Literature that bites back!
Welcome to Poets Corner, the place where our selection of poets have chosen to showcase their work—as Jason Donovan would say—especially for you.
Many of these poems were sourced from the brilliant Orbis magazine. Orbis is a Quarterly Literary International Journal and we love it here at Dog Horn. If you like a bit of escapism and would be interested to read what’s in the mind’s of creative people from all over the world, and maybe even submit or enter a competition or two yourself, then contact them on 0151 6251446 or see our Links page.
If you are interested in submitting here please send your entry (and image, if you want) editor@doghornpublishing.com. We can’t guarantee it will get on, but a selection will—and yours could be in that selection. Otherwise sit back and enjoy our pick of the freshest poets from around the nation . . .
Artlessness by Mark Leech
Artlessness
Outside, taxis pulse
by, wet swallowed pellets against
wet windows; the warm pub air
takes an old song out for a turn,
less dusty than it ought to be.
The compositor pauses
then places you in the teeth
of a smile of lips and eyes
before the picture dissolves
found inexpressible.
Opening the Fridge Door by D Parrott
Opening the Fridge Door
Her honeyed lips
kiss away
the garlic pasta,
the red wine from Northern Chile.
I hang
like a scarecrow,
crucified,
in my Oxfam jacket
& baggy tracksuit bottoms.
Julia Deakin
To be or not to be
To give a little bit to every cause that sends a begging letter
or just some? Which ones then and how much?
Or put cash in collection boxes and risk looking smug
or just keep clearing cupboards and donating junk?
But is that really a donation if it's stuff that you don't want?
To hang the washing out with those clouds over there
and have to keep an eye on it or stick it in the dryer
and return those library books? But could that be dangerous?
I mean you hear of people coming home to find the house on fire
and even if it wasn't would the shirts all be too creased?
REDUCED IRON. What is that supposed to mean?
To tax the car for six months or a year or sell the thing
before it rusts to bits and we get stung for hundreds more
to get it through its MOT, and go by bus and just be done with it?
But if it didn't come and I was late for work?
Not that I'd need the extra money probably without the car
but aren't there other reasons why I work? And drive?
To book a decent holiday or stay here, save ourselves the stress
and creosote the shed before it falls apart, and weed the lawn?
Dig out the biggest dandelions and watch them all come back
or blitz the lot with Weed n' Feed and have to put up
with those brown patches instead? Scorched earth, that is – as bad as Vietnam.
But not on the same scale. Or is it, when you add up all the lawns?
To face the fact that I'm not getting any younger, give up colouring my hair
(the scalp absorbs those chemicals, I read somewhere) and let it all go grey?
How long would that take and who would be most affected, me or others?
How much money would I save? Can't work it out. Because the chemicals
have killed too many brain cells already? Or was that all the beer in my 20s?
To cook a proper meal tonight or have baked beans and does that go with wine?
Then red or white?
To watch the news and let it get to me or be a philistine, go straight to bed
and get an early night?
Tea or coffee? Cup or Gary Larson mug?
That is the question.
Anonymous
That Puzzle
Since I’ve been his he’s made me believe
I’m an importance, something that he needs
The missing shape in his jigsaw
He’s been looking for years
Many a time it’s ended in tears
He’d begun to admit defeat
That puzzle is now complete.
Poetry by Lucas Shakespere
Lucas Shakespere lives in Leeds and succumbed to mental health problems when she was twenty one. All she can do is write she admits to be completely useless at anything else so 'if the writing dunt pay off ahm knackered' She is married to her invisible friend.
snow
all i know
is snow
thats all i know
cold,deadly,indifferent
killer of children
is snow.
atom
and yet it seems we are so small
its a wonder we exist at all
and yet if it were not for me
thered be a space where i should be
and everything would fall apart
and so it is that i am here
a small,essential part of god
who loves me too . . .
orpheus
the rising sun
i cannot say
if i must live again today
i die and then
another day.
