cheers both. mums invariably do know best although sadly my mum never actually told me this tale as i just made it up. it may have come in handy in my later years if she had.

Comment is about the man that swallowed the sky (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

Fish and chips
washed down with
too much beer
roll of Andrex
very urgently needed
to mop up
once white underpants!

Loved Larkin's poem John thanks for putting it on.

Comment is about September 2016 Collage Poem: A Better Place (blog)

Original item by Stockport WoL

Donna,
I like that `Kissing aloneness away` that last line is `kind` but a bit spoil-sporty. ?

Comment is about First Kisses (blog)

Original item by Donna Marie Beck

Stu,
I like the progressive `size` of this - mum knows best - tale...and also the `throwaway` last line.

Comment is about the man that swallowed the sky (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

As a Brexiteer I enjoyed these lines of discontent, neatly
put in rhyme to make them even more appealing.
But in a general sense...
Why are rejected Remainers
Curmudgeonly complainers?

Comment is about I Will Not Drink in Wetherspoon's (blog)

Original item by Andy Humphrey

Fragments of these guys, mainly guys, the sinking teachers, will crop up, touching to see some passion still revived in a way their charges are too young at the time to consider maudlin. "Fresh from the pub" works well. Good stuff Greg.

Comment is about The Grammar School (blog)

Original item by Greg Freeman

yes it was difficult to write but i find those are the best kind of poems really. i used to work with a guy that went to cambodia once a year, spent a month there and came back. he was a photographer, out there for the ruins and the architecture. the age of consent in cambodia is 15 but he used to tell me about girls as young as 11 or 12 who were picked up from the side of the road daily. these tourists were able to live in hotels for a crazily cheap price, take whoever they wanted back to the rooms and no one blinked an eye. it may have changed now, this was 15 years ago, but i doubt it.

Comment is about the churning of the ocean of milk (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

Thank you Estelle, kind words.

Comment is about Sorrento (blog)

Original item by Anna Ghislena

..this inspires such a desire for violence against the men who perpetrate such crimes, that I can barely speak about the piece.

It is hard to read and must be hard to write. Though, much of the western world remains blissfully ignorant.

elP

Comment is about the churning of the ocean of milk (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

One day Nigel, one day....?

Comment is about Nigel Astell (poet profile)

Original item by Nigel Astell

I recall how certain teachers used to get short tempered
when asked "why" about things. Handing on information
that is not properly delved into and explainable is not
the best way to satisfy to a enquiring mind.

Comment is about Two Boys (blog)

Original item by Dorinda MacDowell

Not at all, I'm here for feedback and love to hear what other poets thinks. Its all very useful and interesting! Thanks Stu x

Comment is about The Bar Maids Brittle Bliss (blog)

Original item by Green

Thanks, I've only every performed my work once as I'm a bit stage shy hahah! Thankyou for your feedback, much appreciated! x

Comment is about Delusions (blog)

Original item by Green

this would sound fantastic live, there is a lot of lovely assonance in the words that would spit out nicely on stage.

Comment is about Delusions (blog)

Original item by Green

thats a super first line and a brilliant title.
this is great, i like your writing style a lot.
you might want to change the 'bones' in either line 12 or 13, purely because the word is repeated so soon it throws it off a bit. also, add the word 'of' before inhibition on the final line.
hope you dont mind suggestions, i only give them if i enjoy something!

Comment is about The Bar Maids Brittle Bliss (blog)

Original item by Green

i can tell! you have the same jazz like syncopation in your words. i enjoyed this, its really good.

Comment is about Old Moon Blues (blog)

Original item by Green

Thank you Stu! I love Kerouac x

Comment is about Old Moon Blues (blog)

Original item by Green

i like this. its claustrophobic but hopeful in that you share this isolation with another. i think there is a typo in the title though.

Comment is about My screen (blog)

Original item by Alonelymouse

nice work. like kerouac rewriting the aristocats.

Comment is about Old Moon Blues (blog)

Original item by Green

Ha! it is enough to make one briefly entertain the idea of showing them what pain and anguish is really like if they're gonna preach about what to do about it..

I can't listen to anyone preach about "what the bible teaches us" with any credence after listening to this kind of babble from so-called christian leaders. Much of what they say is fucking ridiculous and what isn't is only meant to trick you into staying until it does get ridiculous.

elP

..all of this in case anyone was in doubt about my religious beliefs.

Comment is about before I learned mechanics, I learned to mistrust the mechanic (blog)

Original item by nunya

Just an aside..

Years ago, I was flipping through the stations on the radio and stopped to listen to a well-known evangelist who was talking on spousal abuse and specifically about a woman who had, for years, suffered severely at the hands of her husband.

But--and I'm sure you've heard the tone they take in any situation that might cause someone to veer from their control--as christianity would have us believe, "she prayed everyday like a good girl and her husband was saved". All as if that's what a "good woman" does--she stays in a dangerous marriage and prays not to die before her torturer can see the error in his ways..

SHIT!!!

I'll never let those sterile black-coated ghouls tell me what to think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYlCfRiOEhM

Thanks for commenting, David.

elP

Comment is about before I learned mechanics, I learned to mistrust the mechanic (blog)

Original item by nunya

Had a teacher like that as well only he never inspired anything.

Comment is about The Grammar School (blog)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Dream of desire
hesitation to awaken.

She must return
for his salvation.

Comment is about Storm of Silence (blog)

Original item by Katy Megan

thanks david, i enjoyed writing this one. nice to go back to a character study after a deal of introspection. plus, any time i can write about spices is good for me!

Comment is about liquid gold (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

In a nutshell - life for many...with its realisation of returning
to what you know and knew.

