Nuclear Neighbours Non! - Lyndon Queripel

Love thy neighbour as thyself
Turn the other cheek today
May his cloud of atomic dust
Pass right by us if we pray

Love thy neighbour as thyself
And honour everything you say
Let the Sun set on your trust
Beyond horizons of decay

Love thy neighbour as thyself
Will the peace of green betray
Rainbows rising above the crust
In between the shadow play

Love thy neighbour as thyself
As skies turn to red from grey
Before your sleep starts to rust
Radiate and just fade away.

Lyndon Queripel

My cat Kacey - Tony Bradley

My wife got Kacey, the youngest of three
she later 'rescued' two from the sanctuary
although terminal cases, as happy as can be
trouble is, they all attached themselves to me.

I never had a cat, only dogs and that
rabbits, gerbils, even a rat
I didn't know an apparently well-known fact
cats pick you, mate, and that is that.

Wifey got him, fluffy kitten, bit of a fad
now he's old and not well, it's a bit sad
but Kacey's my cat, and I love him like mad
he's the most loving friend I've ever had.

Tony Bradley

The Starfish - Stuart Price

Today's poem is a "Golden Oldie" and was originally published here in January 2013.

He has no need of X Factor auditions
As he cruises the murky ocean depths
Looking for some tasty seafood to eat.

He has no anxiety about being a one hit wonder
Or being relevant in a constantly changing marketplace,
As he silently crosses coral reefs and
Converts sunlight to energy, while being
Swept along by warm ocean currents.

He doesn't dream of snorting cocaine from the chests of groupies
As he senses shades of light and dark from eyes at the end of his arms.
Just clean water and plankton are all he needs for happiness.

To reproduce he has no need of sordid snatched encounters
With star struck whimsies, in a drug fuelled haze at public conveniences.
He simply breaks an inch or two from a leg, which grows into another him.

Not for him the tortured artist persona, at the mercy of public taste or abandonment,
Because he truly is, and always will be, a Star [fish].

Stuart Price

Being Ian Duquemin - Ian Duquemin

I write what I'm thinking
I write what I see
I write about conflicts... That rage within me
And when I'm not writing
I think just the same
As a million words swirl around in my brain

Some think that I'm crazy
Some say that I moan
Some see me as strange... As I spend time alone
But that's how that I am
And that's how I will stay
As I choose to be lonely and lock me away

I may not have beauty
I may not be bright
I may see the wrongs... In the things you see right
And I see that my world
Is all battered and bruised
And don't like the way that my mother's abused

I'm not always angry
And I'm not always sad
Sometimes I make good... Of the things that are bad
Lessons once learned
And decisions I make
Have always decided the steps that I take

And I walk with a caution
I walk on a wire
I walk upon eggshells... And I walk upon fire
Not many will follow
On this path that I tread
With its hills and its mountains that loom up ahead

I guess I'll die lonely
But between you and me
That's how that I lived... So that's how it should be
But while I'm away
If I haven't been burned
I'll write down my journey and all that I learned

Ian Duquemin

Unsinkable - Richard Fleming

Stiff-collared and stiff-upper-lipped,
they bade their womenfolk go first,
with children, into lifeboats
that were only there for show,
then, ramrod-straight on tilting decks,
they braved the icy, ill-starred night
or went below to congregate
with other men, pale, poker-faced,
in state-rooms loud with jokes and boasts,
to camouflage their growing fear,
as cocktails, spilled, or scattered cards
made nonsense of forlorn attempts
at nonchalance.

In that dark realm of bitter cold,
of signal-flares and glacial stars,
where massively impassive bergs
moved sure and silently as gods;
where all around, like tombstones, ranged,
squat ice-flows gleamed a ghostly white,
snow fell, in feathered silence, then
on black waves breaking endlessly
on lifeboats, where survivors prayed,
their upturned faces, pinched and wan,
for fathers, lovers, husbands, sons;
but when such supplication failed,
prayed for salvation.

Richard Fleming