Poetry by Judith Wilkinson
Judith is an up-and-coming London-based poet and translator. She has had poetry published in many journals and anthologies and her first full-length collection of translations will be published by Shoestring Press in 2007. An online chapbook of translations has just been published by Languageandculture.net.
Stories
Give me just one
Arabian night –
but you are silent.
A slender slice then
of your history –
some of its core and substance:
a dream or two
satisfied, a vista engraved on your mind,
an underpeopled year, an overpeopled day,
a solitude savoured, something an ex-lover
said, a trick played, a steaming joy,
your best friend’s bad habits,
a job you hated, a raw deal,
a bad allegiance, a bold surprise,
a boast, a blunder,
a jealousy, a botched holiday,
a birth, a death,
some instance of rough justice,
some terms you coined that worked.
But I glean only
that you have a sister, father, Italian mother,
a schooling in music.
And you will remain
a passing stranger
on the opposite side of the Thames.
Choir
It was not just that subtle air of death
or the old priests fumbling, or the glaring
ugliness of that place made me draw breath
for you, testing your tenor on the morning.
It was not your insistence made me start.
It was not just the wish to have some new
stranger pull the bell-rope of my heart
or that time was ripe or that I wanted to
take what was given, leave what was not,
lust for what is: you, here, inviting me
for lunch by the river, some unmapped spot
you found - and then that jazz, live concerts
at your place, in settlement of which a score
of poems will come your way. I am all yours
Exchanges
What you are is my guesswork:
I have all day for your history,
all time to see landscapes and faces
grow from a smattering of clues.
You say one should never raise the dead.
I have a ghost in my head only
occasionally. If I said I had
loved him, that was true enough.
From the insignificances
of lost causes, I turn to
you. The ghost is not dangerous -
so many reminiscences relished
and released.
Clean
Clean as a whistle, starched, ironed,
brushed sleek -
I envy you that untouched look.
My work on you all undone,
while I am so dis-combed by you,
even my feet
have memorised your touch,
unshaping them
and my limbs you've kneaded out of mould
and my skin
will not uncrease itself.
Waking before you as usual I watched
your easy sleep
and took an imprint of your face.
Outside the trees are wet with rain
and I am as rough-weathered
as the leaves that have danced all night.
A word or a waking gesture
would have sweet-talked me,
but the snap of your briefcase,
your quick wash, shave, dry
and cool ciao
as the door shuts,
jolt me back
to yesterday's rich solitude,
I must not alienate.
If
Of the countless steps
to my heart,
he took only two, or three.
Akiko Yosano
When you call me guarded,
an edgy fear
stalks me somewhere.
I remember
going to the bottom of the well
and you in your sun-glasses.
What I dragged up there -
had you witnessed -
was not made of sorrow.
If you could venture
some of the steps
to my heart,
I would meet you
beyond my doubts,
to find the touch
that speaks,
find ground to stand on
with you
and toss everything
to the wind
of my desire.
Morning
While you were still asleep,
the land in my head
sprouted words.
I had been dreaming
of spirits in your house
and of us sleeping,
when all the world broke in to interrupt –
disrespecters of that
courtesy of touch
You and I paid
each other last night.
This morning
I imagine losing you in the fray
and prepare myself
somehow.
A Short Matter
1.
So, we were lovers, though barely friends.
I did not get to love you. Wish I had.
There would have been a fatter crop of poems
worked from your soil. I miss you, miss like mad
the way your tongue's bravura brought me round
to having you, milk, juice and marrow. Glad
to wear your warmth those mornings, homeward bound,
floating dream-wrapped across the rush-hour crowd
and never want to wash you off my skin
all day. I miss trekking my hands through your
blacker-than-grey curls, twist-ivy round my fingers,
I miss the taste all of me got for more
and more gifts in return - but it's like this:
a quick goodbye, like strangers who don't kiss.
2.
Like strangers who don't kiss - in fact, we split
by phone (that's one way out). You had that neat
streak, everything clean-cut, your beautiful shirts
pressed to a T. Your music sticks. Early and late,
I'd find you at the clavinova, headphones tight,
until the tune was done. I rarely saw you sweat
over some bottomless day, or groan at life's bloody-
mindedness (and your groans the loveliest),
you could resist a quarrel, and I spared you
small griefs, big joys, or in the frail hours
a poem or two to provoke the silence.
