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An Orderly Woman

An Orderly Woman

 

Every week was planned

with every day given an allotted task

She was indeed a creature of habit

always dressed according to the job in hand

Mondays were spent enwrapped

amongst sheets, dresses and underwear

Soap powder, dolly blue and the Burco boiler

and soon the garden lines became like bunting

Tuesdays she stood before the ironing board

surrou...

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Also by keith jeffries:

A Royal Box | A Living Creation | The Numinous | Waiting | He is...... | Retreat | The Two Valleys | Loneliness | Enraged | Nightfall |

L, O, V,E (Lust Over Vanity Equally)

If your image of happiness 
Is two people making love on a couch 
What a sad lonely existence 
You're going to have 
So save yourself from this image

Love isn't about sex
If you think it is then you're just in lust
So save yourself in this chemical 
All your friends are catching but it's not always that good
So save yourself from this image

Love shouldn't be the image on a screen
It...

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Also by Mikey V Kinsey:

Words of The Waiting Man 3 | Words of The Waiting Man 2 | Firefly 3 War For Love | April | Chapter 2 Mr. Depression and レディ 死 | Chapter 1 Mr Depression Lust | Ghsot | Rotting Into | Corpse | Only Hollow | The Last Chapter | Empty | Burning Bright | Romantically Drifting |

Living My Own Death

I can tell you exactly when it happened. I was sat on one of those plasticy leatherette chairs. You know the ones, they have them in all hospitals, they're easy to wipe clean if someone has a little accident. I had my hand clasped about my wife's fingers and though I knew I was squeezing them too hard she didn't complain.

She, the doctor that is, or should I say consultant? Anyway, she leant in...

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Also by Jacqueline Phillips:

PRETTY PINK |

cancerdeathhospitalhopelifelove

Mephistopheles.

I'm sitting in purgatory
A deserving end
To my shitty story

You think you know who I am
But you don't know what I've done
Some call me the devil
Some call me his forgotten son

I'll take your heart at the start
And say you have mine
Once you realize I'm empty
I'll leave you all alone, crying

I've done a thing or two
That I can't say I regret
I'll dig into your memories
Make it i...

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Also by Nick:

No Title. | Best Friends Forever. | Not A Poem, I Just Don't Want To Forget. | Your Unread Letter. | No Questions Answered. | Tiny Round Friends. |

Monstersdevilheartriddle

Wet Wednesday in Wakefield

The blazing embers of a winter sun

sink below the distant horizon,

as streetlights claim approaching night.

A solitary shopper treads the rain-sheened pavement,

hunched against the evening chill.

The drizzle has stopped for now,

promising to return, reinvigorated,

from the covering cloud

that attempts to veil the sunset.

Hands in pockets, hair bedraggled,

our travelle...

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Also by Trevor Alexander:

Fromage Hommage |

TO MY LOVE

Blink my soft green eyes

and there you are

twinkling brighter

than a blue star

You fill my heart with sunshine

warmer than a June day

I never want to be away...

from you

by lynn hahn

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Not So Typical

Traits genetically tailored, we're meant to feel like failures

Hopes to be better than the last are stored away in the past

Dreams thrown out the window as complications crescendo

Girls sacrafice their dresses to ace their math tests

Life seems to be easy but struggles are masked wth Febreeze

My words and ideas seem to be invisible but maybe if they listened they would know I'm not ...

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Also by Doris:

Awry | ? |

atypicalcomplicatedfailgenetics

"write about us" (01/30/2018)

"I love you"-- laboratory euphoria
crossing stars and sparks,
bridging blackouts and cold sweats
and pleas that I come to bed
"I love you" -- biting feeding hands
and still you feed me,
nourish me, hold me
and push us to grow
in the well tilled garden of one another
"I love you"-- oil slick Oceana clearing ,
chasing the sunset,
healing by eternity ;
it feels like my lungs were made to ...

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Also by Zach Dafoe:

half tilt (1/18/2018) | inplanted future (01/18/2017) |

i love you keanu reeves

Institutional Memory

 

I run up against edges
of your tight reality

 

fluorescent lights
wall-to-wall carpet and concrete

 

I hold it, bend it
rewrite it try to forget it

 

I don't trust my
memories of it

 

yet here I am again
In front of it

 

I start talking back

to the elevator

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Also by Robert C Gaulke:

Thoughts in the uber | Negotiating Curves | Childhood in the Woods | Am Wasser gebaut | Emanuelle Can’t | Pink Money | Rare | Meeting People Upside Down | New |

Contemplation on Creation

When you create 

You start doing that for your joy 

Then you doing that to share your joy with others

After that  you realise this is who you are  

And this is what you came here  for...to Create 

...

