Unknown Soldier

He died on the first day

of the battle of the Somme

blood-shod and flailing in no-mans land

until one blow immortalised him.

Venerated in clay he became - everyman

classroom lesson, hero and bronze plaque 

forever poised for his final call.

His face - grotesque lines of agony

until polish smoothed all away.

Now, more than a hun...

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9/11

who could have known it?
terrorists taking no stock
would trade in futures

who could have known it? 
those towers were autumns bridge
tiers coming to fall

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ThePoetry Spoke has now closed its doors for the final time.  We finished as we started with a wonderful event.  If anyone wishes to look back at some of the poetry that we were fortunate enough to share at la gondola and Gallaghers; please search Merseypoetryscene on youtube.  You will also find some excellent poetry from the Wirral Ode Show at the Egremont Ferry and some fine musical performance...

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ThePoetry Spoke returns -

Thursday the 3rd of April - 8pm!  

This time around it’s Open Mic

& Guest Band - JustByChance

Gallagher Pub & Barbers

20 Chester Street - Birkenhead

Wirral - CH41 5DQ

Of our Guests 

Two gifted folk singer-songwriters, Andrew Jones and Liz Owen turned duo, In doing so they combining their talents and honed their music towards a folk/pop se...

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ThePoetry Spoke -

Thursday the 20th of February - 8pm!  
This time around it’s Open Mic
&  Guest Poetry from  - Just Poets 

Gallaghers Pub & Barbers - 20 Chester Street

Birkenhead - Wirral - CH41 5DQ

Of our Guests;

http://www.wirralpoetry.com/news/event-special-notice/

Just Poets are Catherine Coward and Norman Warwick.  Norm is co-host at folk ‘n poetry nights at The Ba...

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www.wirralpoetry.com/news/

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ThePoetry Spoke returns -
Thursday the 6th of February - 8pm!  
This time around it’s Open Mic
&  Guest Band - Toe Rag Duo

Gallaghers Pub & Barbers - 20 Chester Street

Birkenhead - Wirral - CH41 5DQ

Of our Guests -

An International flavour comes to ThePoetry Spoke this Thursday as Helen Maher & Paul Dennis entertain us, collectively as the Toe Rag Due.  Helen has gone down a storm a...

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ThePoetry Spoke returns -
Thursday the 16th of January - 8pm!  
This time around it’s Open Mic
&  Guest Poet - Ian Whiteley

Gallagher Pub & Barbers - 20 Chester Street - Birkenhead
Wirral - CH41 5DQ

Of our Guest - Wol, Yorkshire and Wigan poet!

Ian is a member of the Black Horse Poets in Wakefield - with 5 poems published in their recent anthology 'Full Rein', Ian's first full colle...

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The 2nd January.

Our next event is not until the 16th of January (3rd week in January).

Happy Christmas everyone!

Best of

Chris

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This Thursday - 5th December - 8 till 12pm! (late bar)

@ Gallaghers Pub & Barbers
20 Chester Street,
Birkenhead  
Wirral
CH41 5DQ

At 8pm upstairs we're putting on a free spread of Christmas food for everyone.  The typical fare (veggies also catered for).  Thx to Dave Bradley and his hotplate, tasty warm mince pies!  Food and a chance to socialise.

At 8:30 - 10pm upstairs we will have ...

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The much in demand Socialist Folk Singer Alun Parry plays ThePoetry Spoke at Gallaghers As Guest Musician - this coming Thursday -  21st November - from 8pm!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsoc6AJC-yA

Of Alun's debut album "Corridors of Stone", Lianne Steinberg, a music writer in the Big Issue said of the album: "The Liverpudlian singer-songwriter packs more weight in the punch of his folk songs th...

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This Thursday

8 - 11 with late Bar

check us out!

www.wirralpoetry.com

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https://soundcloud.com/chris-coey-poetry/toilet

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Wirral Ode Show - Poet of the Year

More details can be found below

http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=38886

@ Gallaghers Pub and Barbers

20 Chester Street

Birkenhead

Wirral

CH41 5DQ

4 minutes to read/perform your poetry

Independent judges - All Poets Welcome

One of the longest running poetry competit...

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https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=477750028998516&id=422557617851091

Don’t sit in with the idiots lantern!

To read your poetry, to hear music in words and words in music. 

Join us!

The antithesis of TV culture is near, we’re ThePoetry Spoke!

and we're here;

www.wirralpoetry.com

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ThePoetry Spoke returns -

Thursday the 19th of September - 8pm!  

This time around it’s Open Mic

&  Guest Singer-Songwriter - Carl Allan!

Gallagher Pub & Barbers

20 Chester Street

Birkenhead

Wirral

CH41 5DQ

Of our Guest -

Carl Allan "The Huyton Minstrel"

Carl Allan is one of Liverpool's finest songwriters; a singer songwriter's, singer son...

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ThePoetry Spoke returns -

Thursday the 5th of September - 8pm!  

This time around it’s Open Mic

&  Guest Poet - Pete Slater!

Gallagher Pub & Barbers

20 Chester Street

Birkenhead

Wirral

CH41 5DQ

Of our Guest -

Pete Slater’s poetry does not drive buses, it is not accidental.