Caught by surprise sometimes scanning each other
an instant longer than usual - broad sky took form
in your swept blue, with little rain or storm.
3.
With little rain or storm to mark the time
(except our nights - and those were eloquent)
outsider to your life and you to mine,
so you wished to keep it, so it was meant
to be played by the rules and got out of
before too many cracks began to show.
The smell of something all your own, a sense
of how you ticked for two full months, left me
the feel of meaty summer, of mouth's wheat,
heart's sperm, solace on a windy day, a touch
so skilful against gloom, a suaveness
more real than would-be, always sure enough
to wrap itself around the odd despair,
with jazzy dreams still echoing in the air.
Cactus by Peter Hoggarth
Peter lives in Brighton and his poetry collection, Oscar Deutsch Entertains our Nation, recently picked up first prize in the 2005 ‘New Writer’ Poetry & Prose Awards.
Cactus
They carve these old buildings up
and fill them with fools like us
who have no choice but to hear each others
troubles and appliances trickle
through the paper thin walls.
If you lean far out of the window
risking death from the fall
you can almost imagine the sea view
that drew us here.
Most mornings the man in the basement
lubes up and hurls himself against the waves,
even in winter he’ll be there
dripping in the corridor as i pick up my mail.
Good for the circulation, he says
before he disappears for the rest of the day
into the driftwood of his tiny flat.
His is the only face to emerge
from the stereos and tv sets
that creep up the stairs
turning locks in the dark,
barking ‘til dawn tearing furniture apart.
Sleep doesn’t come easy.
some nights we just lay in bed
listening to the couple upstairs
taking bets on what will be next
to tumble past our window.
Anything goes.
Keys, books, kettles, clothes,
cornflakes in the gutters
like stale snow for weeks.
I once retrieved a cactus
lodged in the drain.
It’s broken buds bloomed
into short lived desert flowers,
the blue of some vast clear sky
the same colour as my girlfriends eyes
where all this doesn’t matter.
Poetry by Helen Barlow
Helen is a 22 year old Graphic Design graduate from Northumberland living in Leeds. Helen specialised in typography during her degree acquiring a love and respect for language and letters. Her poetry comes from studies of advertising, language theory and word play.
She takes a mechanistic and generative approach to writing creatively, applying formulae and restrictions to create her work aims to question the concept of an author. She has generated poems from lists of words, newspaper headlines, litter, by playing word games and by reappropriating previous works.
She uses her creative typographic skills to communicate the process she used to arrive at a poem which has a meaning and life of its own through the reader.
Helen has had a poem published in an Australian travel magazine and works as a freelance editor and journalist. She also paints and crafts jewellery and postcards.
Poetry by Nigel Hawcroft
Dookufus
There was a man
Lived in a hole
Black puddings
He did make.
His name was
Albert Arkwright
And a worm
Was his only mate.
He called his worm
Dookoofus
And he dressed it
In a thong
And every night
They’d journey out
And sing a merry song.
They’d sing of wine
and women
And earn themselves
A stake
And what they earned
They put away
Inside a hollow cake.
Albert said that when they’d
earned enough
They’d buy another hole
But before they could
Disaster struck
Dookoofus was
eaten by a mole.
Albert mourned
Four days and nights
Then determined
to seek revenge
And went out hunting
Moley
To avenge his only friend.
Armed with his best
Black Pudding
Albert stalked into
the night
And when he’d caught up
With Mr Mole
There was a vicious fight.
Albert drew his black pudding
And beat up on Mr Mole
And when he finished doing that
He retired back to his hole.
Albert cried so very much that
His hole was filled with tears
He got so wet and soggy
he was wet between the ears.
He had to swim to safety
Before he nearly drowned
For it was no good place to die
In a hole dug in the ground.
He swum up to the top
Using doggy style
And trod water for, it seemed to him,
An interminable while.
A young lady came walking by
And saw Albert treading water
She asked if she could help so
He asked her if she had a daughter.
She replied ‘No I have no kin and
I don’t really have any chums
‘I just have a worm called Samuel.
He used to be my Mums.’
A young lady came walking by
And saw Albert treading water
She asked if she could help so
He asked her if she had a daughter.
She replied ‘No I have no kin and
I don’t really have any chums
‘I just have a worm called Samuel.
He used to be my Mums.’‘
A worm?’ asked Albert perking up
‘That’s rather interesting.
Let me ask you kindly please
‘Does your Samuel sing?’
‘Don’t be bloody stupid man
a singing worms absurd
Samuel doesn’t sing at all
He simply writes the words’
‘That’s good enough’ said Albert
‘Will you marry me?
And could I borrow Samuel
To write a song for me?
I had a worm called Dookofus
Who was eaten by a Mole
And after that I came back
To sulk here in my hole.
And now you have found me
All wet from swimming in my tears
I was going to stay in here I thought
Another twenty years.
You could move in here with me
It’s really rather nice
I‘ll dry it out if you prefer
By filling it with rice.
The rice can be our sustenance
For breakfast, dinner and tea
Oh please say yes and that you and Sam
Will come and live with me?’
‘Alright she said we will
I’ll go and get our stuff
I’ll also bring a shovel
Your hole’s not wide enough.’
‘I’ve never lived in a hole you know
I’ve only got a box
But me and Sam quite like it there,
he sleeps inside my socks.’
So Sam and she and Albert
Now live inside the hole
And Sam writes songs the others sing
when they’re not killing moles.
Temper
The days were long
The nights were short
Her temper even shorter
T’was even worse at 4 am
When wakened by her daughter.
Her Daughter burst into the room
And shouted ‘Wake up Mother’
Her Mother said ‘Now wot’s to do?’
She said ‘I’ve killed my brother!’
‘You’ve wot?’ she said.
‘You heard.’ She cried,
‘He’s lying on the floor’
‘Well just mop up the blood my sweet,
just like we did before’
Then Dad woke up, said
‘Wot’s to do. Wot’s all this bloody noise?’
‘Shut up’ said Mum ‘it’s just our lass,
she’s killed one of the boys.’
‘Was it quick?’ Dad asked the girl
‘Did he feel much pain?’
‘Well not much, she replied.’
‘So I brought him back,
and killed him once again’
War
One thing man is good at
Is killing other men
It doesn't really matter to him
Who, or, Why or When.
Some just give the orders
Some politicise
But most of us just go to fight
And take each others lives.
Yet death comes to us all
Of that there is no doubt.
So why do we go off to war
And blindly seek death out?
Just stop the killing frenzy
And let Nature take its course
And let us all die of old age
And not in all these wars.
Untitled
Do you think we will ever find out
just how everything began?
Whether God exists and out of dust
He created old Adam?
Or was it like the boffins say
it all started with a bang?
That life evolved in the water
before we walked upon the land?
If we believe the latter
it would certainly help explain
why some people resemble cows and fish
and some have half a brain.
But if God created everything
then what's with the dinosaurs?
Did He have a plan for them
or were they just, like, His toys?
Then again it hard to think
that we evolved from primeval goo
to become what we are today
well, I know I didn’t but you?
So we're to take it all on faith
that the Almighty in his Heaven
Created everything on Earth
And rested on Day Seven?
I don't know what to believe
But think on this also
perhaps we're an Alien experiment
Left behind a long time ago?
Maybe we will never know
Just who or what started it and how
But I know for sure that it will end
But hopefully not just now.
‘When the Young Die’ by Andy Craven-Griffiths
When the Young Die
The young deceased sit down on our settees,
alarmed, and thinking they should not be dead.
But elders expect eventual release;
they slowly, slowly totter up to bed.
Old people die on gentle gradients,
and quieten like a plane moving away.
A natural cause will take them when they’re spent,
fading them gradually by the day.