Joy of creating and sharing with others 

It's inseparable part of our existence  

-------------------------------

Most beautiful creations comes from Heart 

There for th...

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Also by Artur Hulboj:

Elements with in You | Healing journey ( song ) | Be Here Now | We are one! | Silent language | Driven by the moment | Conditional artist | Faith | Transformation | Face of love |

CONSIDERATA

Life is a mixed open prison

with one way in and one way out. 

Some have bigger more comfortable cells,

but all suffer confinement

with variations of refinement. 

So make the best of it -

bring your trinkets to the ball;

celebrate differences;

try to make your stay comfortable,

be friends with the gaoler

if it helps. 

If you run screaming round the grounds

there ...

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Also by ray pool:

DISASTER CAST | RESENTMENT | DIRTY WASHING ONLINE | AMNESTY | NIGHT VIGIL | WEAPONRY | MUMMY AND DADDY |

School Library

Wednesday afternoon the school Bell rings, 
Some students were filled with joy of springs, 
For now was the period of library, 
With books would we make merry, 
Searching for book to get immersed in our fantasy, 
What a joy it was to read! (2)

Adventure,  suspense,  murder mysteries, 
And how can I forget the 'Agatha Christies'. 
The smell of the books so nostalgic, 
For no price in the...

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summertime feeling

the sun gleams as i open my eyes,

no words could have described it,

to wake up with a warm feeling inside ,

its a wonderful feeling i admit.

 

how wierd it is how the silence awkens,

no traffic to disterb the sound,

whilst mums cooking the bacons,

making sure its crispy and brown

 

 

 

 

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Also by Jessica jade:

new start |

Congra to a dear boy!

What a joy
What a joy
My little nephew,
Two decades back
Born abroad,
When a  guest here
A ride on
A piggy shoulder
Who used to enjoy,
To whom I bought
A motley toy
Out of himself
Made a brilliant boy.

“As per my choice
Could you buy me a donkey
Or a could you allow  me
A  tortoise
To touch
When we go to
The squalid market square
Or  the nearby church?”



Double mind
Is...

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Also by Alem Hailu G/Kristos:

They cross fertilize | Doing Bad To Good End | Do in Rome as Romans do | You have to pay for a deaf ear |

congratulationnephewdearsonparentallove

What!

My rhyming couplet

-at the metre's expence-

is knowing the difference

if this makes sence-

is when to use when

from

when to use whence.

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Also by Tommy Carroll:

Wipers (D minor) | Ancient ruin | Inebriation | Lissy |

Marriage is llike a Cabbage

Marriage

Is like a cabbage

Your need to strip back the outer leaves

The vibrant green is just for show

The sweet and tender flavours

Are developed deep below

It’s not for everyone, but it’s versatile

It can stew, can be raw

Fundamentally they’re identical

The heart lies at the core

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Also by Albert Van Skywalker:

Sonnet M | Paddock | My Fungal Nail Infection | Gym Gigolo | Caught Short | Bumble | Mrs Day | The Laureate of Levenshulme | Evening News | Destiny | COYWM | Hopeless Romantic | Crocodile Tears | The Return of 7:22 (at 7:27 ) |

marriagecabbage

Stand Up For Our Country

Stop Pussyfooting around .When will you stand up to the Rich with their feet in the trough . Big enough and better Our Country is Drownding . Remoaners let all others walk all over us then Expect us to put up with the scum of the Earth . Just to look good on paper . Just to look good in their life . Please help the needy by all means  . But not the scum of the World  . Take over take Charge make u...

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Also by Wendy Higson:

Yorkshire Passion | Troubles Shared | Pretence | Yorkshire way | Donald Trump | OOP'S I'm In A Mesh |

The But in Front of You

Why is it so much harder to be ok than it is to not

Why does the darkness seem so safe

All i want is to not be ok

All i want is to give up, throw in the towel

I don't want to have to fight for the light or that breath of fresh air

I don't want to fight for all the crap she took from me

She can take back what she gave me instead

She kept everything i needed and left me with ev...

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Also by Kristy:

My Biggest Fear | It's Been a Year | He is the Sunrise | The Cactus in the Kaleidoscope | The Dark Abyss | The Reset Button | The Eye of the Storm | It's 4 am |

Why?

Why do you get to be okay

while I struggle to breathe.

Why do I have to see your face,

and see the same brown eyes that forced me down.

Why can’t I feel clean,

no matter how hard I scrub.

Why do I still feel your hands,

no matter how much I try to forget your toxic touch.

Why do you get to laugh,

while I fall apart trying to survive with this.

Why do I have to suffer ...

