one bad decision
the one where you plunge into blood and the…

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These are the Madnesses, by Barry Patterson

I am not a silent poet

These are the Madnesses:

The blast furnace, the foundry
An industrial city on the iridescent bank of a brown river
Smoking air; the robot hammers & anvils of
Automatic forges supervised by children.

The suit that cost an arm & a leg
His shiny shoes
His tie, the papers that he reads; his house, his car
His entitlements, his freedoms.

Their lungs, their hands, their faces
Their rights, their fears
Families queueing in the mall; someone, somewhere
Got a taste of power.

The spreadsheet, the spreadsheet
Profit & loss
The trade tariff, the pay off; a gross net of shipping lanes from Asia
Carried containers stuffed with death.

The docket signed off
The docks departed
The box ticked; duty of duties paid
The lorry, the sliproad, the crawler lane, a pallet.

The shouting, the shouting
The self hatred & hopelessness
The imagined sneer, Dad’s temper, Gran’s cancer; getting out of…

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The Testimony of the Skaters and the Transcript on the Rink by Emily Martin, reviewed by Clara B. Jones

the curly mind linguistically innovative poetry - weird & risky

Emily Martin
The Testimony of the Skaters and the Transcript on the Rink
2019
Gauss PDF
http://dl.gauss-pdf.com/GPDF275-EM-TTOTSATTOTR.pdf

Unpaginated (16 pp)

Crosshind
Hinging outward and then turning in
Is it not a return to order
I will turn toward
I will not be able to help it
Passive voice as dream logic
Exaltation

Emily Martin (2019)

Many articles and books have been written in an attempt to describe and define “experimental” poetry. Victor Shklovsky’s 1917 manifesto, “Art as Technique,” remains one of the most influential statements on the subject. In his brief essay, the Russian Formalist stated, “The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar,’ to make forms difficult….” Emily Martin’s long-form “collage” poem, The Testimony of the Skaters and the Transcript on the Rink, is a worthy example of Shklovsky’s ideal. This young writer and teacher, living in Brooklyn, employs words, phrases, and sentences in juxtaposition to one…

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Whitewashed, by Kimberly Peterson

I am not a silent poet

Mrs. Sechrist, wife of Jacob Sechrist, a farmer living a few miles north of this city, fell from a box upon which she was standing while engaged in white-washing the ceiling of a room, broke her neck and died. (Weekly Wisconsin: Milwaukee, Saturday, December 1, 1888)

 

She said:

Jacob, can you bring in a box from the barn,:
I need to whitewash the ceiling.

He said:

I only kicked the box.
Clearly, she decided to fall.

She said:

He was constantly hugging me, telling
me to wear tighter tops “to show off my
tits”. He reached his arm around me to stroked
my breast with his fingertips. When I recoiled,
he laughed. “Lighten up, its just a friendly hug.”

The CEO came into my office to introduce
a new Board member. That member grabbed
my shoulders and kissed me roughly. My boss
just laughed. I went to HR but…

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M Tree, by kealan coady

the curly mind linguistically innovative poetry - weird & risky

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Chilhood Parties, by Liz Mills

I am not a silent poet

I remember a party when I lived in Scarborough.
It stopped for the Shipping Forecast.
We all sat reverently, children of fishermen or lifeboatmen.
I knew this mattered.

Another in Liverpool came to a halt
to watch Bill Shankly on TV,
knowing that football was more important
than a party, life or death.

But I’ve never been to a cutting party,
where little girls in new clothes
wait excitedly for their turn
to go into the next room and become a woman.

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Three poems by Rupert M Loydell

I am not a silent poet

IN NO POSITION TO TALK

We are a biological computer
drawing lines, connecting dots,
processing glyphs and contours.
Big photos on the wall make us feel
like we are going to the moon.

Anybody can make a narrative,
everybody does. We grid the page,
restrain the words, and everything
falls into place once mapped.
It’s like a battlefield, you have to

think your own way through. I want
a definitive world view; perception
has changed because of technology
but is always open to recall. We occupy
a different space in another room.

..

SILENCES

When I came to write this, I had lost the first sheet of paper written in the night as the poem nudged at me, escaping from the book I’d finally managed to read after three attempts.

The story is told to the narrator by his friend (‘I remember he said that she said’), slowly recounted by…

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