It can be mental, temperamental and eventful.  It has been kn...

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ThePoetry Spoke returns -

Thursday the 15th of August - 8pm!  

This time around it’s Open Mic

&  Guest Poet - John Darwin!

Gallagher Pub & Barbers

20 Chester Street

Birkenhead

Wirral

CH41 5DQ

Of our Guest -

Laconic or terse - pick your own adjective, John seems to weigh the value of each word while delivering poetry in shifting rhythms, at one...

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ThePoetry Spoke returns -

Thursday the 18th of July - 8pm!  

This time around it’s Open Mic

& Guest Poet - Paul Richie!

Gallagher Pub & Barbers

20 Chester Street

Birkenhead

Wirral

CH41 5DQ

Of our Guest -

Paul combines recognisable page quality with a clear impassioned delivery.  

He’s a poet sharing his convictions and asking questi...

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Myself and my partner Natalie started filming poetry a couple of years ago, first at our own events and then also adding in additional events in and around Merseyside.  The project has involved filming night after night and then the time intensive editing and processing of the films.  I would hazard a guess that we've probably put in somewhere near the 700 hour mark - just doing this.  So what'...

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While the 4th of July commemorates some minor incident in the Americas, ThePoetry Spoke, Open Mic poetry and Guest Musician Jim Pearson spin wildly into the bigger theater of Birkenhead!

Actually only part of that is true ;) 

Jim Pearson will be whimsical, bitter, sombre, wide-eyed and hopeful – thematically speaking. He will also be lyrically tasteful, low-key, uniquely English, sa...

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8 - 11 with late Bar

check us out!

www.wirralpoetry.com

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8 - 11 with late Bar

check us out!

www.wirralpoetry.com

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I rarely do preamble but feel the need here.  

Our poetry night moved venue a month back, and in so doing we moved to a function room that the pub owners had named and decorated as 'the spectacle'.  

So what I hear you ask?

I wanted to write something with that title in mind.  In so doing I came up wth the idea of a poet in the audience - as yet unheard, becoming the greatest perfor...

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 'ThePoetry Spoke'

Great poetry and acoustic music

Thursday 16th May - 8pm start time!  

(note half an hour earlier than prior events)

Gallaghers Pub & Barbers

20 Chester Street

Birkenhead - The Wirral

CH41 5DQ 

Upstairs function room - dedicated to our poetry.

3 mins from Hamilton Square train station - easy connections to Liverpool, Chester etc...

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Info via link.

https://soundcloud.com/chris-coey-poetry/thepoetry-spoke

Full advert to follow nearer the 16th May - opening night.

Guest Poet - Guest Musician - Open Mic Poetry 

Every 1st & 3rd Thursday of each month.

Gallaghers Pub 

20 Chester Street

Birkenhead 

Wirral

CH41 5DQ

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  'ThePoetry Spoke'

Great poetry and acoustic music

Tuesday -  23rd April- doors open 8pm

La Gondola

22a Liscard Crescent

Wallasey- The Wirral

CH44 1AE (a stones throw over the Mersey from Liverpool)

Check us out in the gig guide...

Our Guest Poet

DGPS Poet - Mike Richardson

Born north of the boarder Mike travelled extensively as a servi...

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The unions are dead,
carcasses of a once great
movement - now mute.

Great bones of industry fractured,
the post war dream was
butchered.  Left hanging
by the lady not for turning.

Time - time turned iron to rust
the common man’s
dreams like coal to dust.

Things can only get better!
So ‘New labour’ said.

But her bruise remains,

and all their blood has bled to blue
and i...

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  'ThePoetry Spoke'

Great poetry and acoustic music

Tuesday - Tomorrow!  26th March- doors open 8pm

La Gondola

22a Liscard Crescent

Wallasey- The Wirral

CH44 1AE (a stones throw over the Mersey from Liverpool)

Check us out in the gig guide...

Our Guest Poet

Write Out Loud's - Dave Morgan

Dave's poetry leaps through kitchen sink dramas, c...

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Think TANK!

Our progressive think tank recommends
a back to work welfare solution.  Disability offends
us all with it’s idea of reliance, so what we need now
is a soft pastel re-focus on aspiration. 

You should appreciate our reclassification,
the monetary cut-back to your benefit
shows how well you actually are.

You simply wore the wrong tag;
were impoveris...

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Some politicians reach only for the limits of their own ambitions.

They occupy an office, reduce ideals, condence possibility

into a form of grubbiness.

An infested feeding upon vision, 

all knowing -  and contemptible.

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  'ThePoetry Spoke'

Great poetry and acoustic music

This Tuesday - 26th February- doors open 8pm

La Gondola

22a Liscard Crescent

Wallasey- The Wirral

CH44 1AE (a stones throw over the Mersey from Liverpool)

Check us out in the gig guide...

Our Guest Poet

Ged Thompson

Ged's poetry questions life. Poetically it does this via the telling of tales...

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Life

In deed and indecision
with words or their omission,
by strategy or compulsion
In inertia or revolution.