Comment is about Home (blog)

Original item by Trevor Alexander

Entertaining indeed. My own best ideas come to me in
bed as I don't tend to spend too much time deferring to
defecation.

Comment is about The lonely Whale (blog)

Original item by Harry O`N eill

Rhyme doesn't pay in competition,
No matter what the erudition ;
There's another sort of PC
That plods with the prose
And sets it free.

Comment is about It's a fair cop: bookshop files poetry with whodunnits (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

really enjoyed this, the first and last verses bookend the philosophical centre of the piece nicely.

Comment is about Black Bear (blog)

Original item by Ian Whiteley

thanks emer. its a touch romantic for my usual self but there is enough loathing in the final parts to make it worthwhile i think!

Comment is about lemonade (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

love it! Thank you.Jemima.

Comment is about Beauty on the outside (blog)

Original item by Youthfullyxx

Well done Alexandra - I loved this one when I first saw it. Very pleased to know another fan of Angela Carter too ?

Comment is about 'The plight of the true Snow White' by Alexandra Parapadakis is Write Out Loud Poem of the Week (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Hi Estelle - many thanks for y'note on me funeral poem ?

Comment is about Estelle Haward (poet profile)

Original item by Estelle Haward

Ta for y'note on me funeral poem John ? I am deffo having some Ivor Cutler at mine, and the coconut shells will be compulsory!

Comment is about john short (poet profile)

Original item by john short

I'm a political & Disney gal so this is just my kind of poem!! I feel as though your poem gives an eye-opening perspective on the messages about gender, sexuality & relationships that are taught to us by Disney movies etc as children.
I look forward to reading more of your work. ?

Comment is about 'The plight of the true Snow White' by Alexandra Parapadakis is Write Out Loud Poem of the Week (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

This is beautiful Stu. I trace your ribs like mountains, I love that line ?

Comment is about lemonade (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

Thanks for your comments, Cynthia, Estelle and Sarah. You're absolutely right about the 'barb', Cynthia ... I did have an agenda when reposting this, especially as its previous title was 'The Poetry Lesson'. You're also right in spotting that it maybe subverts any anti-grammar school message that I was trying to peddle. All I can say is that he was almost the only teacher that inspired me in any way at that school, which was not strictly a state grammar but a direct-grant school, a mix of 11-plus boys and fee payers. It rested on its centuries-old laurels. At most schools this particular schoolmaster would have lost his job. At any rate, his strict cigs, booze and 'confirmed bachelor' regime kept him alive until his late 90s. I went to his funeral.

Comment is about The Grammar School (blog)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Often don't know why I like your work so much - but, I do. Your words filter into my mind like a cloud, and I'm conscious of an 'essence'. Don't choose to analyse it.

'the salt shaken' is pure genius.

Comment is about Halcyon (blog)

Original item by David Blake

Good one, Ian; much enjoyed the immediacy of seeing, feeling and thinking so well expressed.

Comment is about Black Bear (blog)

Original item by Ian Whiteley

Good message.

Comment is about Two Boys (blog)

Original item by Dorinda MacDowell

I really like this, Greg. It whizzes and fizzes.

Wondering: why is the book of verse 'decades out of date'? His preference? His age? Or his prescribed curriculum? The possibilities seem endless, and, therefore, are intriguing.

And I've not quite fathomed the 'barb' seriously hurled at 'grammar schools', as for or against. IMO, that doubt marks a very good work.

I don't recall seeing this before. Glad you reposted. Lots of new readers, former stalwarts gone.

Comment is about The Grammar School (blog)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Thanks for replying so thoroughly, Rick.

It really is a great exposition of Mally's plight..this answer we get from him about his novel that is so incongruous to his appearance is very effective in bringing to light the flaws that can exist in our perceptions and judgments.

..very apt stuff from Bukowski, too.

elP

Comment is about "Mally" (blog)

Original item by Rick Gammon

Well, I never envisaged Mally as a comedy figure - in my view he is a creative guy desperately trying to find a space in which to write and forced by the soulless demands of modern life to go to extreme lengths in order to escape the devouring claws of the system - in Bukowski's terms trying to get out of the man trap with only a toe or two gnawed off. ?
But comedy/tragedy are blood brothers I guess - as to 'Mally's' real identity? That is perhaps best left until après the expiration of the statute of limitations...?

Comment is about "Mally" (blog)

Original item by Rick Gammon

Cuts deep.

Comment is about On the Cards (blog)

Original item by J F Keane

Love the memory that came with "he inhaled the unmistakable scent of damp sand, sharp and sultry."

Comment is about Place of Power (blog)

Original item by J F Keane

The paradoxes of a new way.

Comment is about Secret Sixties (blog)

Original item by J F Keane

Cutting through the soul.

Comment is about Savour the Fall (blog)

Original item by J F Keane

Glad you enjoyed 'The Grammar School', Sarah. Thanks very much for commenting.

Comment is about Sarah Hill (poet profile)

Original item by Sarah Hill

Glad you enjoyed 'The Grammar School', Estelle. Thanks very much for commenting.

Comment is about Estelle Haward (poet profile)

Original item by Estelle Haward

Thank you Jemima. I will never be able to state I am cured or at some kind of normal, whatever normal is. Yes I am very angered and bitter about my upbringing, but I realize there is nothing I can do, but SHOUT the odds at what is a life sentence given to youngsters by parents that, not only exact learned behavior, but gain some kind of gratification out of their own evil. This I know to be a truth.

But then, stating truths is something, and someone, people snub.

You didn't Jemima, that makes you real, that makes you courageous. Thank you.

Mike

x

Comment is about No Intellect of Mine (blog)

Original item by Noetic-fret!

thanks elP thats really kind of you. i just write what i think.

Comment is about infinity (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck