Listening to "It's 5 o'clock somewhere" - Tony Gardner

I don't usually wear a watch
'Cos Time is time all over
All that matters is the thirst
When the thirst takes over

Half past five or half past ten
Half past twelve whatever
When the craving comes around
Then the thirst takes over

There's no stopping pouring it
It flows like the Wild Rover
And sinks so easy down the throat
When the thirst takes over

Nought nor nothing mean a jot
When I smell the odour
I'm a lost soul, doomed and damned
When the thirst takes over

Tony Gardner

Bomb The Bans - Lyndon Queripel

You've got an atom heart mother
A plastic fantastic lover eats your bread
You're tired of talk of love and peace man
Now the hour of flower power is dead
You can't relate to the seeds of hate
They'll bomb the bans instead

The acid rain is falling down again
And there's a pain inside your head
Mushroom cloud returning, eyes still burning
From the propaganda that you've read
Answers blow too late in the wind of fate
They'll bomb the bans instead

You've got a stereo, computer, video
And an active radio beside your bed
You say a prayer to a God that's not there
But you don't care, it has been said
Ex-communicate you're just dead weight
They'll bomb the bans instead.

Lyndon Queripel

Skin - Dermot O’Logy

Skin covers us from head to foot
It starts out smooth, without a flaw,
then wrinkles like a well-worn boot.
It’s sad, but that is Nature’s law.

Some think that law can be defied:
they hanker for a surgeon’s knife
then end up smooth but slitty-eyed,
so they are stuck like that for life.

An unread book has pages, smooth.
A book, well loved, looks less than new.
There’s no point hankering for youth
when youth has gone. It’s surely true

that you are wedded to your skin
and your skin is attached to you,
so treat it well, stay off the gin,
the cigarettes and vindaloo.

One movie star from Hollywood
had lifts and tucks and tweaks, it’s said,
until her navel reached her chin
and nipples sprouted from her head.

So treat your epidermis well
as though it were designer stuff.
It may be saggy, what the Hell,
it covers you when things get tough.

Dermot O’Logy

Poets Prevail - Kathy Figueroa

Poets prevail
When politicians fail
Bards rhapsodize
While warmongers wail
A surer aim was never had
But with a pen
It's a time when poetry
Fills the land, again...

Kathy Figueroa

"Poets Prevail" was published on September 15, 2016, in The Bancroft Times newspaper.

Conquistadors - Donald Keyman

They sail in a vessel of great splendour
to unknown shores, where
the throng of slack-jawed natives
gives way as they stride through
the town in their finery

The conquistadors ascend the steps by the temple
to the abandoned market,
where they are feted and adored by the few
who see opportunities for
trade and aggrandisement

To their surprise, the visitors find
that the heart has been torn out of the beast
and, still beating,
it is offered to them

Donald Keyman

Walk of Shame - Diane Scantlebury

You saw me
And you smiled knowingly,
That early morning as I passed
Walking the walk of shame,
I nodded back in acknowledgement
But my nonchalant expression lied,
For I was in heels
Still wearing last night’s clothes,
With mascara clogging
My tired, sleep deprived eyes,
I remember you gripping your newspaper
Almost in unspoken judgement,
Tightly under your arm
As you made your way to breakfast,
And I? From a secret rendezvous,
Somewhere you’d never know.

Diane Scantlebury

What's The Worst Thing That Could Happen? - Lester Queripel

I'm going to make a mistake, I know I am.
I'm going to look a fool.
Be an object of ridicule.

At a crucial point I'll stumble and stutter.
My heart will jump into my mouth.
My knees will melt like butter.

It really is time I got a grip.
After all, what's the worst thing that could happen?
Well, I could lose face and fall from grace.
End up in an embarrassing place.

But why should that bother me?
Why can't I set myself free from this tyranny?
Give myself a break and forget about making a mistake.
Because after all...................it's only ego.
And wherever egos I go.

Lester Queripel

Rocquaine Mermaid - Richard Fleming

She heaved herself up on a barnacled rock;
sea-water broke from her sun-blond hair
down over shoulders, freckled with salt:
a broad-breasted sea-nymph
launched from bright water.

No seal she, nor odd fish either,
but strangeness enough
in her queer duality.
Something feral
in those luminous eyes, some leonine thing
in the strong, broad face
turning, in sunlight,
to Lihou, Fort Grey.

Trapped
in triangular space,
among moonscape rocks, sea-wall, sky,
too close to shore or for comfort;
misplaced, adrift
in a place unfamiliar,
she saw me, heron-still
in chill water, staring, staring

and slid like a seal, soundlessly, smoothly,
into the rising tide’s rich, sweet sanctuary,

leaving me,
human me, her land-locked kin,
excluded, bereft, imprisoned in air,
with a longing to hold her, inhale
her salt skin,
to fill my rough hands with wet fistfuls of hair.

Richard Fleming

This poem first appeared in The Man Who Landed, as part of A GUERNSEY DOUBLE, a joint collection with poet, Peter Kenny.

For further details and availability of this book please go to http://redhandwriter.blogspot.com

Memories - Tony Bradley

Without warning, again, yet more tears
yet more sudden, stabbing pain
you realise it's been twenty years
since you walked together, along this lane.

There'll always be memories, to be digested
pain-filled reminders, to be diagnosed
because you can only manage bite-size pieces
until your own little book is closed.

Tony Bradley