I read the news today

I read the news today, oh boy…

…about a lucky man…

…who (because it was there) climbed the roof of the world, who paid 

a fortune to rise above his own mean streets and breathe the wonder 

of the rarified, oxygen-poor wind as if he was alone in it but, 

shuffling up the ice-path above the weather, he stumbled, tired, 

one-foot-after-another bored, prey to gravity, one slip in its grip, 

he fell, he died despite his dreams, died in a queue;

I read the news today…

…the English army had just won the war…

…and another war, another pointless squabble, had begun…

for a pennyworth of governance, shoo-ins, get-outs, no names, no pack-drill

no more making the grade, loaded dice and a rigged game, identities changed 

to protect the guilty, in the uphill struggle, the pompous drag of going up 

in the world, of staying up, of going on forever;

I read the news…

…I’d seen that face before…

…and a country weeps, it’s leader (take me to her) weeps crocodile rain 

on crocodile shoes, petty sadness dries on her shrivelled cheeks,

a parody of grief for misbegotten promises run into sand, grimaces and tears 

for being found out, found wanting, for being arrogant and full of pride, 

for being a crock of shit and heartless with it;

I read the news, today, oh God…

…everybody spoke and I went into a dream…

…the whole world weeps, sheds water from its fractured veins, finds its bedrock 

shattered or under pressure, under duress, it oozes blood, a blood-like fluid, 

a thin extraction, the Earth’s crust sobbing, mortally wounded by stabs of greed;

i read the news, oh boy…

…a million ozone holes and counting…

…entropy, catastrophe, panegyric apostrophe, rhetoric, caustic wit, 

paregoric for the brain, arsenic in the soul, the duplicity of figureheads 

now hidden in the shadows, purchased men and women, no less, 

who self-identify as honourable, who lie, yes, who lie perfectly still, 

scheming and scheming, and still pass unnoticed.

I read the news today, one final time…

…because I had to look…

…no sign of love behind the tears…

…cried for no-one…

© Brian Hill

Everest: British man among latest mountain deaths

Farage: A big win for the Brexit Party and a wake up call for Westminster

Theresa May saved her tears for herself. If only she’d shown this humanity before

Fracking Water Treatment Equipment : To Enhanced Demand For Electricity, Automobiles, Improved Housing and Other Energy

Sunburn in spring: questions & answers to avoid.

Brian Hill - [Blog: One Piece a Week]

Brian has been 50 years a poet. One-time designer and film-maker; long ago, the rhyme-slinger, cartoon cowboy, and planetarium poet; now feverishly stringing words together in the hope of making sense.

Shakin' all over

"When you protest right up close to me, 

that's when I get the shake all over me"

Kippers got no backbone -

Tommeh's knuckles by his kneebone!

Do Nigel's kids live in the Eurozone?

Shakin' all over....

Tommeh thought he could be a repository- 

now his deposit's become a suppository.

Kippers got no backbone -

Tommeh's knuckles by his kneebone!

Do Nigel's kids live in the Eurozone?

Shakin' all over....

© Des Mannay

This Milkshake Spring isn’t political violence – it’s political theatre

Des Mannay - [Twitter: @hooliganpoet]

Des has won prizes and been shortlisted in 6 competitions, performed at 8 festivals, published in 8 magazines/blogs. His work has appeared in 15 poetry anthologies. Catch him on Facebook as "The stuff wot I wrote' Des Mannay - hooligan Poet".

Getting what you don't expect from the Internet ('f**k the police')

I love China

The Mum exclaimed-

But I can't believe they sent me this,

I only put it on Salem because

She can't read.

Dangers of online shopping,

We move away from the High Street

Towards convenience of

The click of a button.

Perhaps allure of

A suprise awaits-

When we really don't know

What we're getting,

The climate of today.

© Amanda Derry

Mum buys 3-year-old daughter a 'cute' t-shirt online, but receives one reading 'F*** the police'

Amanda Derry - [Facebook Group: I Love Writing]

Amanda joined a Creative Writing class, following a breakdown, which played a significant role in her recovery. She now embeds literacy skills into classes that she teaches.