Young people drop stone dead from cruel cliff tops,
their bodies too fresh to yield decay,
a rushing stream of riches forced to stop;
a big brass band forgetting how to play.
You sit upon their laps, the too-young dead,
Whilst eating, watching telly, trying to cope.
You wear their knees to dust. And take one breath
Of hope for each sharp gasp on which you choke.
Poetry by Lee Deaves
Forgot to Forget
Rain falling like you and me
Sounds arising from another plain
‘Screen wipers wave at me
keeping out all the pouring rain
Someone singing for someone else
I strain to hear but its not meant for me
And we all fall down
And I Forgot to Forget.
Your not there.
Kick apart the teenage dream
Whats the use in feeling high?
We kicked apart the teenage dream and yeah
You’re only special when your getting high
And I Forgot to Forget.
Your not there.
Signal
The weight of a thousand stories have I said the man next to me at the old beachy head
I listened intently as his words rolled onwards
I still remember every word he said
“The last train came in and it left town without me, I could have been somewhere away from it all
And the station attendant tells me ‘we’re closed now sonny’,
‘better get home to your ma and your pa. Wherever they are.’”
So I pick up my duffel bag and head for the side door
the moment clouds with uncertainty
my screwed up ticket leaves my hand for the gutter
Washed away like my hopes and my dreams
The gold harvest Moon; it hangs in the sky
But bloody and forlorn looks like it could die
Remember the good times forget all the bad
You can never change the past so put it to bed.
Poetry by Hayley Morgan
Hayley a seventeen-year-old student studying English literature and English Language in Leeds. She has had a selection of her poetry published in an anthology for rising young poets (published 2004); an achievement which she is proud of. Hayley hopes to be an English teacher after leaving university.
War
The soldiers circle and circle their destiny
The wind crinkles the water in the trenches
All that can be heard for miles is torture
The battle gets nowhere
In the murder and grime of the town the loves
Frantically search for each other
They can’t see through the mist but the overdrive
Of love empowers them to carry on
The soldiers become stuck in a tangled web of brutality
As their destiny becomes fooled
They realize they chose to do this but they must retreat
Tomorrow will bring another plan. New dangers
The icy rain makes the soldiers tingle
The lovers get further and further apart
Destined never to re-unite
Thousands of people die in war each day!
Why oh why does the world have to be this way . . . ?
You
I look at you
Peaceful, thoughtful
You don’t see
You shouldn’t
The moment
Love floats around me
I’m your rowing boat
Stop time
Never say goodbye
You’re perfect
I’m so glad you’re mine
Poetry by Katie Murgatroyd
Katie, 15, from West Leeds, has been writing poetry since she was just seven years old. She also loves drawing, designing dresses and sketching portraits.
That Girl
I see her.
Walking the streets, at night . Alone.
Her soul scarred from such horror…
Her eyes still bright like any other.
Then you go tell her she’s no worth,
Why?
Can’t you see she’s already hurt?
That time’s a blur.
To that body and to you.
She carries on through.
She strides, one day I swear she will rise.
Above and far beyond all the other girls,
She’ll show you, insult her - she’ll throw it straight back at you.
Harder.
She’s learnt.
She’s a thousand times wiser than the other girls.
Most born with their life laid out in front of them - that they still try to throw away like they aint loved.
It aint worth anything to them.
Opportunities they have, they’ll throw back.
Such disrespect because “Respect? What?”
Of course they’ve never had to earn that.
She’ll shout her mouth off in front of friends - in self defense.
But why do you judge her for her actions when you don’t know her intensions behind them?
Her need for attention is a cry for help. But who cares?
Not you.
In her mind her life’s a blur.
She can barely remember how she ever got this hurt.
She can’t tell her own story, and tell the truth.
Because what will you think of her?
Who would care? Not you.
I know you put her in that state of mind.
She can hear you.
When you pass her in the street,
When you give her that look, you shout and you scream at her,
She’s living in fear.
You don’t understand why she appears that way.
