Pie In The Sky - Donald Keyman

When your family can’t be fed
And it’s almost cheaper to be dead
You take stock and wonder why
Our leaders all want pie in the sky

Their ludicrously grandiose schemes
Will rip the purse at its seams
Looking for money we don’t have
Cos it was spent by Uncle Gav

They want a shining mini Monaco
Where only the moneyed rich can go
For tax-free fuel and their super yachts
While the proletariat can only watch

Grandstanding in the House they boast
Of their imaginary tunnel on the coast
An airport that can handle B-52s;
It’s a shopping list writ by fools

Donald Keyman


Image : Guernseypoets/Pixabay - pierre9x6

Blackbird - Richard Fleming

With catapult, once school was finished,
I went to hunt in woodland, high
above Belfast, in summer light
and heard, among leafed branches spread,
a blackbird, singing like a bell.
I took aim, shot; the missile flew
unerringly, my aim was true.
with awful suddenness it fell,
all broken. Exultation fled,
to be replaced by sickly fright.
I knelt to watch it slowly die.
Within me somewhere, light diminished.

Richard Fleming


Image : Pixabay - Jetiveri

A New Translation Of Love - Lyndon Queripel

I know inside my heart
Life’s too short to be apart
That together we could start
A revelation, a celebration
A new translation of love

I hear inside my head
All the words I should’ve said
All the words you could’ve read
A dedication, a communication
A new translation of love.

Lyndon Queripel


Image : Pixabay - Ben_Kerckx

Red Lines - Stephen A. Roberts

In the early morning she rises
Awoken by an unknown fear
Through the basement window
She sees the red lines appear

Moving through the woods
The Z men are finally here
She watches her brave children
Put them to the spear

Red lines in the snow
Mark the new frontier
It’s time to flee the homeland
And everything she holds dear

Maybe she will make it
To freedom’s belvedere
Away to a place of safety
A far off distant idea

Where a thousand miles away
They face their biggest fear
In the test cassette window
Will the red lines appear?

Stephen A. Roberts


Image : author/sky.com

Thoughts on the war - Tony Gardner

The sun was peeping through the clouds
Every now and then.
The wind had died, the temperature
Was well above the 10
Pottering in the garden
Forking, planting, feeding and
I thought how lucky we were all
Living in a war free land
I thought of poor folk trapped and scared
In Russia's evil war
And wished that I could help someway
I pray, but should do more.
But I'll just keep planting Dahlia corms
And hope all turns well
That soon Ukraine will breathe once more
And Putin rots in Hell.

Tony Gardner


Image : Pixabay - ELG21