Extinction Rebellion

doomers, preppers
deniers. shleppers
Evangelists, pessimists
Albedo nihillists
technologists, scientists
government defiantists
coolers warmers, street performers
strikers hikers, three wheel trikers
worried farmers, spiritual calmers
theatre actors re-enactors
vegan purists, citizen jurists
political chancers, rebel dancers
quiet quakers and piss takers
life long moaners, chilled out stoners
police informers, perfect stormers
movement jesters, empty nesters
safe space janitors, wild-life monitors
wide awake-ers, sneaky fakers
woodland saviours, strange behaviours
skeleton stagers, old new agers
earth first militants, festival dilettantes
animal righters, class war fighters
nuanced thinkers, radical  tinkers
nuclear backers, pollutant trackers
red robed choirs, end is nigh-ers
new planet settlers, climate mettlers
electric car fans preaching beef bans
guys with blinkers and great thinkers
tiny home-ers, geodesic dome-ers
back to the land-ers, saving pandas
carbon worriers, movement hurriers.

© S.O. Fasrus

Police take hard line on arrested Extinction Rebellion protesters

S.O. Fasrus

S.O. Fasrus is a Social Justice Campaigner & Social Research Interviewer. Her verse and poems; some comic; satirical; and serious; can be found online. Recent poems are in New Verse News, Culture Matters, and Poems for Grenfell Tower.

Top of The World

Top of The World

here it's our guise
for suicide
we queue to die
please comfort our families
flag us as heroes -
heroes
too proud to
cry for help

© S.O. Fasrus

‘Walking over bodies’: mountaineers describe carnage on Everest

Exclusive! Breaking from Vegas New Odds!

Bookies in Vegas devour the

Business Section of the NYT;

And its latest revelation about

America's bosses' pay rising

At double the rate of

Average workers has prompted

Revision of the odds on these
Predictions: The new odds are

 

"The fruits of the earth belong to all." Jean-Jacques Rousseau         25,000 to1

 

"The meek shall inherit the earth"  Matthew 5:5                                 50.000 to1

 

"Socialism in America will come through the ballot

box," Gus Hall U.S. Labor leader and Communist                            100,000 to 1

 

"Equality is available before God, but not until then,"                                   2 to 1

GOP credo

© George Salamon

It’s Never Been Easier to Be a C.E.O., and the Pay Keeps Rising

George Salamon 

George has had careers as professor of German, business journalist and public affairs writer/manager. He now contributes articles and poems to progressive publications such as The New Verse News and Dissident Voice from St. Louis, MO

Suspend the Operation?

With very little info, we were made to decide.

Anti-Brexit votes got dearer than French cheese.

Now to old Europa can the cold isle still glide?

Docking back in (the) EU haven might spell higher fees.

Excited first at exiting, now they’re aren’t too sure,

Radio guests by the ton, confess they didn’t know

Ins and outs of nefarious deals, thought Brexit was the cure.

Nothing much would lose most Brits, when they said they had to go?

Eschewed the euro-zone. Why had they refused? 

Upset Old World golden cart. Why were they so keen?

Ruthless politicians got naive public confused,

Ousting Albion, what pipe-dreams had they seen? 

Passive observers, should literati remain?

England’s ‘splendid isolation?’ What would that gain?

-The End-

© Sultana Raza

Theresa May never had a grip on the crown that fell into her lap

European elections 2019: Where the parties stand on Brexit

Sultana Raza

Sultana has had poems and short stories published in 30+ journals, including Columbia Journal, and Caduceus. Her fiction received an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train. She’s presented many papers on Keats.

Punchinello Politician

What a performance - a complete palaver.

The showing, the telling, the posing and pointing.

Lectern-leaning, throat-clearing. Spouting dogma

thoughtless, empty, clatter-clunking in the guttering wind.



Impossible, imposter - the clown-politician,

political-clown, a hotcake of fake on an over-used plate

presents us with another opinion,

just another among endless others,

bobbing by on a wave of rhetoric,

It’s more than enough to make you sea-sick.



Watch him go - in the circus space, playing

the fool at the theatre of lecture.

A pompous power-point Punchinello

gliding imperious, on the sea-shiny surface

of his shallow grandeur.



Slap- Stick knowledge, loves to point it out,

do the hokey-cokey Shake it all about -

what a show, what a tell – giving foreigner’s hell.

Two crap cards of a three-card trick,

fooling no-one, wising up no-one.

No magic.

No wisdom.

No fun for anyone…not any more

Won’t someone, kindly, tell him?

© Chris Sparks

Boris Johnson: UK will leave EU in October, deal or no deal

Chris is a political theorist from Hackney who now  lives in Sligo Ireland. He has published a few books and articles about social uncertainty and the politics of fear.  Now he finds that (weirdly), everything that was once theory seems to be becoming actual.  So, for his sanity and soul,  he has decided to come at things from another angle, which is why he now writes  poetry.