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invincible

I'm not invincible

You're just weaker than you think

You didn't strike a fatal blow

You saw me fall I hit the ground hard

But I got up ready for round two

 

I'm not invincible

I just learned to survive everything

To embrace every drop of blood

Saw the beauty in my bruises

The symphony of my bones cracking

And I still knew I would win

 

I'm not invincible

I...

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The stone of time

It is all as stone

As the shadows pass

Withering to the new 

conceptions

For forlorn wishes have

ripened into empty hands;

emptied of futures worth

A passage back to the forgotten 

So they may think anew 

With wit and guile to triumph 

To carve their day in stone. 

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Also by DESMOND CHILDS:

Path | Edge the hog | Pilgrims Choice | As the crow flies | Grey Moon | Deeper | Dead Anger Haunts | Lamp | Sound in the silence |

What is our purpose?

What is our purpose?

I’m I just here to provide or bring my people mental genocide.

We live in a climate that is so divisive

I feel like most races are pulling on each other like a pair of vise grips.

They say time waits for no one this is true

But if it did you have to ask yourself would it wait for you

What has been your contribution to bring about change?

I don’t mean like...

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I am captivated and entwined.

He will be anything I want him to be.

He says it keeps the mystery.

A passionate prose or rhythmic rhyme. 

I am captivated and entwined. 

Within the lines of what he writes

I find my self awake at night.

 

I want to feel his gentle kiss.

His fingers pressed against my skin.

I want his tongue to trail away,

To my bud where it can play.

Roaming round till it may find...

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Also by leanne taylor:

I just close my eyes. | Snake | Stranger | Denied. | You break me to my core. | Mama (response to Daughter by Sybil Ruth) |

Moment

We live in and for the moment 

In it, as the tomorrow doesn’t exist

But, as we shall plan for the future

Closing our eyes

Waking up to the unexpected

But each day must be enjoyed

Long lived, as we know we can see tomorrow 

Before blinking our eyes

Build a castle today

Enjoy forever

In the present

Its idealist

Plan to have even if you don’t wake up tomorrow

Th...

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Also by sasha:

Smile | Half A Rainbow | Foggy Ways | Brain over Heart | Fantasy | Homeless Love | Friendship at the Door | Just Me | Cruel world | First High | Something old Something new | Infection | Coach BS | Cake | Seasons | Personality | Loving a man | Compromise | The Dish |

BARRIO SANTIAGO

BARRIO SANTIAGO

Jerez de la Frontera

 

In the catherdral shadow

a woman peels limes

then washes them

at the blue fountain

as an angry sun burns

shapes on stone.

 

From dark passages

a bright guitar

emerges into afternoon,

arpeggios glittering

across the water

like momentary fish.

 

It predicts your path

past broken balconies,

ragged skirts, ...

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Also by john short:

LOVE AND LOBSTERS |

Gower

The sand was always hot

                beside the white dunes and the coarse grass

               

The sea was always blue

                between the black rocks and the horizon haze

 

The beach was always ours

                between the seagull shout and the distant crowd

 

We were always alone

               between the far world and our near union

 

We swa...

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Also by Chris Armstrong:

Rooms | The Poet's Problem | Hen dŷ | Trout | Prometheus Redux |

beachdunesfutureGowermarriagesandseasouth walesswimmingWales

needy

I told you that I wanted to have a baby.

You assumed it was because I needed a new play thing,

or that I needed more attention for myself.

Truthfully,

I wanted a baby

because that meant that a part of you 

would have to love me forever.

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Also by Maria Renea:

Sketch Diary |

SOBIBOR - WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?

(A re-post for International Holocaust Day.  In 2011 John Demjanjuk, a retired car-worker in Ohio originally from the Ukraine,  was deported to and convicted in Germany of war crimes he committed while working as a guard for the Nazis at Sobibor concentration camp. It has always struck me that our precious principles are cheap until upholding them comes at a cost).

 

They took us near Vinnyt...

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Also by John Coopey:

EMBRASING DIVERSITY | NIGHTS IN PRESTATYN | WRITE OUT LOUD WOMEN BLUES | A WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN | THE POET'S RANT - A TRIOLET | I WHINGE AND WHINE |

Waking up my people

It can take time to get

My inner people moving in the morning

Like an old car on a cold frosty day

Where the windows have to be

Scraped and brushed

Meticulously

then the engine starts

Sometimes with several turns of the key

In order for a breath of life to start

The action of working in my mind

Where cogs turn

And fingers hit the keys

The frost and mist meltin...

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Also by Martin Elder:

Who is the fairest | What if | is he |

Would you let me take control

Hear my words listen to me closely I will take things slow. 

