How Lovely By Helen Burke

How lovely for you to write - it must - give you something to do at bus-stops - it must be something you can do that guarantees you'll annoy people, it must be one way of looking inside your own head but from the wrong end it must be a bit like contacting aliens and then finding out that you are one

it must be like having a permanently itchy leg under a plaster cast and no knitting needle it must be like having Christmas every day. Bloody and argumentative. No - it must be pure heaven, wrapped up in a hair shirt it must be like having your own foreign language and border control it must be like eating a whole bag of toffees to yourself it must be lovely to write - how do you do it? Do tell.

Copyright © Helen Burke 2010

Poetry - Ye Shall Be Judged By Jody McKenna

Don't judge me on the gift I have. Don't judge me on the waste. Don't judge me on the life I lead Or the promises I break. Don't judge me for the Cannabis. Don't judge me for the past. Don't judge me just to make yourself Feel better. It won't last. Read more...

Poetry - I Went to the Hairdressers Today By Patricia Gray

I went to the hairdressers today, I'd booked a day in advance. When the stylist checked the condition, She looked at me askance. What was the date you were here last? I told her I couldn't remember. It could have been last August, Or it might have been September. Read more...

Poetry - Memories of Yester Year By David Bannister

Gone are the days of skipping ropes, Playing block, Sliding down slopes. Those days now seem to be gone, Money, well, we had none. Have the kids lost the art of having fun, Why do some of them now, carry a gun? Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - Stopped Larking About By Gary Clark

It's easy to fall out of love Or in, as the case may be Lady Chatterley's lover With a Barry White LP. Remember cosy nights by the fire Snuggled on that old settee? Young at heart and oblivious Read more...

Poetry - Dóttir By Jan Peterson

She's spending a year in Iceland, a country I know nothing about. We exchange emails. She tells me the population has just reached 300,000, the light is magical, people smile at her and roads are diverted to placate elves. She loves Reykjavik - it's cosmopolitan but cosy, sends photos of tin houses painted red and yellow and, because it's named after Hallgrimur Pétursson, a church that looks like a lava mountain. She's found a great place for pizza Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - Statuesque Larkinesque By David Thompson

The Interchange has had its share, Of criticism foul and fair, But would the critics look askance, If the concourse to enhance, A little culture for to try, On the people passing by, A man who made his home in Hull, Who never thought the place so dull, Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - Bark at the Moon By Brian Cotton

They tell me that I'm in here cos I ain't very well, If the medicine is working, don't think I can tell, I hope I ain't here long, cos I don't think its fair, So I sit on my bed and pull out my hair, Talk to strange people that are not really there. My wife keeps on phoning and says are you coming home soon, And I say to be honest, Read more...

Poetry - Free Association By Laurenceaux.

It was becoming a crime; my poetry wouldn't rhyme and I was wasting my time and there was nothing sublime and from my mind or my pen there is nothing of-ten (sorry!), but then sometimes Read more...

Poetry - Things Not So Good In The Hood: A Poem About Suburban Childhood By Ruth

Sometime during the day on Friday June 12, an unknown suspect used a ladder to climb into the open second floor bathroom window of a home in the 1800 block of Circle Road. Once inside, the suspect ransacked two bedrooms on the second floor. No property was taken. A lost dog found near Ruxton Road and Ellenham Avenue. Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - Larkin (Inspired by Times Lost) By Terry Ireland

Did Larkin ever walk down Hessle Road Top up in Rayners on cattle market day After hours in Whittington and Cat And for a laugh in the Earl de Grey Did he ever see the parrot Buy the girls a glass or two or three Convince them he wasn't buying as Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - If Poets Were Shops By Helen Burke

Who would they all be? Here's my guess. Coleridge would be Boots - no question - drugs, drugs and more drugs. And just a few drugs. Wordsworth would be Woolworths - with just the suggestion of cheap lipstick about him (one's always wondered) ... Lord Byron would be Harrods - of course, Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - Turds (Inspired by Toads ) By Joe Hakim

Why should I let the turd work Shit on my life? Can't I blag my way into life's perks And just toss it off? Sick and defeated we toil Ingesting economic poison - A little bit goes on bills, Rest spent without caution. Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - The last Bomb (One Kingston Upon Hull Memorial) By Julie Corbett

Boyes Shop, Morrill Street corner, Holderness Road. You can read a wall plaque. Briefly: This was the site of Savoy Cinema. Then; on March 17th 1945 Twelve dead. (Queuing to see Chaplin'sRead more...

Poetry- Distance (with Audio) By Claire Massey
	She collected the distance between them in her pocket, she'd look at it later when she'd cooked and cleaned and put the screaming kids to bed and Read more...

Poetry Greed (with Audio) By Carla Scarano
	Take the shops take the streets the schools take all the houses, take whatever you wish to fill your empty heart. Take the shops take the streets the schools take all the houses, take Read more...

Poetry Tuning up By Christy Hall

The White Horse Pub, Beverley. Nell is sat in that corner again; the same corner of the room he always sits in. Half-hidden in the corridor. Pulsing with coal fire flames, lit by gaslight but dim. It's dark in there but he doesn't need light Read more...

Poetry Larkin 25 - What Trees? (Inspired by The Trees) By Mike Watts

The trees are coming into grief You often hear it being said; For new development, cut and dead, It's ignorance beyond belief. Is it that they'll grow again As we grow old? No, it's not true. They'll be replaced by something new, Read more...

Poetry - Post Cod War Blues - Epitaph By Terry Ireland

It's by the old lock gates and not so easily found, there on the bull nose if you know your way around: a very modest monument, spare compact and neat, tribute to the lost of our deep sea trawler fleet. Read more...