April Showers May Flowers (A Goddess’s perspective)

The news comes today

Theresa May resigns her position, 

Did she pull us back from a massive collision?

By the time Britain woke up, to the oncoming onslaught

An iceberg was encroaching 

And the laws of Albina, were disposing 

A decade ago, Britain was already dying 

And a woman took hold of the helm, 

The greed of the ‘fat cats’, had begun to govern our sovereign realm 

To and fro in her wayward ship, thrusting amidst the crashing swells

A steadfast woman 

Sounded Britain’s alarm bells

All the parties had their say; not one could agree with May

She ducked and dived 

To protect the ‘mother;’

She understood sovereignty, as the bones of the Magna Carta

Were born out of the same kind of greed

We see spreading within the EEC

When 200 and something laws, are needed to govern a lampshade 

What hope do humans have? 

She played Britain’s hand, despite the ones who buried their heads in the sand 

Britain has been there and done that

Which is how she recognised 

The bureaucratic trap 

Who rule us from their Ivory towers in Brussels

But Theresa May flexed some British muscle;

Not once deterred by her diabetes 

She stood strong against

The endless treaties 

That were ripped up and thrown out 

 
And each time she went back to the drawing board

The minions still cowered!

The covenant she made, she will take to her grave 

The heroine’s journey, like Joan of Arc

Will come to light, only with much hindsight 

A man will be exalted, unless he’s a rapist

A woman will be holy, if she lives in renunciation 

 
But neither of these roles, relieve us our constant craving,

Farewell to a brave woman, 

Who embodied the constitution she fought so hard to protect 

After all, she did it because of Britain’s subjects!

When the waters calm, and they will,

I pray the flowers of May 

Come fragrantly to us in the new clay

© Douglas Whyte

Theresa May's voice cracks at end of resignation speech

Douglas Whyte

Douglas has been writing for most his life and ran small businesses for the last 11 years. Now he has more time to focus on writing. A welcomed change. He worked as a freelance journalist while living in Calgary and currently he is working on his third manuscript for publication.

Meltdown

Meltdown

Nerves of steel

liquefied-

the drip drip drip

of strong and stable

glugging down the drain

un-galvanized

sans mettle

© Bex Tate

What went wrong at British Steel?

Infinitival Infinities: A Sonnet in Fragments

To be               a matter when there’s no question

Or not to be     a question when nothing really matters

To sing            with a frog squatting straight

On a lotus leaf in the Honghu Lake    near Jingzhou

    To recollect all the pasts, and mix them

Together like a glass of           cocktail

To build                       a nest of meaning 

Between two broken branches on       Ygdrasil 

To strive          for deity

Longevity        and

Even happiness

To come          on and off line every other while

To compress    consciousness into a file, and upload it

    Onto a nanochip. To be           daying, to                    die

© Yuan Changming

An AI Discussion with Yuval Noah Harari – To Know or Not to Know Yourself

Yuan Changming  published monographs on translation before leaving his native country. Currently, Yuan lives in Vancouver, where he edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan. Credits include ten Pushcart nominations, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17) and BestNewPoemsOnline, among others.

The Politics of Abstinence

“Here’s the #SexStrikethat matters: Do not sleep with anyone who believes in forcing women to give birth. Do not fuck misogynists or white supremacists. Don’t have sex with people who don’t see you as a person. Apart from anything else, they’re generally rubbish in bed.”Laurie Penny‏ @PennyRedMay 12

Today begins the great cross and clench

for the Guardian columnist            

as her area shuts up shop in solidarity

with people who don’t want to be but are

pregnant in Georgia, Alabama

and places even further from Islington than that.

Tiny flying pickets circle

the entrance to the promised land

with signs that shout:

They Shall Not Pass! 

or Dispute On Here.

Though you’d need

a magnifying glass to read them.

So far today, they’ve turned back

the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan,

who, on inspection, was found to be

naked beneath his gleaming white sheet;

a guy called Doug wearing nothing

but a Make America Great Again cap

imported from El Salvador;

some dude she met in college

who used to like to

have his bum lightly chastised 

with briars; the professor she once,

at his own request, 

fastened to the bedroom door

with strategically placed

black leather belts; and the late 

Anita Bryant carrying

what looks suspiciously like             

an excessively sized strap-on.