This will go quite easy as long as you give up control.

 I believe you want this deep down you can't wait to please, I would rather it be me another might not be as gentle you see. 

When it's my voice you hear do as I say. 

I will take care as orders I give increase our pleasure with little to no pain.

 I offer you that wh...

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Also by Michael Rios:

Frailty | Life | Trials | Song of the soul | Anxiety of feelings | Fate | One last night |

Misery to peace

I need to be honest with you about something i've been keeping from you.
I'm not see threw so I know how easy it is to keep things from you. Our first time through was rough and I really messed up too. I'm a liar. I would deny in hope that I wouldn't hurt you . In return it hurt me and made it even worse for you. As hard as it is for me to say, but I had a one night stand without you. Drunken to ...

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Also by Jacob Martin:

Closure |

Dont Stop

To long we focused on getting here now you want to take your time

No lets take it off now put your problems on the floor let our bodies go to war some how when you lay next to 

 My body reaches its exctasy I feel pleasure in the way w eundress and stare into each others vanity.. you see my vulnerablities and make my mind go weak

But thats not enough lay down let my warmth envelope yours a...

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Also by Jay:

Poetry |

sexfrustrated

A dead rose for a dead friend.

I came across with a dead rose.

How impure and crooked it seemed.

Deteriorated without the life it once had.

I kept walking with it, holding it with my right hand.

How sad it was to see a rose like that.

Where once it was bright red,

now it’s only a brown looking thing with nothing left.

I kept walking with the dead rose,

a sad rose with no thorns.

Until the path ended i...

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happysadfriendshiplovelifefamilymetaphorwonder

Self doubt

Im not skinny, while other girls are dimes, im a penny, I have my shine, tho its not brand new, im worth something, but only to those distracted by whats shiny, I'm far from tiny or petite, my waist line is repulsive to some and somedays that someones me, I may never be enough, I've had it made, and have survived when times grew tough, not given up, I just grow bitter when i see my fluff, even if ...

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Also by Myescape:

no more repeats. | lovers part |

Broken glass

Shards of Broken Glass lie on the floor those of which used to be the remains of a glass vase. Drops of blood seeping into the wooden floor with those same drops of blood I watch as they soak into the white painted walls. I stand there watching as you struggle to soak up the red substance known as blood with a towel. As I lay there I wonder how could he believe her? A heated argument turned sour i...

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Please take all your belongs with you When leaving earth

Please take all your belongs with you

When leaving earth

 

Collect all your troubles

Pack them tight

As your leaving tonight

 

Remember when you loved once

Count each one of them,

On the last breath,

Don’t miss any out

No matter how small

 

Please take all of them with you

When leaving this life

 

Mistakes X

Regrert X

Pain X

Grief X

And s...

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life after death loss

visiting the chelsea hotel

visiting the chelsea hotel

we walk along the hudson river climb
onto the highline where monarchs swarm
purple verbenas and dry grass
cross block on block heart in mouth
walk don’t walk yellow taxi traffic horns
count down the numbers on west 25
spot the red brick high rise one time
‘world’s tallest building’

ventilator shaft intubates basement window
the building pegged by scaffoldin...

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These Uncomfortable Truths

The truth, slippery as an eel,

The truth, so hard to find -

Grasp it and it's gone

We carry on:

The years ahead, the years behind -

Find it we do:

In snatches, on days that go by,

On throwaway days, such as these.

Or in thick-set night

When we fight

Not to put out the light.

 

Not to put out the light

On skin as white as snow

And smooth as monumental alaba...

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Also by John E Marks:

Gorffwysfa | Carmel |

Charlatan

I commit my thoughts to the ocean,

Magnificent, protean

Mysterious, beyond my gaze

Free, without emotion.

 

Silent wild and thunderous

Cavernous and gaping,

Still beneath a placid haze,

Wondrous and knowing.

 

Above a gaping horizon

Wide clouds hang overweight

And gather for the union,

Before the plunge, inflate.

 

At the coast, ad infinitum

Insentie...