To reach the moon, to sail the seas
to conquer lands, plant hopeful seeds.

In baking bread in breaking bread,
in building up with worn out tools
the loaded language of imperialist fools,

for all you are, and all you’re not
with cross to bare
o...

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This Thursday Night - 17th January

'Wirral Ode Show'

poetry open mic night

8pm for an 8:30 Start

The 'Egremont Ferry Hotel'

Tobin Street

Wallasey

CH44 8DF

We welcome ALL poets from near and far to a warm, friendly and inclusive open mic poetry night at a wonderfully picturesque real ale pub that overlooks the river Mersey.

No closed set list...

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The Romantic Scent

of Rose, Orchid and

Golden jasmine, softly

embraced by Sandalwood

and Vanilla

SOLVENT ABUSE CAN KILL INSTANTLY

Ingredients: BUTANE, ISOBUTANE, PROPANE, ALCOHOL DENAT, PARFUM FRAGRANCE, PROPYLENE GLYCOL, TRIETHYL CITRATE, FARNESOL, LINALOOL, COUMARIN, ALPHA ISOMETHYL IONONE, GERANIOL, LIMONENE, HYDROCITRONELL...

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Flip flops and questionably rolled cigarette,
Alan a 1st from Cambridge and dishevelled,
raised a stare from a dense looking
navy tattooed Friday night clobber man.

My friend the actuary,
remunerated accordingly.
Piano recitals at 5
a piece of child prodigy

viewed in a pub
through views unkind.

A mirror is needed.

What sort of fool -
judges by appearance?
 

...

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'ThePoetry Spoke'

Great poetry and acoustic music

This Tuesday - 27th November - doors open 8pm!

La Gondola

22a Liscard Crescent

Wallasey- The Wirral

CH44 1AE (a stones throw over the Mersey from Liverpool)

Check us out in the gig guide...

Our Guest Poet

Roger Cliffe-Thompson

His front room was once a reconstructed crime scene (Ala...

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Wirral Ode Show 2012 Competition

Prizes

1st Prize           £75

2nd Prize           £25

3rd Prize           Bottle of Teachers whiskey

The Merseysider Prize;

a poem of the editor’s choosing to be published in The Merseysider Magazine.

Rules

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There's no fortune at the end of the cookie

the sky's rainbows are just refracted colour

and Facebook's just another aphorism away

from anything that really matters

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'ThePoetry Spoke'

Great poetry and acoustic music

This Tuesday - 23rd October- doors open 8pm

La Gondola

22a Liscard Crescent

Wallasey- The Wirral

CH44 1AE (a stones throw over the Mersey from Liverpool)

Check us out in the gig guide...

Our Guest Poet

David Bateman

Originally from River Hill in rural west Kent, David Bateman came to Live...

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This Thursday Night

'Wirral Ode Show'

poetry open mic night

8pm for an 8:30 Start

The 'Egremont Ferry Hotel'

Tobin Street

Wallasey

CH44 8DF

We welcome ALL poets from near and far to a warm, friendly and inclusive open mic poetry night at a wonderfully picturesque real ale pub that overlooks the river Mersey.

No closed set list!

No clique...

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'ThePoetry Spoke'

Great poetry and acoustic music

This Tuesday - 25th September (Tonight!) - doors open 8pm

Egremont Ferry Hotel

Tobin Street

Wallasey- The Wirral

CH44 1DF (a stones throw over the Mersey from Liverpool)

Check us out in the gig guide...

Our Guest Poet

John Hulme

'Spiritually strong, yet humanly fragile'.  Philosophically ...

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This Thursday Night

'Wirral Ode Show'

poetry open mic night

8pm for an 8:30 Start

The 'Egremont Ferry Hotel'

Tobin Street

Wallasey

CH44 8DF

We welcome ALL poets from near and far to a warm, friendly and inclusive open mic poetry night at a wonderfully picturesque real ale pub that overlooks the river Mersey.

No closed set list!

No clique...

Read and leave comments (0)

'ThePoetry Spoke'

Great poetry and acoustic music

This Tuesday - 28th August- doors open 8pm

La Gondola

22a Liscard Crescent

Wallasey- The Wirral

CH44 1AE (a stones throw over the Mersey from Liverpool)

Check us out in the gig guide...

Our Guest Poet

David R. Mellor

'Powerful Stuff' think Independent radio.  'A feel for words' say BBC radio....

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This Thursday Night

'Wirral Ode Show'

poetry open mic night

8pm for an 8:30 Start

The 'Egremont Ferry Hotel'

Tobin Street

Wallasey

CH44 8DF

We welcome ALL poets from near and far to a warm, friendly and inclusive open mic poetry night at a wonderfully picturesque real ale pub that overlooks the river Mersey.

No closed set list!

No ...

Read and leave comments (0)

ABC  

An after dark refuge for the boredom

of wild lads, that would otherwise turn bad.

Hitting the pads they came to understand routine

know what discipline means, when told to break.

Rocky music raised the pulse here,

as boxers, not dead-beats skipped to the beat

of aspirations.

Hard work, bumps and bruises

came their way; a little blood ...

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