For none shall break this strike

until it’s achieved

the far better ecstasy 

of enough people in the internet

exclaiming our heroine’s name. 

© Kevin Higgins

Actress Alyssa Milano calls for sex strike in protest at abortion bans

https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1128019637810024449

https://twitter.com/PennyRed/status/1127433319723851777

Kevin Higgins 

Kevin is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway, Ireland. He teaches poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre, Creative Writing at Galway Technical Institute, and is Creative Writing Director for the National University of Ireland - Galway Summer School. He is poetry critic of The Galway Advertiser. He has published five collections of poetry. His next poetry collection, Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital, will be published by Salmon Poetry in June 2019.

• 
  

My Milkshake Drives All the Fascists From the Yard

would be the obvious title for this poem

but leave its content redundant - the joke

already made, the bolt shot (or the shake 

thrown) and nobody really buying

a Kelis reference from a guy so not down

with the kids it hurts. Think instead

on the milkshake gagged at the behest

of Edinburgh’s finest: unsold, disallowed.

A clampdown, the far-right pissed

at the soft drink weapon-of-choice du jour:

used to be “bash the flash”, now it’s pour

a milky drink on the ugly suit of a racist.

So think on the milkshakes of Edinburgh

held back behind the thin blue line,

a D-notice in place lest they try to provide

a lactose antidote to the snake-oil peddler

mouthing off with the same old UKIP

drivel rebranded as a sop to Leave.

Imagine what one milkshake could achieve:

the arc, the hit, the spill, the drip, drip, drip.

© Neil Fulwood

Police tell McDonald's not to sell milkshakes ahead of Nigel Farage rally

Neil Fulwood

Neil lives and works in Nottingham. His first collection No Avoiding It is available from Shoestring Press; his second is scheduled for publication in 2019.

Left Luggage

Left Luggage

The Hamburg taxi driver
thought that it was strange
when the passengers paid
then said, keep the change
for they hadn't left any tip
but a baby having a kip.

© Luigi Pagano

Grateful parents reunited with baby left in a taxi

Ineffective Electives

Political stalemate?

No! 

Completely ineffective 

Are those so called electives 

Half a century later 

It’s the same old rhetoric;

The peace that came 

Was endowed with the same 

Ghosts from the past, 

Who thrive on differences 

And cast, 

Webs of destruction 

Upon our children’s education

Mental health issues grow 

Special needs are increasing 

And who is policing? 

These paid non-workers 

Whose vision lack many colours 

Thinking not of our tomorrow’s 

And waste the time we’ve all borrowed,

And our verdant green fields 

Shine irridescently in the sun 

Waiting; oh waiting, 

For our new leader to come

© Douglas Whyte

Bishop Ken Good warns NI education 'beyond crisis'

Douglas Whyte

Douglas has been writing for most his life and ran small businesses for the last 11 years. Now he has more time to focus on writing. A welcomed change. He worked as a freelance journalist while living in Calgary and currently he is working on his third manuscript for publication.

House Advisory

Roof: Always stand high & look afar beyond!

Attic: Fix the leak first!

Ceiling: Never hit the ceiling with megalomaniac!

Wall: Turn around before getting a nasty bump on your head!

Balcony: Stand aside to take a bird’s view of the situation!

Window: let some light enter your life!

Floor: Set your feet firmly in reality!

Stairs: [Watch your step! Or] Take   one step at         a   time!

A few more from fixtures:

Air conditioner: Keep cool & calm!

Bed: Dare to dream!

Clock: Treasure every minute!

Calendar: Go along with the times!

Mirror: It’s necessary to examine your life from time to time!

Table lamp: Live to illuminate others!

Toilet: [Most important,] just let        it          go        !!

© Yuan Changming

Lessons Learned From the Tiny House Movement

Yuan Changming  published monographs on translation before leaving his native country. Currently, Yuan lives in Vancouver, where he edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan. Credits include ten Pushcart nominations, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17) and BestNewPoemsOnline, among others. 

Alabama Exercise

Stand on one leg

stretch out your arms

balance the weight

of an idea of life

in one fist

with the weight

of an ideal life

in the other

while the scales 

are resting

on the shoulders

of a woman whose

neck is bent

from the weight

of your boot

on her head

© Lianne Kamp

Alabama governor signs nation's most restrictive anti-abortion bill into law

Lianne Kamp

Lianne resides in Boston, Massachusetts. Her poems and short stories appear in assorted print journals and on-line publications including: Poets Reading the News, Tuck Magazine, Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, Dime Show Review, Scarlet Leaf Review, Poetry Quarterly, Dual Coast Magazine, and a number of Prolific Press anthologies. She writes poetry to make her world-view more panoramic by examining it more closely.