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plastic ocean

(4) 5-7-5 Haikus

Caught in these struggles

Like water finding its way

We will endeavor

 

Chasing his father

Walking within his footsteps

He lives in shadows

 

Resonating beauty

Walking on imported air

Formidably cool

 

Gracefully they move

Like Elephants swimming free

Above earth’s trappings

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Also by 220August:

Love should always be fashioned in pairs | Walk With me At A Distance | But For The Dripping | Be Still Be Wild | Above it all | Oh what express – what | Playing Charades with the Clouds | Aurora Slept for Hours | Have You Seen My Wayfaring Father | The Pessimist | She only ever kisses me goodbye | Kill the winter - Sun shine on | Bullets from the soul (New Year's Resolutions) | Autumn Changes Me |

haikus

Haiku 2

Anger has claws

snagged across bone

pierced along gut

= = = =

Sadness has a depth

flooding the pathway

swamping the roots

= = = =

His pace knows no footsteps

shows no sign in snow

he is immobile

= = = =

After autumn

winter easily discovers his hiding

trees are bare — nowhere to vanish

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Also by Douglas MacGowan:

Echo | 4 haiku | 1980 | Grave | Magic | DNA Test | Legacy | a (hopefully) funny poem for Edward Gorey | Happiness | Mea culpa | TRAVERSE | FOUR | The Grey Boy | The Beautiful Men | FIVE |

I’m a little bit scared

I’m a little bit scared

Of falling in love

Of not being able or capable to love

Of taking chances 

Of who I might me

I don’t know how much more

I can give or go through

 

I’m a little bit scared

I was so very satisfied you see

I never meant for it to develop so rapidly

When I’m up there on a pedestal 

No one understands how much I give

Or knows how it all aff...

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Also by Rick Varden:

Restoration | Old Man Young Love | VIRTUAL UNREALITY | The Salubrious Mr Stevens | AIR ON THE G STRING | FANNY ARLINGTON | Does Anyone Like Me? | MY GANG | Lady Desiree |

Karma

Les Pennington had a cracking cricket bat

and it doubled as a bazooka which was good

it wasn’t one of those cheap efforts from Woolies

it was made from good mature willow wood

 

he’d got it from Kay’s which was quite ironic

as they sold mainly ex-army and military bits

i never dared ask where he got the money from

but he’d bought it second-hand for 10 and 6

 

each mor...

Read and leave comments (5)

Also by J R Harris:

Summer - Time | The fools at the end of the Pier | Susan | Mesnes Park; Wigan’s Jewel in the Crown | Dust: an observation | Haigh Plantations: 1860 to 2017; games, nature and Phytophthora ramorum | The Westwood Cooling Towers – Execution Day |

I'm Sorry

It must be so confusing to you.

One second I'm there,

The next I'm not.

One second I'm happy,

The next I'm insufferable

And I'm sorry.

 

I try so hard to step into the light

And stand there by your side,

But the darkness always whispers

And I allow myself to be pulled back into it.

 

I'm scared.

The darkness tells me the cruel truth

And the light tells me ...

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Also by Cat_Siren00:

Your Warmth | Lighter with You |

Yes or No

So many programmes and news feeds tell us that in

our lives, almost anything we do has a marked

detrimental effect on the world around us.

Consumption consumes.  Waste pollutes.  Food has miles.  Clothes

sweat.  Journeys emit.  So we all, collectively,

know this.  However.  Nothing changes.  Mainly, I

think, because we’re largely – individually –

unable to make a difference.  ...

Read and leave comments (2)

Also by Rich:

Someone | Warm smile | Festival Fun | Common Ground |

Rain

 

 

 

 

 

Raining
The sun is still
Shining

Read and leave comments (1)

Also by Shirley Smothers:

Metaphor, Acrostic | Forgot to Water | Advice in Four word lines, or less. |

RainSun2-4-2

FLYING WEST

In lands where they originate

Religion is a tool of hate,

Aimed at the freedoms that we give here,

So why do they choose to come and live here?

Declaring that an infidel

Deserves to feel the fires of hell.

I have this question in my mind

But doubt a "faithful" answer I'll find;

Are Muslim cuckoos flying west

To oust our own bird from its nest?

...........................

Read and leave comments (1)

Also by M.C. Newberry:

THE OLD STORY | A Minister for the Lonely? |

Two Minutes To Midnight

so it's two minutes to midnight
two minutes to the final ding-dong
get your papers in order
make sure you fill in your leave form..

so it's two minutes to midnight
now is a fabulous time to start smoking again
will the world dive to into a fantasy fuck-fest
or will many people gas themselves in garden sheds..

so it's two minutes to midnight
which album will you put on
whose lips will...

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Also by Suki Spangles:

Planet Of The Vapes |

fear-porn poetrytwo minutes to midnight

Heatons Arts Trail

The Heatons Arts Trail (held in July) is already looking for contributors in the spheres of art, music and words. Of course, we still have our Heatons Twaiku twitter account.

If anyone has ideas for workshops or other poetic activities, please post them here.

Read and leave comments (1)

Also by Stockport WoL:

January 2018 Collage Poem: A New Life II | January 2018 Collage Poem: A New Life I |

Heaton Arts Trail

Show more entries …

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