Too much makeup, not enough clothes, her hair unnaturally straight.
The fear of being ridiculed is too much for her to bare.
You can’t see all the poverty under the ‘blue’ skies of these developed countries - Come on, open your eyes!
Widen your narrow mind. Don’t judge.
Think. Think “WHY has she no place to go?” That’s right say it out loud - be heard.
Because in fact she aint no,
body.
I was wrong,
she is real.
She does have life inside her.
I know that life and when she told me her story I understood.
I saw that spark inside - past all the vivid I saw a blunt spark.
Bold.
Strong.
A fighter.
All you see is a blur.
Poetry by Bill Pearson
Bill lives near Cambridge. Ex musician, ex manager, ex everything. Always scribbling, reading, scribbling or worrying trees with his camera.
Too old to be dreaming but still is.
Green Kiss
I pull it tight like a blanket
And gently sway in its embrace
Cold yet warm
It surrounds me, comforts me, heals me
Memories rise, break the surface
And fight for attention
Ignored they sink
All stones and salty tears
Eyes shut against the swell
Mouth open to the taste
A lifetime in seconds
How long this green kiss?
Keys to the Car
I need the keys to the car
And a number for the man
A box to put this crap in
So I can throw it in the river
And watch it float away forever
On a ship called Misadventure
But the gas is nearly empty
And I’ll never make the party
I need a dream for a fiver
And spare change for the meter
I’ll reverse charge to my maker
Just to ask him what’s the problem?
Did I walk under a ladder?
Should I kill the cat that crossed me?
It’s a joke that I’m not getting?
I’ll laugh at it, you watch me
Can you call the TV Rental?
This remote just isn’t working
And I’m stuck with Jerry Springer
And my head is done with screaming
Is there whiskey in this tumbler?
Tastes like ice has taken over
I’m so tired of the hurting
Is there no one that is smiling?
The Flame
For TL who unknowingly supplied the words
A spark ignites. The seed is sown.
Its germination quick and deadly.
Its growth from harmless to harmful fantastic.
It begins as any other, weak and barely alive.
Struggling for life and gasping for breath.
Just a flicker, so small, so easily extinguished.
We shield it, encourage it, greedily protect it
Nurtured and coaxed into life it grows.
A precocious child, but a beauty.
It repays its care with warmth, heat, and light.
While we bathe in its power, confident in our control
It waits,
We grow complacent
And still it waits,
We are forgetful
Our care becomes careless
Its break for freedom is an easy one.
It crawls on invisible legs, then runs like rivers.
On dangerous wings it flies to cover all it desires.
Its flight unstoppable.
Its rage unquenchable.
Blue skies turn black as day becomes night
The land becomes a sea, a sea of burning waves.
Rolling and breaking with effortless ease
No shoreline deterrent to halt its advance
It roars its defiance, a deafening current
Drowning the weak, suffocating the strong
No preference for prey
A million tribes become one
Four legs, two legs, scale and feather
Flee together from its choking breath
There is no escape, no haven, no hope
We think we can conquer it
What fools are we
Its victory complete it slips away unnoticed
Not beaten but retired, its appetite satiated
The game no longer satisfying
The ash of bones and birds and trees
These charred remains should remind us of our weakness
Remind us of our frailty
But no
We claim the prize for defeating the monster
How we celebrate its dying
Never knowing
It’s just sleeping
Poetry by Kate Strong
Standing in the Justice of the Peace’s study
C’mere mister Fikksit
and read the banns again.
I been divorced from my body for the seventeenth time
and I feel naked, naked, and bereft.
Saint _______’s Church, Toronto, 2006
There I was in a city of strangers,
sleeping in a church,
walking in the rain.
and in my head the thought
constant as the crime rate –
I’m soaked to the bone.
We are all soaked to the marrow.
Poem
I want to be sunny, not moony.
I want the earth to be my shoes.
I want the night to be my cap.
I want honey from the Big Dipper.
Aquiline, not saturnine.
Mesmermine, not serpentine.
Not a cup - a grapevine
already bursting with wine.
