Larkin 25 - Museum Quarter High Street Hull (Inspired by the song Strange Fruits) By Julie Corbett

The display boards bored you all tell and no show. Orange panels ingested quickly in the first room. The story should have unsettled you, started uneasy questioning. You ask instead to go next door to the museum full of trams and cars. I stay, being both relieved and concerned by a history losing its power. Every local child here learns of abolition William Wilberforce and slavery. Once I had walked in silent single file past posters, man traps and paintings. It was a dusty, relic rich place then lit by filament bulbs not cleansed and illuminated in neon as now. I sat waiting for you in the hallway the long case clock in the shadows English oak showing through veneer, brass hands and glass polished soft. The tick was low, its voice sure and I recalled a song. The one of crows, black bodies, magnolia scent and polar trees. You return and agree to walk round again, gently we talk of the pride and the shame.

Copyright © Julie Corbett 2010

Poetry - In The Loop By Andrea Longstaff

	Identity theft is all the rage turn the page If you want to know who you are Read more...

Poetry - Old Soldiers Never Die, They Merely Fade Away By Laurenceaux.

For many whole days I've likened to death, shot in the arm, the leg and the chest; and laying on mud there in a ditch, I've prayed for an end - to toss in my pitch; but no one's heard me - no one's seen; as I fight for death - to forget what's been. Read more...

Poetry - Sunday Bloody Sunday By Mark Walmsley
	Out of bed as late as I dare, pick up my bag from the kitchen chair Dash out to the street, sleep in my eyes, late again, no surprise. Get to the ground and shabby hut, the changing rooms all locked up Read more...

Poetry - Job Description (The Confessional Poet) By Sandra Lester

The essential qualities required - for this unique, Christ-like bard- are: The ability to receive eccentric tutelage twenty-four/seven from your muse. You must ponder aloud for all to hear, emotional abstractions, musings and fears. Perceiving, feeling and thinking in ink - from a well-spring Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - Who Do You Think You Are? By Catherine Scott

Many Hull people are aggrieved At the way they feel that Hull's perceived If Southern Softies are to be believed Hull should never have been conceived. Just who do they think they are? We don't have Kew Gardens or the O2 Arena St Paul's Cathedral or the tennis for Serena Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - Declined Laureate By Mark Walmsley
	Philip Arthur Larkin, Rough diamond set in loose facet As once described 'The saddest heart, in post war supermarket' A piquant mixture of discontent And one of poetic lyricism. Critiqued tides of modern jazz He steeped his work in dour pessimism Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - The Suburbs By Gary Clark

What! Kingston-Upon-Hull! You don't want to live there. Says the condescending old biddy at the end of the phone With a tone in her voice that cuts to the bone. Already I'm a loser and she hasn't seen my face A feeling you get used to when you come from this place. I feel as though I'm rubbish when I'm talked to like this Drummed into me daily since I was a kid. Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - One Straight Road By Julie Corbett

Holderness Road you stray from edge to heart of my city. Your miles once paced by cream telephone boxes. You pass over veins, from the Wolds and Holderness Plain Barmston and Marfleet Drains the brackish water mixing with, Read more...

Poetry - The Boathouse By Michelle Dee
	I recall this night with warm, inviting people, huddled around fires, within and without. I remember passing around wine and losing all sense of time. Faded news cut-outs fragmenting on bathroom walls. And the dusty allure of an overcrowded kitchen. I see pictures of fire-lit faces; Read more...

Poetry Larkin 25 - It Really Was! (Inspired by Annus Mirabilis) By Mike Watts

Sexual intercourse began In nineteen eighty three (Which was brilliant for me) - Between the end of Tennessee Williams And Madonna's first LP Up till then they'd only been A sort of wanking A secret stash of porn Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - This Be The Curse (Inspired by This Be The Verse) By Joe Hakim

They fucked us over, our mums and dads. They didn't mean to but they did. They took free education, cheap housing and jobs And left nothing for us, their kids. Because they inherited the future, Opportunity, optimism and hope, While we got disappointment, Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - Larkin With Us By Gary Clark

The Hull you knew has long since gone How could it remain the same? The deep sea port you wrote about The fishermen you blamed The grim face, head scarved wives I think you really admired You must have done, Read more...

Poetry - Kowalski's OGM - With audio download By Brindley Hallam Dennis

So, ya got through to Kowlaski's number. Well, Kowalski ain't 'ome. Mildred, that's his old lady, she ain't 'ome either. Ya see, that's what ya get. That's what ya get fer callin' such a dumb-ass hour. That means you Hank. Ya wanna leave a message, talk to the machine when it beeps. Read more...

Poetry - The Gap By Chris Culshaw

He lives in a bedsit now, in a house peopled by footfalls, piles of junk mail on the mahogany hall-stand where a broken umbrella hangs like a snared crow beside the pocked mirror. His room in the eaves looks out over sooty privets, to a gap between Read more...

Poetry - Handing Down By Trevor Matthews

She was sitting at my kitchen table looking at her hands. These, she said, are my mother's hands. She had big hands like these. Every time I look at them now I see her, and she held them up in front of me. Bright sun pierced the thinning flesh. Inside I saw the shadows of her bones Read more...

Poetry - Harrogate Bedrock, 1899 By Sarah Hymas

What I love about you I have yet to quarry. Your worn granite face holds the promise of mica and buttoned sandstone, a cladding for our home. As limestone is local diamond, Read more...

Poetry - Don't Know How To Put It In Words By Dayne Coyne
	Don't know how to put it in words But I'm wanting to thank you For being so honest with me And though it might sound absurd: But, apart from myself, It is you who most helps me to be So excuse me if I seem pedantic Read more...

Poetry - I Don't Know What To Do By Zachary Brannon

I don't know what to say, what to do; all I can ever think about is you! Not sure what you think about me never have been; But in the end it's your heart I hope to win! I Will always be around, always here; My heart, I'm sure, even skips a beat Whenever you come near. Read more...

Poetry - This Is Not A Love Poem By Mike Watts

No She didn't Punch A hole through My breast bone Rip out My still beating heart And then volley it Out of sight Somewhere Read more...

Poetry - Since You Came By Bronwyn Ellis
	Is it a chore? And nothing more A phase you killed off years before? A painful bore? An anger cure? An 'I can't be bothered anymore?' We're both so young Love should be fun As good as when we'd first begunRead more...

Poetry - Acres Wide By Terry Ireland

Come sleep with me she said Bring some warmth to my bed That seems to spread acres wide Now that it's empty on his side Just for a while hold me tight Shorten just one endless night So full of hours that I have wept Until exhausted and finally slept Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - It's Good Innit? By Catherine Scott

This is Hull - wot we got? Sanitization, deprivation Unemployment, no motivation Teenage mums, no inspiration It's good innit? This is Hull - wot we got? Beggars on street Coppers on beat Read more...

Poetry - The Last Great Adventure? By Laurenceaux.

An 'end-game' of addiction, the despair of a life only going one-way: some people are pre-disposed to drug abuse, as they are to alcohol abuse, quite possibly because they are 'bored', but more probably because they have lost essential feelings of self-worth or have become detached from mainstream society, a society with ever increasing demands for total conformity. Read more...

Poetry - I Lost a Girl and a Car By John Dervishian

You shit on my car because I was immoral but that's alright I was days shy of getting that thing repossessed anyway Read more...