Barca Nostra (Our Boat)

"a monument to contemporary migration"?

Help up. dead weight like a ‘someone’ in -

Or a ‘fish’ out of…. Questions not judgments?  

There, blending the blue sky and sea 

Merging between life and opportunity 

“Destination Italia”  

seize the opportunity; the seas opportunity.

Art? Or just a crass attention seeking …?

That oh so easy Sunday afternoon browse

Leaves nothing for the mind to opine.

The world and its Fates flick and muse.

What would that old stalwart Immanuel Kant

Make of this piece, and its generated rant

© Jonathan Beale

Venice Biennale: Is exhibiting tragic migrant ship distasteful?

Jonathan Beale 

Jonathan has had his work published in over sixty journals, Danse Macabre, Bluepepper, Mad Swirl, Red Wolf Editions, et al.  He is also published in two anthologies ‘Drowning’ and ‘The Poet as Sociopath’ (Scar publications). And one to be published ‘Do not be afraid’ a small anthology dedicated to Seamus Heaney. His first book of poetry The Destinations of Raxiera (Hammer and Anvil) in November 2015. He lives in Surrey, UK.

June, July and...Augusta

June, July and...Augusta

May ends in June
the papers say
and she knows why.
What no one knows
is, come July
who'll steer the rudder.
Mention of Boris
makes people shudder.
Some who believe
we need new blood
may be inclined
to choose Amber Rudd.

© Luigi Pagano

'May ends in June' - What is the future?

‘So fare well then….’

Goodbye. Jeremy Kyle even before the watershed

The knives were always out.

The point of the mass mass media

That un-containable beast ready to pounce   

Mob rule, rules the mob - see them squeal -

Behind their over-sized TV’s 

Ochlocracys swing every way. And that. 

For the deranged, the lost and misguided 

some invisible fissure

unknowable unpredictable, yet inevitable

© Jonathan Beale

TV industry under the microscope after Jeremy Kyle Show cancellation

Jonathan Beale has had his work published in over sixty journals, Danse Macabre, Bluepepper, Mad Swirl, Red Wolf Editions, et al.  He is also published in two anthologies ‘Drowning’ and ‘The Poet as Sociopath’ (Scar publications). And one to be published ‘Do not be afraid’ a small anthology dedicated to Seamus Heaney. His first book of poetry The Destinations of Raxiera (Hammer and Anvil) in November 2015. He lives in Surrey, UK.

Off the rails

Off the rails

The minister Chris Grayling
who's found that transport
is not altogether plain sailing
was the one who introduced
the probation service reforms
but as privatisation is failing
there is a big mess to sort.

© Luigi Pagano

Probation service to supervise all offenders after 'flawed' privatisation

Look On the Not So Bright Side

Look On the Not So Bright Side

 

For every poetry website closing

The branch of a bank opens.

 

IMPORTANT MESSAGE on Poetry24

 

George Salamon was happy to have been a contributor to Poetry24..

© George Salamon

(For link, see Important Message in sidebar)

People who lead good lives

"People who lead good lives"

--Alabama congressman, Mo Brooks

are dying all the time.

Dying in a shelter, in the subway,

just outside the sliding doors

of the insurance gates of Emergency.

Jesus should always be a picture

of light crying, not some nazi-white

nonsense guy with a halo, but a big heart

with thorns and razorwire.

Yeah, the "good life" money people

who can afford their preexistings,

can afford to take time off, hire someone,

use them and fire someone.

I'm in my dirty life, I'm in it because 

everyone worth the salt and chemicals

of their bodies in the bible, struggle,

wait patiently, and then ride on to heaven.

© J.P. Dancing Bear

Alabama congressman: "People who lead good lives" don't have preexisting conditions

J. P. Dancing Bear - [Twitter: @jpdancingbear]

J. P.'s most recent book, Fish Singing Foxes, is out by Salmon Poetry this month. His next book, Of Gods and Monsters, later this year from Glass Lyre Press.

Death of a legend

Death of a legend

We say farewell to Doris;
she played Calamity Jane
but she wasn't as calamitous
as some of our politicians
like Jeremy, Theresa or Boris
who are giving us pain.

© Luigi Pagano

Actress Doris Day dies aged 97