Rock Star - Stephen A. Roberts

The troubled rock star pours out his heart,
How he’s suffered for his art
The unwilling victim of every tart
Who set eyes on having a part
A dime store cashier before his fame
He no longer wants the game
Tired of playing the same old song
He doesn’t know where it went wrong
The 3 chord anthems that he wrote
No longer float his sinking boat
He doesn’t miss his youthful curls
The tours, the pools, or the girls
He craves a simple quiet life
With a youngish, caring wife
Perhaps a farm in the rural hills
Away from spliffs and coke and pills
But you can bet your bottom dollar
That a comeback album will surely follow
When the royalties are running thin
His CDs in the remainder bin
He’ll be back just wait and see
Except that now it’ll be on daytime TV
Talking to Eamonn, Piers et al
About his new stuff, his new normal
A mellow thoughtful cleaner sound
Rooted in his new found ground
They’ll politely hear him out
Before they mention that drinking bout
In a seedy Parisian brothel bar
Before he crashed the drummer’s car
After the hotel trashing in Tokyo
Into the gambling den in old Soho
He’ll laugh to hear these trotted out
Those stories booze had blotted out
He’ll disown those bad boy years
Comparisons with Britney Spears
Trying not to flip his lid
He wonders “who am I trying to kid?”

Stephen A. Roberts


Image : Pixabay - kalhh

Ratty - Joan Etoile

Oh dear, dear Ratty
Cried a distraught Toad
Why ever did you have to
Cross the road?

An electric car
The whispering death
Was the reason that you took
Your last breath

No more tales from the riverbank
Sitting under the weeping willow
Rattus in peace, old chap
On your tarmac pillow

Joan Etoile

Image : Joan Etoile

Revenge - Richard Fleming

Perhaps there is an explanation, dear,
but you’re not here to set my mind at rest.
Death puts a stop to questions, so I fear
this one must stay unanswered or addressed.
Among your things I found a photograph:
it must be recent, you look hardly changed.
A stranger smiles beside you as you laugh,
your hair and solemn features disarranged.
In looking closer I can ascertain
you two are linked: there is a recklessness
about your pose, while he is cool, urbane.
It pains me so, this photograph, and yes,
our marriage wasn’t perfect: I would stray,
but, posthumously, you’ve made sure I pay.

Richard Fleming


Image : Pixabay - Free-Photos

Sanctuary - Diane Scantlebury

In the dreary shadows
Of the snug they lurk,
Haunting the establishment
Without their wives,
The lonely, disillusioned, disconnected,
Dissatisfied with their daily lives,
Happier in the company of like-minded others
They grumble as they drown their sorrow,
Darker their mood slips
With every sip, every swallow,
As deeper into the mud
Of their misery they wallow,
And contrary to the myth
Where home’s their comfort and hub,
They find blissful sanctuary
In a pint down the pub.

Diane Scantlebury

Image : Guernseypoets

Hope - Sarah Alexander

I am old now
My eyes peer out from wrinkled flaps of skin
Age bleached in a crumpled canvas

The sisters tend me silently
Bringing with them the coldness of hours spent in solitary prayer
I have walked this earth for centuries
My penance for robbing its innocence

Long ago I danced with my sisters, our feet
bruising the grass, our voices raised to celebrate the passing of the seasons
A time gone by
When we found truth in the stars and sky

But a multitude of voices called to me, plaintive and gilded with honey
I listened. I reached out a hand and in a moment the casket was emptied

None but I now bear witness to the plague unleashed
That has crushed our souls, buried our children and twisted our thoughts ever since
Then in the midst a single voice spoke
It said let me out sister for I am Hope

A small winged creature whiter than foam on the sea brushed my cheek gently and drifted away
I am Hope - look to me in your darkness and pain
I see your sorrow. I know your name.

So I wait now, my spirit housed in this tattered shroud
I wait for Hope to return, give me peace and light my way home.

Sarah Alexander


Image : Pixabay - Sinousxl

Mound - Donald Keyman

They built that mound in London Town
For the traffic to drive around
Resembling a power station made of peat
It’s at the end of Oxford Street
This carbuncle covered in wizened crops
Is supposed to lure you back to the shops
It looks such a sickly threadbare hill
It’s as if the gardeners lost the will
To make it look like the rolling dales
They settled for a slag heap from south Wales
It’s supposed to be a piece of statement art
To warm the Nation’s jaded heart
Instead we look and ask each other this:
“Is it Banksy taking the piss?”

Donald Keyman

Image : splashnews/Daily Mail

Bee-hind - Tony Gardner

Is there anything lovelier under the sun
Than the wonderful sight of a BumbleBee's Bum ?
Though they can be white or yellow or red
They're a vision of splendour it has to be said
It makes me smile every time that I see
A BumbleBee flashing his backside at me.

Tony Gardner

Image : Pixabay - ekamelev

Lifeboat - Ian Duquemin

Well I see you… 
Like a kind of lifeboat 
On a stormy sea
Reaching out to rescue me
To pull me from the waves
That try to drag me under 
Above you… The clouds 
So angry in their thunder 
But you find me… 
And save me, time and time again
While the clouds burst 
Drenching us in rain
But you hold me near 
And those clouds all disappear 
As in your arms 
I have nothing to fear 
You're a lifeboat 
Tumbling on a stormy sea
Always there to save me, from the depths of my insanity 
Never alone… 
Not drowning on my own
Just keeping me safe… 
And bringing me home 

Ian Duquemin

Image : Mumbai Mirror

Cold-Water Swimmer - Oscar Milde

In bobble hat and rubber shoes,
she looked a most unlikely muse
but, seeing her, I scrawled a sonnet
(I had my surfboard. I wrote on it.)
She stood there dripping, shaking cold,
and was a pleasure to behold:
a poem-in-flesh, a fishy tale.
I’d read each verse if she were braille.
She brightened up my day entirely.
Cold-water swimmers do inspire me.

Oscar Milde

Image : Pixabay - Free-Photos