At Grandfather’s - Richard Fleming

Along the entry
he would come caterwauling,
striking bin-lids with his stick,
through the backyard
knocking over milk bottles.

Up the wooden stair, rolling
like a tar,
to lifeboat-bed and disapproval:
his salty, mermaid wife
growling like an ocean.

On Sunday mornings there,
we children crouched, like mice,
digesting toast and catechisms,
as grandma stepped,
stiff-backed, around him.

He would be still as stone, his bowl
of porridge cooling.

Richard Fleming

Image : Pixabay - aamiraimer

The East Wind’s Breath - Tony Gardner

There's an icy tang to the East Wind's breath

It seems to carry the scent of Death

But I shrug it off for that's known to be

Just an old wives' tale from antiquity

So I trudge on through the cold, cold snow

Trying to keep my mind on which way to go

Just a month ago, such a lovely scene

But tonight all’s white instead of green.

And I hear a howl, from the snow-filled sky

Maybe just the wind, or a wild beast’s cry

But it may be neither, just in my mind

For my limbs are lead, my eyes half-blind

And I’ll have to stop, rest a little while

I’ve no more strength than a new born child

And sleep…..just a minute….or so……………..

Tony Gardner


Image : Pixabay - Printeboek

The Earth Of Your Birth Is Now The Breath Of Your Death - Lyndon Queripel

There’s another rise in temperature
More damage to the ozone layer
Through ignorance and neglect
Now we have the greenhouse effect
In concrete jungles of steel and glass
Electric fences that none shall pass
Go unheard the words being said
By the voices of the underfed

We don’t hunger for your nuclear power
Under the shadow of the atomic bomb
There’s more acid rain with every shower
With a forecast of more to come

It’s in the name of progress to sacrifice
But why do the innocent have to pay the price
On the final frontier of unwritten law
New secret weapons for the planet war
Orbit the Moon and race in space
Another star for the flag to chase
While satellites explore the universe
The homeless situation gets worse

Now our streams and rivers are turning sour 
Save the trees while there are still some
There’s more pollution with every hour
You’d better take it back where it came from

We’ve protested your latest regulation
Ignored all of your misinformation
Even turned our hands to revolution
To find that it held no solution
Now the evil virus of your creation
Reaches out to touch every nation
To control the global population
And mandate a toxic vaccination

Our human rights have been denied
Living under this agenda of fascist fear
Planned to overrule and to divide 
Your New World Order is ever near

Lyndon Queripel

Image : Pixabay - ParentRap

Le Jardin Des Tuileries - Oscar Wilde

This winter air is keen and cold,
And keen and cold this winter sun,
But round my chair the children run
Like little things of dancing gold.

Sometimes about the painted kiosk
The mimic soldiers strut and stride,
Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide
In the bleak tangles of the bosk.

And sometimes, while the old nurse cons
Her book, they steal across the square,
And launch their paper navies where
Huge Triton writhes in greenish bronze.

And now in mimic flight they flee,
And now they rush, a boisterous band -
And, tiny hand on tiny hand,
Climb up the black and leafless tree.

Ah! cruel tree! if I were you,
And children climbed me, for their sake
Though it be winter I would break
Into spring blossoms white and blue!

Oscar Wilde
Image : Pixabay - Pezibear

The Despair of Loneliness - Ian Renouf-Watkins

Loneliness isn’t being alone
Or separate from the throng
It’s being in a crowded room
Thinking it’s all gone wrong

Going unheard unnoticed
Is an average day for some
With feelings of isolation
Keeping us silently undone

Feel pity for the misanthrope
Take in any muted strangers
Embrace the frequently lost
Reduce our many dangers

The alternative is a hubris
Barriers kept up unseen 
Guaranteeing us invisibility 
Until we hang from a beam

Ian Renouf-Watkins


Image : Pixabay - Graehawk

Broken - Ian Duquemin

Leave me alone, let me cry for awhile 
I don't want to talk, and I can't find my smile 
I'm just a boy no one wants anyway 
So I'll hide where I can for the rest of the day

These children around me, well they understand 
They've been hit with a stick, they've been punched with a hand 
Seen so many things a child never should see
But none of them witnessed the damage in me

I live in a world, one of darkness and pain 
Found strength to get up, but been knocked down again 
If nobody wants me, then why should I care? 
I'll just wrap myself up in this cloak of despair 

I don't want to live, in this nightmare so real 
This pain isn't something a small boy should feel 
So lock me away, there's no sunshine for me
It's only in darkness I'm able to see

Will I grow to be loved, maybe even adored? 
Or continue forever, expelled and ignored 
These scars no one sees, will they always remain? 
A constant reminder of sorrow and pain 

Leave me alone, I am broken and bruised 
A child who feels nothing.. But hurt and abused 
If nobody loves me, I'll hide here a while 
Until somebody searches and finds me a smile 

Ian Duquemin

Image : Pixabay - Tumisu

Ship In A Bottle - Richard Fleming

He dreamed of oceans as a child;
would run away to sea when grown;
might sail the chill Atlantic, wild,
or broad Pacific, tempest blown;

but grown to adulthood, he failed
in everything. There was no prow
or spreading wake: he never sailed.
He seeks his ships in bottles now.

Richard Fleming


Image : Pixabay - fadliabravers

February - Stephen A. Roberts

Dry January is rewarded 
with pancakes and Valentines; 
In leap years or other times. 
So should it be  
twenty-eight words or twenty-nine; 
In my February rhyme?

Stephen A. Roberts


Image : Pixabay - RitaE